Kurdish SDF Denies Involvement in North Syria Rocket Strikes

Turkey claims Kurdish 'terrorists' killed nine civilians

The Syrian Kurdish SDF has issued a statement Wednesday denying claims from Turkish state media outlets that they launched a rocket attack against civilians in the city of al-Bab, in northern Syria.

Nine people were killed and 29 wounded in al-Bab, including a number of civilians, in rocket and artillery fire on a residential neighborhood. Turkish media was quick to blame the SDF, or the Kurdish YPG, the faction which effectively runs the SDF.

Those reports were quick to declare the Kurds behind the attack, and to declare them both “US-backed” and aligned with the PKK, which Turkey considers a terrorist organization.

Turkey has been attacking the Syrian Kurds for years, and is quick to blame them any time violence breaks out in their occupied parts of Syria. Though the SDF would indeed be among the suspects in an attack like this, Turkish-held Syria is in a tumultuous enough state that it is by no means the only possible culprit.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.