Las Vegas Review-Journal (Sunday)
Eight Turkish troops and a Russian pilot are killed during fighting in Syria.
Russian pilot also dead after being downed in fighting
BEIRUT — Turkey said eight of its troops were killed Saturday in Ankara’s military operation against a Syrian Kurdish militia, the deadliest day in the 2-week-old offensive in the enclave of Afrin, while in another part of Syria, al-Qaida-linked militants downed a Russian fighter jet, then shot and killed the pilot.
In a statement late Saturday, the Turkish military said five soldiers were killed after their tank in Syria came under attack near Afrin. The soldiers could not be saved despite all attempts, it said.
Earlier in the day, three Turkish soldiers were reported killed in the Afrin offensive — one was killed in the area of the tank attack, another in northern Syria and the third on the Turkish side of the border in what Ankara said was an attack by Syrian Kurdish militiamen.
The death toll for Turkish troops in the operation, codenamed Olive Branch, which started Jan. 20, stands at 13.
Turkey launched the incursion into Afrin to rout the U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish militia, known as the People’s Protection Units or YPG, which it considers to be a terrorist organization and an extension of Kurdish insurgents fighting within Turkey.
From Istanbul, Turkish presidential spokesman, Ibrahim Kalin, called on the U.S. to “disengage” from the YPG and said Turkey will continue communications with “our American allies to avoid any confrontation.”
Meanwhile, in the embattled northwestern province of Idlib, al-Qaida-linked militants said they downed a Russian fighter jet and killed its pilot after he ejected from the plane and landed on the ground.
The pilot resisted being captured and fired at the militants who then shot and killed him, according to one of the militants and Syrian monitors.
The Russian Defense Ministry confirmed the downing of the Su25 and said the pilot was killed in fighting with “terrorists.” A report on the ministry’s Zvezda TV said preliminary information indicated the plane was shot by a portable ground-to-air missile.