Turkey and its auxiliaries continued its attacks on the territory of Syrian Kurds overnight, with a Turkish airstrike against a farm just south of Kobani leaving nine people in the Othman Abdo family dead. Most of the slain were reportedly children.
Turkey and its allies in the Syrian National Army (SNA) faction have also been attacking multiple areas further to the east, in Hasakeh Governorate. In Tel Tamr, SNA forces reportedly attacked a livestock farm as well as a power conversion station.
Turkey has been attacking the Kurdish SDF for years on the grounds that it considers the primary group within them, the YPG, to be a wing of the ideologically similar PKK, considered a terrorist group in Turkey. Turkey has long fought efforts by the Kurds to establish an autonomous region within Syria, which happened anyway as a consequence of the protracted civil war.
There have been deals reported in the last few days that the SDF was going to effectively integrate with the Turkey-friendly new Islamist government in Syria. Turkish FM Hakan Fidan suggested Turkey would allow this to continue but warned they would reject such a deal if the Kurds retained any autonomy.
The deal may not end up suiting the SDF either, after the Syrian government announced an Islamist constitution last week. Kurdish officials have reportedly rejected that position, and it is causing no small amount of consternation among ethnic and religious minorities, as the ruling Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) seems to be trying to heavily consolidate its rule with the new constitution declaring that Islamic Law (presumably the HTS interpretation) will be the source of all jurisprudence and legislation in the country.
Turkey had some interest in seeing a united Syria that was friendly to its interests, but the Erdogan government has long prioritized ending Kurdish autonomy inside Syria, and with the new constitution threatening the unification efforts, it might be serving as yet another pretext for military intervention by Turkey in the Kurdish areas.
