Turkey on Wednesday struck a refugee camp in northeastern Syria administered by semi-autonomous Kurdish forces that is home to 50,000 people, including relatives of suspected ISIS fighters, Syrians displaced by the civil war, and Iraqi refugees. Children make up 64% of the residents of the Al-Hol camp.
There were five strikes on the camp, Farhad Shami, a spokesman for the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces [1] (SDF), told the AFP news agency. No casualties have yet been reported.
On Wednesday, Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar told the official Andolu news agency that Operation Claw-Sword, which was launched on Sunday, has so far struck 471 targets, and “neutralized” 254 terrorists. The operation came in response to a November 13 attack on a pedestrian mall in Istanbul that left 6 people dead and wounded dozens more, that Turkey blames on Kurdish groups – the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in northern Iraq as well as the Kurdish People’s Protection group (YPG) along the Syrian border. Both groups have denied involvement in the attack.