By Suleiman Al-Khalidi and Daren Butler
AMMAN/ANKARA (Reuters) – Russian air strikes accidentally killed three Turkish soldiers and wounded 11 others during an operation against Islamic State in northern Syria on Thursday, the Turkish military said.
“During an operation by a Russia Federation warplane against Islamic State targets in the region of the Euphrates Shield operation in Syria, a bomb accidentally hit a building used by Turkish Army units,” the military said in statement.
The Kremlin said Russian President Vladimir Putin had called Turkish counterpart Tayyip Erdogan and expressed his condolences, blaming the misdirected strikes on poor coordination between Moscow and Ankara.
The incident highlighted the risk of unintended clashes between the numerous outside powers involved in Syria’s complex six-year-old war. Besides Russia and Turkey, they include Lebanon’s Hezbollah and other Iranian-backed militias, and members of a U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State.
Russia is a key ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, while Turkey supports the rebels opposing him. In 2015, Turkey shot down a Russian air force jet that it said had crossed into Turkish airspace, though Moscow denied that happened.
The two countries have since repaired relations, and Thursday’s Kremlin statement said the two leaders had agreed to step up military coordination against Islamic State.
Turkish-backed Syrian rebels meanwhile pursued a major offensive against the IS-held Syrian city of al-Bab, 30 km (20 miles) south of the border with Turkey.
A rebel commander said fighters of the Free Syrian Army (FSA), working with Turkish commanders, were moving forward from territory near the western gates of the city, which they had stormed on Wednesday.
“The battles began a short while ago to complete what had been achieved yesterday,” said a commander of a leading FSA group fighting in al-Bab, who requested anonymity.
The capture of the town would deepen Turkish influence in an area of northern Syria where it has created a de facto buffer zone. It launched its Euphrates Shield operations in August, backing Syrian rebels with special forces, tanks and aircraft to sweep Islamic State from its border area and stop the advance of a Kurdish militia.
Al-Bab is a major economic hub for the militants and lies on a key crossroads for the region north of Aleppo. Syrian government forces have also advanced on it from the south, bringing them close to their Turkish and rebel enemies.
The Turkish military said on Thursday it had killed 44 militants in aerial and artillery strikes and clashes in northern Syria. Five Turkish soldiers were killed in the clashes, the private Turkish news agency Dogan said.
(Reporting by Suleiman Al-Khalidi and Ece Toksabay; Additional reporting by Daren Butler in Istanbul and Andrey Ostroukh in Moscow; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)
Copyright 2016 Thomson Reuters. Click for Restrictions.
