ISTANBUL – Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar claimed on Wednesday that the Turkish military had attacked roughly 500 Kurdish sites in Iraq and Syria as part of an air operation.
“So far, 471 targets have been hit, and 254 terrorists have been neutralized,” Akar was reported as saying by the official Anadolu news agency.
On Sunday, Ankara launched a series of air attacks as part of Operation Claw-Sword.
In defiance of international criticism, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened to launch a ground assault into Syria “with tanks and soldiers” on Tuesday.
The air raids in Turkiye came after a blast in Istanbul on November 13 that killed six people and injured 81.
Turkiye blamed the attack on the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which the European Union and the United States have designated as a terrorist organization.
The PKK, which has been fighting the Turkish state since 1984, denied any involvement in the blast, which was the bloodiest in five years following a wave of strikes in Turkiye between 2015 and 2017.
Source: AFP