Four Turkish soldiers were killed in a car bomb attack in northeast Syria on Wednesday, the Turkish Defense Ministry said in a statement overnight.
It said the attack occurred during a roadside security check in the region east of the Euphrates river in Syria, where Turkey carried out a military operation with allied Syrian rebels in October.
The Turkish incursion targeted the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, which spearheaded the US-led war against ISIS and which Ankara regards as a terrorist group tied to militants fighting an insurgency in southeast Turkey.
The YPG has historic links with the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), who are listed as a 'terrorist organization' by many including the UN and the EU. They have been fighting the Turkish state for some three decades.
The PKK has waged an insurgency for autonomy in Turkey’s largely Kurdish southeast since 1984. It has fighters based in northern Iraq, mainly in the Qandil region.
