Three Turkish soldiers have been killed and 11 injured after a Russian fighter jet accidentally bombed their location outside an Islamic State-held town in northern Syria.

The episode highlighted the complicated battle around al-Bab, which is besieged both by Turkish-backed rebels fighting to clear the region near the Syrian border from Isis and to establish a safe zone in the area, as well as forces loyal to the regime of the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, who consider the town strategically valuable.

The Turkish military said in a statement that a Russian warplane struck a building where Turkish personnel were present at 8.40am on Thursday as it was targeting Isis. It said the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, called his Turkish counterpart, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, to express his condolences.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov confirmed that a Russian strike had taken place and said the incident was due to a “lack of agreement of coordinates during strikes by the Russian airforce”.

Russia and Turkey have repaired ties previously strained by Turkey’s downing of a Russian jet near the border with Syria two years ago.

Thursday’s incident coincided with a visit by the CIA chief, Mike Pompeo, who is on his first overseas trip as head of the US agency.



Pompeo, who is expected to meet Erdoğan and the Turkish intelligence chief, Hakan Fidan, is likely to discuss Syria with his counterparts in Ankara, including plans to reclaim al-Bab as well as Raqqa, the de facto Isis capital.

Turkish officials are likely to press Pompeo on scaling back support for Kurdish paramilitaries in Syria, seen by Ankara as a national security threat, but backed by the Obama administration because of their success in fighting Isis.

The incident near al-Bab came as the Turkish-backed rebels began advancing against the Isis stronghold for the first time in weeks, in an operation that has been repeatedly stalled as the rebels encountered heavy resistance.

Isis is now fighting on two fronts with forces loyal to Assad closing in from the south-west of the town – the last held by the group in the province of Aleppo.

The battle for the town has highlighted the competing geopolitical interests in Syria. Russia and Turkey have brokered a nationwide ceasefire that has only loosely held over the past month. Along with Tehran, they are they key sponsors of a fledgling peace process that began in Astana in Kazakhstan last month but has not yet brought the government and the opposition in Syria close to compromise.



