Russian Defence Ministry official representative general Igor Konashenkov makes an official statement for the media in Russian Defence Ministry in Moscow, Russia, 20 October 2016. Igor Konashenkov reported provided to the media detailed information, taken from Russian radars concerning the flight and airstrike of a pair of Belgian F-16 fighters. According to this information two Belgian combat jets F-16 took off 18 October from Jordanian airbase and after two-hours patrol flight receiving additional fuel from US flying tanker dropped bombs of Kurdish village Khassajek near Aleppo. Six residents of the village were killed during the airstrike. (Photo: SERGEI CHIRIKOV, EPA)

Up to 200 militia members were killed in air strikes in Aleppo province in Syria where Kurdish-led forces have been advancing against Islamic State militants, Turkish media reported Thursday.

The Turkish General Staff said between 160 and 200 members of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) and its affiliate, the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), died in the bombings, according to the semi-official Anadolu news agency.

However, Commander Mahmoud Barkhadan of the People’s Protection Unit — the main Syrian Kurdish militia — told the Associated Press that early reports suggested that no more than 10 fighters were killed and 20 wounded.

The Turkish military did not give a location but the group is trying to take the key city of Al-Bab, located about 23 miles northeast of Aleppo, as the Islamic State withdraws. The PKK is considered a terrorist organization by Turkey and the United States.

Read or Share this story: http://usat.ly/2evj9pk</s>ISTANBUL/BEIRUT (Reuters) - Turkish air strikes pounded a group of Kurdish fighters allied to a U.S.-backed militia in northern Syria overnight, highlighting the conflicting agendas of NATO members Ankara and Washington in an increasingly complex battlefield.

A man walks past damaged buildings in the rebel held besieged al-Sukkari neighbourhood of Aleppo, Syria October 19, 2016. REUTERS/Abdalrhman Ismail

The jets targeted positions of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in three villages, northeast of the city of Aleppo, that the SDF had captured from Islamic State, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said late on Wednesday.

The Turkish military confirmed its warplanes had carried out 26 strikes on areas recently taken by the Kurdish YPG militia, the strongest force in the SDF, and that it had killed between 160 and 200 combatants.

The British-based Observatory monitoring group reported a much lower toll of at least 14 dead and dozens wounded. Officials of the Kurdish-led administration that controls much of northeastern Syria said dozens had been killed.

Complicating matters further, Syria’s military called the strikes by Turkey an act of “blatant aggression” and said it would bring down any Turkish war planes entering Syrian air space.

A senior U.S. defence official said the groups struck by Turkish jets were not themselves U.S.-backed but were “close to and friendly with” the fighters Washington is working with.

Asked in the light of the air strikes whether he was concerned the U.S. alliance with Turkey was unravelling, Defense Secretary Ash Carter told a news conference at the Pentagon:

“With respect to Turkey, our partnership is very strong in the counter-ISIL campaign.” ISIL is an acronym for Islamic State. “We’re working with the Turks now very successfully to help them secure their border area,” added Carter, who was due to visit Turkey on Friday.

The United States has backed the Kurdish-led forces in their fight against Islamic State, infuriating Ankara, which sees the YPG as an extension of Kurdish PKK militants who have waged a three-decade insurgency in southeastern Turkey.

Turkey fears the YPG will try to connect three de facto autonomous Kurdish cantons that have emerged during the five-year war to create a Kurdish-run enclave in northern Syria, stoking the separatist ambitions of Kurds on its own soil.

Five shells fired from the YPG-controlled Afrin region of Syria, west of where the air strikes hit, landed in empty land in Turkey’s Hatay province on Thursday, triggering retaliatory howitzer fire from Turkey, the Turkish military said.

The Turkish army bombarded villages near Afrin overnight, the pro-Kurdish Anha news agency said. Footage purportedly showed smoke billowing out from the Syrian side of the border. Anha said there were casualties from the shelling by what it described as at least 44 howitzers.

The Turkish army also said 21 PKK militants had been killed in operations in Hakkari province in Turkey’s southeast, where violence has flared since the PKK abandoned a ceasefire in 2015.

“WE WILL NOT WAIT”

The air strikes, the heaviest against the YPG since Turkey launched a military incursion into Syria two months ago, came hours after President Tayyip Erdogan warned that Ankara could act alone in rooting out its enemies abroad.

“From now on we will not wait for problems to come knocking on our door, we will not wait until the blade is against our bone and skin, we will not wait for terrorist organisations to come and attack us,” Erdogan said in a speech on Wednesday.

The Observatory named the bombed villages as al-Hasiya, Um al-Qura and Um Hosh. They lie around 30 km (19 miles) west of al-Bab, the last big town held by Islamic State militants in northwest Syria after a series of battlefield reverses.

Turkey, a major backer of the insurgency against President Bashar al-Assad, entered the Syrian conflict in August, using its armour and air power to help Free Syrian Army rebel groups take territory near the border held by Islamic State.

But its intervention also aimed to prevent the SDF from gaining more ground. The SDF has been moving eastwards towards al-Bab, which Turkish-backed rebel forces also want to capture from Islamic State.

The Turkish military said its air strikes had destroyed nine buildings, one armoured vehicle and four other vehicles that belonged to the YPG.</s>BEIRUT — Kurdish-led forces in Syria are pressing their campaign to drive Islamic State militants from areas in northern Aleppo province, expanding the front line with rival Turkish-backed opposition fighters also operating in the area, activists and rebels said Wednesday.

The Russian military accused a U.S.-led coalition airstrike of killing six civilians in Hassajek, hours before the announcement that the village had been taken from the Islamic State.

While a brief lull is taking hold in the divided city of Aleppo, most of the surrounding province has become Syria's hottest theater of combat.

In the area of Hassajek, three rival groups are battling the Islamic State: the Kurdish-led forces, Turkey-backed Syrian rebels and troops loyal to the government of President Bashar Assad.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the Kurdish-led forces, known as the Syrian Democratic Forces, gained control of Hassajek, killing at least 10 Islamic State militants in fighting there.

One of the fighting units in SDF, the Rebel Army, said in a statement that the clashes with the Islamic State militants continued for the third straight day further to the south. It said its troops also seized weapons and ammunition from IS.

The advance by the Kurdish-led forces has widened the front line between them and rival Syrian rebels, who in recent weeks have pushed into northern Aleppo backed by Turkish tanks and aircraft, driving out the Islamic State from villages and towns it controlled. The Turkey-backed offensive also aims to undercut Kurdish aspirations for a contiguous and independent east-to-west stretch of territory in Syria.

The Russian military's Reconciliation Center in Syria said the strike Hassajek also wounded four people and destroyed two houses.</s>ANKARA, Turkey — Turkish jets and artillery struck U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish fighters in northern Syria Thursday, and Turkey's state-run news agency said as many as 200 militiamen were killed, in a major escalation of Turkey's offensive in northern Syria.

A senior commander with the main Syria Kurdish militia confirmed that Turkish jets and artillery were still attacking his forces north of Aleppo, but disputed the casualty count, saying no more than 10 fighters had been killed so far.

Further south, a humanitarian pause announced by Russia for the besieged rebel-held city of Aleppo took effect, and the Syrian military, using loudspeakers, called on residents to evacuate and for gunmen to lay down their weapons. But there was no sign of residents leaving the bombed out districts.

The bombardment was a major escalation by Turkey just as the offensive to recapture the city of Mosul from Islamic State militants in Iraq was intensifying. Iraqi Kurdish forces have carried the brunt of the fighting so far in the Mosul offensive. Turkish troops in Iraq have trained fighters involved in the Mosul offensive, which has been a source of tension with the Iraqi government in recent days.

Kurdish forces in Syria have also carried out most of the fighting against IS and made significant territorial gains, including advances in the last few days against IS militants in Aleppo province, much to Ankara's fury in recent months. Turkey, which is dealing with a homegrown Kurdish insurgency, has been trying to prevent an expansion of Kurdish influence in Syria.

Commander Mahmoud Barkhadan of the People's Protection Units told The Associated Press that Turkish tanks have been shelling the Kurdish-led forces in the area since early Wednesday. He said jets joined overnight and continue to pound his forces. He said more than 30 aerial attacks had taken place so far and that early reports suggest no more than 10 fighters were killed and 20 were wounded. There was no word on civilian casualties yet. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 11 Kurdish fighters were killed and four are missing following the air raids in northern Aleppo.

"We will not back down," Barkhadan said in a telephone interview from the area. He accused Turkey of aiding IS militants by diverting the fight into a Turkish-Kurdish one. "We are fighting Daesh, why are they striking at us?" he asked, using the Arabic acronym for IS.

Barkhadan, a senior commander who led the fight against IS in Kobani in 2015, said Turkish artillery also shelled an area near Afrin, a Kurdish enclave in northwestern Syria. He said his forces have not retreated from newly held territories, but that the Turkish attack allowed IS fighters to wage a counteroffensive. Clashes continued Thursday, the Observatory and Barkhadan said.

Also on Thursday, a humanitarian pause announced by Russia for the besieged rebel-held Aleppo city took effect.

The Syrian military used loudspeakers to urge residents to evacuate and for gunmen to lay down their weapons. Al-Mayadeen TV, a Beirut-based pro-Syrian channel, broadcast Thursday an hour after the pause began from near one of the designated passages. Loudspeakers blared military calls for residents to let the sick and wounded out first, and urging fighters to lay down their guns. The message: "The battle for returning Aleppo to the nation's fold is in its last phases. There is no point in continuing the fight."

Gunfire was heard in the background, and soldiers were seen ducking from bullets before buses, parked on the government-side of Aleppo city, started their engines and left.

Moscow said the pause is to allow civilians and militants safe passage out of the eastern districts of the city — which have been subjected to a tight siege since July and a punishing bombing campaign since mid-September.

The Anadolu Agency, quoting military officials, said the raids were carried out late Wednesday night, attacking 18 targets in the Maarraat Umm Hawsh region in northern Syria. The agency claimed that 160 and 200 militia fighters were killed in the raids. The targets hit were in areas that the Syrian forces recently took over as they pressed ahead with their campaign to drive Islamic State militants from areas north of Aleppo.

The Syrian Kurdish force has been an ongoing source of tension between NATO allies Turkey and the United States.

The U.S. considers the militia group, known as the People's Protection Units or YPG, to be the most effective force in the fight against the Islamic State group in Syria. Turkey says the group is an extension of its own outlawed Kurdish militants who have carried out a series of deadly attacks in Turkey over the past year and considers it to be a terrorist organization.

Ankara has grown increasingly wary as the YPG succeeded in securing large portions of territory along the Syrian-Turkish border. In August, Turkey sent troops and tanks into northern Syria to help Syrian opposition forces drive the Islamic State group away from an area bordering Turkey, and to curb the Syrian Kurdish forces' territorial expansion.

A senior Syrian Kurdish official said the Turkish attack was an aggression on her people's aspiration for self-administration a contiguous territory in the country's north as well as a threat to the U.S-led anti-terrorism fight there.

Ilham Ahmed said Turkish maneuvering threatens a possible campaign against IS in the group's de-facto capital in Raqqa in eastern Syria. Kurdish forces are the main partner in such a fight, but Ankara recently has said it is ready to take part without Kurdish participation. She said Ankara is taking advantage of Washington's preoccupation with its elections to impose their plans in Syria, pushing back the Kurds and advancing in Aleppo.

The U.S is "asked to put a stop and take a clear and direct position regarding this Turkish aggression. Otherwise the project of combatting terrorism may be delayed or totally fail in Syria," she said speaking to The Associated Press from Sulaimaniyah, Iraq.

The Turkish attack came after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his country would not "wait for terrorists to come and attack" but would go after them before they have the chance to strike.

Anadolu said the 18 Syrian Kurdish targets hit included nine buildings used as headquarters, meetings points, shelters or arms depots as well as five vehicles.</s>BEIRUT (AP) — Turkish jets and artillery struck U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish fighters in northern Syria on Thursday, and Turkey's state-run news agency said as many as 200 militiamen were killed in a major escalation of Turkey's offensive in northern Syria.

A senior commander with the main Syria Kurdish militia confirmed the Turkish attack on his forces north of Aleppo, but disputed the casualty toll, saying that no more than 10 fighters had been killed so far.

Further south, in the rebel-held city of Aleppo which has been besieged by pro-government troops, a humanitarian pause announced by Russia took effect on Thursday.

Senior U.N. aid official Jan Egeland told The Associated Press that the U.N. received verbal assurances for the extension of the three-day pause by another day until Monday to allow for U.N. supervised medical evacuation of wounded from inside the city.

Russia's Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu confirmed an extension but only mentioned the pause was being prolonged by one more day. The discrepancy between his and Egeland's statements could not immediately be reconciled.

So far, there were no sign of residents taking up the offer of safe passages. Clashes were heard at one of the corridors advertised by the Syrian military. Using loudspeakers, the military urged residents to evacuate and gunmen to lay down their weapons.

"The battle for returning Aleppo to the nation's fold is in its last phases. There is no point in continuing the fight," echoed from a checkpoint between government-held and rebel-held Aleppo.

U.N Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura insisted a unilateral cease-fire aims only to allow medical evacuations and is not part of a broader plan that he has laid out for the besieged northern city, countering the Syrian President Bashar Assad's claim that most civilians want to leave.

Also, German Chancellor Angela Merkel pressed anew for a long-term cease-fire in the Syrian city of Aleppo while British Prime Minister Theresa May urged European Union partners to unite in condemnation of Russia's role in Syria and bring an end to Moscow's "sickening atrocities" there.

Even as the city of Aleppo enjoyed a relative lull, Turkey escalated its bombing in the Aleppo province, striking Kurdish-led.

As in Iraq where the Kurdish fighters are at the forefront of the offensive to retake the city of Mosul, Kurdish forces in Syria have also been battling the Islamic State group and have made significant territorial gains, including advances in the last few days against IS militants in Aleppo province, upsetting Ankara. Turkey, which is dealing with a homegrown Kurdish insurgency, has been trying to prevent an expansion of Kurdish influence in Syria.

"We will not back down," Kurdish commander Mahmoud Barkhadan of the People's Protection Units told The Associated Press. "We are fighting Daesh, why are they striking at us?" he asked, using the Arabic acronym for IS.

He was speaking in a telephone interview from the area. He accused Turkey of aiding IS militants by diverting the fight into a Turkish-Kurdish one.

He said Turkish tanks have been shelling the Kurdish-led forces in the area since early Wednesday. He said jets joined overnight and continue to pound his forces. He said more than 30 aerial attacks had taken place so far and that early reports suggest no more than 10 fighters were killed and 20 were wounded. There was no word on civilian casualties yet. The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 11 Kurdish fighters were killed and four are missing.

Barkhadan, a senior commander who led the fight against IS in Kobani in 2015, said Turkish artillery also shelled an area near Afrin, a Kurdish enclave in northwestern Syria. He said his forces have not retreated from newly held territories, but that the Turkish attack allowed IS fighters to wage a counteroffensive. Clashes continued Thursday, the Observatory and Barkhadan said.

The Anadolu Agency, quoting military officials, said the raids were carried out late Wednesday night, attacking 18 targets in the Maarraat Umm Hawsh region in northern Syria. The agency claimed that 160 and 200 militia fighters were killed in the raids. The targets hit were in areas that the Syrian forces recently took over as they pressed ahead with their campaign to drive Islamic State militants from areas north of Aleppo.

The Syrian Kurdish forces have been a source of tension between NATO allies Turkey and the United States. The U.S. considers the militia group — the People's Protection Units or YPG — to be the most effective force in the fight against the Islamic State group in Syria. Turkey says it's an extension of its own outlawed Kurdish militants who have carried out a series of deadly attacks in Turkey in the past and considers it to be a terrorist organization.

In August, Turkey sent troops and tanks into northern Syria to help Syrian opposition forces drive the Islamic State group away from an area bordering Turkey, and to curb the Syrian Kurdish forces' territorial expansion.

A senior Syrian Kurdish official said the Turkish attack was an aggression on her people's aspiration for self-administration a contiguous territory in the country's north as well as a threat to the U.S-led anti-terrorism fight there.

Ilham Ahmed said Turkish maneuvering threatens a possible campaign against IS in the group's de-facto capital of Raqqa in eastern Syria. Kurdish forces are the main partner in such a fight, but Ankara recently has said it is ready to take part without Kurdish participation. She said Ankara is taking advantage of U.S. focus on its upcoming elections to push back the Kurds and advance in Aleppo.

Washington is "asked to put a stop and take a clear and direct position regarding this Turkish aggression. Otherwise the project of combatting terrorism may be delayed or totally fail in Syria," she said speaking from Sulaimaniyah, Iraq.

Anadolu said the 18 Syrian Kurdish targets hit included nine buildings used as headquarters, meetings points, shelters or arms depots as well as five vehicles.

For Aleppo, Moscow had said the humanitarian pause is to allow civilians and militants safe passage out of the eastern districts of the city — which have been subjected to a tight siege since July and a punishing bombing campaign since mid-September.

Egeland, the U.N top aid official, said talks are still ongoing with armed opposition groups on the implementation of the deal, describing as "complicated" details of the checkpoints. He said he expects medical supplies to be allowed in.

Ibrahim al-Haj, a resident of eastern Aleppo and a volunteer with the White Helmets, a team of first responders in the besieged city, said no one trust safe passages without U.N. supervisions.

"If there is no corridor with international supervision, it is impossible anyone would leave," said al-Haj, adding shots were fired over the heads of some who approached the crossing Thursday, accusing government snipers.</s>Istanbul (CNN) Turkey says its warplanes have bombed Kurdish fighters in northern Syria, marking what may be the biggest single attack by Turkish forces against US-allied Kurds in that war-torn country since the Turkish military launched an incursion into Syria two months ago .

The bombings happened Wednesday night against Kurdish fighters advancing against ISIS militants near Afrin, a city about 40 kilometers (25 miles) northwest of Aleppo, Kurdish militia representatives said.

There was conflicting Information on the number of dead. Turkey said its attacks killed 160 to 200 Kurdish fighters. However, a predominantly Kurdish political party in Turkey, the HDP, said 14 people, including four civilians, were killed.

The Turkish military also reported a cross-border exchange of fire early Thursday, saying five mortars from Afrin landed in the Turkish province of Hatay. Turkey said it responded with howitzer rounds, and no casualties were reported.

The airstrikes are a new chapter in Turkey's complicated involvement in neighboring Syria, where the Islamist terror group ISIS, Syrian rebels and other factions have fought in a civil war of more than five years.

Turkish tanks entered northern Syria in August in part to help Syrian rebels fight ISIS. At the time, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the incursion was part of an effort not only to battle ISIS but also the YPG, the military wing of the Syrian Kurdish opposition Party for Democratic Unity, or PYD.

Turkey and the YPG share a common enemy in ISIS. Kurds are a large ethnic minority in Syria, and they have been a US ally against ISIS there.

But Turkey is determined to keep Kurdish fighters from establishing control of Syria's side of the Turkey-Syria border should ISIS be pushed out.

Turkey says the YPG and PYD are linked to Turkey's own Kurdish insurgents, the outlawed Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, which Turkey has designated a terror group and has been fighting for years.

The YPG said that Turkey's airstrikes Wednesday night targeted fighters from the YPG-affiliated Jaish al-Thuwar, or Revolutionary Front, which it says was advancing against ISIS in the eastern part of Afrin.

Turkey's military said it hit targets that PYD and PKK control with 26 bombs, destroying headquarters, ammunition storage and shelter.

Elsewhere in northern Syria on Wednesday, the PYD and PKK took control of five residential areas near al Bab, more than 40 kilometers northeast of Aleppo, extending the area those groups controlled to the east, according to the Turkish military.

In response, Turkey said it hit 13 PYD/PKK targets and 24 additional ones belonging to ISIS; further details were not released.

In recent months, much of Turkey's firepower has been directed at the Kurdish separatist PKK in southeastern Turkey and across the border in northern Iraq. It has also occasionally attacked ISIS positions in northern Syria.

The Turkish leadership has strongly expressed a desire to be part of the Iraqi-led coalition to oust ISIS from the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, just across the Syrian border, but Iraq's government has so far rejected the overtures.

In east Aleppo, a Russian-declared "humanitarian pause" began Thursday, which Russia says will allow rebels and civilians to leave rebel-held sections of the city during daytime for three days.

There have been no airstrikes in the city since dawn Tuesday, Aleppo residents told CNN.

The "humanitarian pause" will run until Saturday for 11 hours daily, starting 8 a.m. local time (1 a.m. ET), Syria's army said. Russia has urged rebels to withdraw from the area using two corridors that lead west to the rebel-held Idlib province. However, rebel groups have told CNN they have no intention of accepting the offer.

Six other corridors will reportedly be available to civilians who want to leave the besieged area, home to more than 250,000 people.

Video recorded Thursday by a photographer in the city showed no one using one such corridor.

A resident of a rebel-held area of east Aleppo said two factors appeared to be keeping people from taking advantage of the corridors.

"Many residents ... actually want to go out of the city, yet we don't trust the regime," he said on condition of anonymity.

But he said that mortars launched Thursday in the Bustan al-Qasr neighborhood, apparently by rebels, also appeared to be intimidating civilians.

"It is like as if it was intentional to prevent civilians from thinking about trying to go out," he said.

Another resident who lives in a regime-held area said Thursday that Syrian forces were blasting an audio message telling people they will be safe if they leave rebel-held neighborhoods.

But no one appeared to be leaving, she said, also on condition of anonymity.

The Syrian military urged armed rebels in east Aleppo to "to leave their weapons, with assurances that they will benefit from the amnesty decree," according to a statement Wednesday from the General Command of the Armed Forces.

The statement referred to an earlier government decree that said rebels who lay down their arms would receive "amnesty" along with an opportunity to be transferred with their families to other parts of the country under rebel control.

The Syrian military also reiterated past warnings that "the army and armed forces have accurate information on the locations of the gunmen."

"Anyone who does not make use of the available opportunity will face their inevitable fate," the Syrian military statement said.</s>ANKARA, Turkey (AP) — Turkey’s state-run news agency says Turkish jets have struck 18 Syrian Kurdish militia targets north of the Syrian city of the embattled city of Aleppo, killing as many as 200.

Anadolu Agency says Thursday the raids targeted the Maarraat Umm Hawsh region in northern Syria. The agency said between 160 and 200 militia fighters were killed in the raid.

It says the air strikes took place late Wednesday night.

The United States considers the militia group, known as the People’s Protection Units or YPG, to be the most effect force in the fight against the Islamic State group in Syria. Turkey says the group is an extension of its own outlawed Kurdish militants who have carried out a series of deadly attacks in Turkey over the past year.</s>BEIRUT -- Turkey escalated its offensive Thursday against Kurdish fighters in northern Syria, pounding them with airstrikes and artillery and complicating the battle against the Islamic State extremist group by Ankara and Washington, both NATO allies.

Turkey's state-run Anadolu news agency said as many as 200 members of the Kurdish-led forces were killed in Syria's Aleppo province by the Turkish bombing and shelling.

A senior commander with the main Syria Kurdish militia confirmed the Turkish attack on his forces north of Aleppo but disputed the casualty toll, saying that no more than 10 fighters were killed.

In the fight for Aleppo, meanwhile, the Syrian military used a lull in violence to urge residents and rebels to evacuate the besieged opposition-held part of the city.

As in Iraq, where Kurdish fighters are at the forefront of the offensive to retake the city of Mosul from the Islamic State, Kurdish forces in Syria also have been battling Islamic State militants and made significant territorial gains in Aleppo province. That has dismayed Turkey, which is dealing with an internal Kurdish insurgency and trying to prevent an expansion of Kurdish influence in Syria.

"We will not back down," senior Kurdish commander Mahmoud Barkhadan of the People's Protection Units said by telephone from the region.

"We are fighting Daesh. Why are they striking at us?" he asked, using an Arabic acronym for the Islamic State.

Barkhadan accused Turkey of aiding Islamic State militants by turning the fight into a Turkish-Kurdish battle.

More than 10 fighters were killed and 20 wounded in over 30 aerial attacks that began Wednesday night, he said.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said at least 14 Kurdish fighters were killed and four were missing.

Anadolu, quoting military officials, reported the raids were carried out late Wednesday on 18 targets in the Maarraat Umm Hawsh region in northern Syria. Between 160 and 200 militia fighters were killed, it said. The targets struck areas that Syrian Kurdish forces recently took over as they pressed a campaign to drive Islamic State militants from areas north of Aleppo.

The Syrian Kurdish forces have been a source of tension between Turkey and the United States. The U.S. considers the militia group -- the People's Protection Units -- to be the most effective force against the Islamic State in Syria. Turkey calls it an extension of its own outlawed Kurdish militants who have carried out deadly attacks in Turkey and considers it a terrorist organization.

A U.S. defense official in Washington said the Syrian Kurdish fighters targeted by Turkish airstrikes Wednesday are not among the Kurdish groups that U.S. forces are advising and assisting, so there were no U.S. troops with those Kurds when they came under attack.

Ilham Ahmed, a senior Syrian Kurdish official, said the Turkish attack was an aggression on her people's aspiration for self-administration in a contiguous territory in the north as well as a threat to the U.S-led anti-terrorism fight there.

The Turkish moves threaten a campaign against the Islamic State in the group's de-facto capital of Raqqa in eastern Syria, Ahmed said. Kurdish forces are the main partner in such a fight, but Turkey has said it is ready to act without Kurdish participation.

Ahmed said Turkey is taking advantage of U.S. attention being focused on its presidential election to push back against the Kurds and advance in northern Syria.

The U.S. is "asked to put a stop and take a clear and direct position regarding this Turkish aggression. Otherwise, the project of combating terrorism may be delayed or totally fail in Syria," she said, speaking from Sulaimaniyah, Iraq.

The pause in the fighting in Aleppo is part of a humanitarian cease-fire announced by Russia in the contested city to allow for the evacuation of civilians and fighters, as well as the wounded. Rebels have rejected the offer to evacuate, saying it wasn't serious.

Clashes were heard at one of the safe corridors announced by the Syrian military.

"Talk of fighters or nonfighters leaving is denied and groundless," said Ammar Sakkar, spokesman for Fastaqim, one of the largest rebel groups operating in Aleppo. "The rebels' decision has not and will not change. It is to be steadfast."

Helicopters dropped hundreds of thousands of leaflets on Aleppo urging rebel fighters to take advantage of the amnesty and leave the city through safe exits marked on maps, according to state-run Syrian TV.

Syria's military used loudspeakers Thursday to urge residents in opposition areas to stop fighting, The Associated Press said, reporting that one repeated message blared: "The battle for returning Aleppo to the nation's fold is in its last phases. There is no point in continuing the fight."

"We don't trust them," said Abu al-Hasan, a commander of a Fastaqim unit in Aleppo, referring to Russia and the Syrian government. "They always talk about cease-fires and truces, but what they do is constantly target civilians and violate the laws of war."

Eastern Aleppo, besieged by government troops, has been subjected to intense and relentless airstrikes by Syrian and Russian aircraft in recent weeks. Hundreds of people have been killed and whole neighborhoods destroyed.

U.N. Syria envoy Staffan de Mistura insisted that a unilateral cease-fire aims only to allow medical evacuations and is not part of a broader plan he has laid out for Aleppo, countering an assertion by Syrian President Bashar Assad that most civilians want to leave.

Senior U.N. aid official Jan Egeland said the U.N. received verbal assurances for the extension of the three-day pause by another day until Monday to allow for the U.N.-supervised medical evacuation of wounded from the city.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu confirmed an extension but only mentioned the pause was being prolonged by one day. The discrepancy between the statements could not immediately be reconciled.

The United Nations and aid agencies have not rushed to get aid to the besieged residents, saying the pause provided insufficient time and guarantees from forces allied with Assad.

But speaking from Geneva on Thursday, Egeland said Syria's government has given "green lights" to deliver aid to besieged areas of Aleppo. He held out hope for U.N.-supported evacuations of several hundred wounded and sick people.

Information for this article was contributed by Sarah El Deeb, Suzan Fraser, Jamey Keaten, Robert Burns and Vladimir Isachenkov of The Associated Press; by Donna Abu-Nasr of Bloomberg News; and by Hugh Naylor, Zakaria Zakaria and Brian Murphy of The Washington Post.</s>(CNN) A Turkish air raid killed as many as 200 Kurdish militia north of the Syrian city of Aleppo, according to a statement from the Turkish military.

Turkish military says they hit 18 targets with 26 airstrikes in the areas under the control of Kurdish militia, destroying their headquarters, ammunition dumps and shelters.

The statement said one Free Syrian Army fighter died and another one was injured in a series of clashes with the PYD/PKK.

The PYD is a Kurdish opposition party with links to the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK -- an entity Turkey has long designated a terror group and has been fighting for years.

In recent months, much of Turkey's firepower has been directed at the Kurdish separatist PKK in southeastern Turkey and across the border in northern Iraq. It has also occasionally shelled ISIS positions in northern Syria, but its last-known airstrikes against ISIS were in November last year.

The Turkish leadership has strongly expressed a desire to be part of the Iraqi-led coalition to oust ISIS from the northern Iraqi town of Mosul, just across the Syrian border, but Iraq's government has so far rejected the overtures.

The PYD and PKK, a Kurdish militant group, took control of five residential area near al Bab, more than 40 kilometers outside the besieged city of Aleppo, extending the area they controlled to the east, according to the Turkish military.

In response, Turkey hit 13 PKK/PYD targets and 24 additional ones belonging to ISIS.

The YPG, a Kurdish militia, said in a statement that Turkey carried out nearly 20 airstrikes against fighters from the YPG-affiliated Jaish al-Thuwar, or Revolutionary Front, which was advancing against ISIS in the eastern part of the city of Ifrin.

A Jaish al-Thuwar statement said the Turkish airstrikes were helping ISIS, accusing Turkish-backed forces of being ISIS allies.

This is the biggest single attack by Turkish forces on the Kurdish forces since Turkey launched Operation Euphrates Shield two months ago, an incursion into northern Syria backing some Syrian rebels.

One ISIS member was also killed at a village in the Aqil mountains. The Turkish military did not provide a timeframe for the attacks.

The Turkish air raid happened around the time a Russian-declared "humanitarian pause" went into effect Thursday in east Aleppo.

The "humanitarian pause," intended to allow civilians and rebels to leave the rebel-held section of the besieged Syrian city, began at 8 a.m. local time (1 a.m. ET) is set to last for 11 hours.

Russia has urged rebels to withdraw from the area using two corridors that lead to the rebel-held Idlib province. However, rebel groups have told CNN they have no intention of accepting the offer.

Six other corridors will reportedly be available to civilians who want to leave the besieged area, home to more than 250,000 people. Despite the reports, residents of east Aleppo tell CNN that, as of now, there is no clear sign of such corridors.

After Thursday's pause ends at 7 p.m. local time, the Syrian army said the "humanitarian pause" would continue during the same 11-hour timeframe on both Friday and Saturday.

The Syrian military urged armed rebels in east Aleppo to "to leave their weapons, with assurances that they will benefit from the amnesty decree," according to a statement Wednesday from the General Command of the Armed Forces.

The statement referenced a prior government decree that said rebels who lay down their arms would receive "amnesty" along with an opportunity to be transferred with their families to other parts of the country under rebel control.

In addition, the Syrian military also reiterated past warnings that "the army and armed forces have accurate information on the locations of the gunmen" as well as their locations.

"Anyone who does not make use of the available opportunity will face their inevitable fate," the Syrian military statement said.</s>BEIRUT—Hundreds of residents left a formerly rebel-controlled suburb of the Syrian capital of Damascus on Wednesday, as government and Russian forces prepared to open corridors out of the contested city of Aleppo in the hopes of facilitating an exodus from its rebel-held quarters.

Aleppo’s besieged eastern quarters experienced relative peace for the second consecutive day in the run-up to the hoped-for evacuation on Thursday, after weeks of bombardment left the area in ruins.

Russia’s military has promised two corridors will be opened for militants to flee to the neighboring rebel-held province of Idlib, between 8 a.m. and 7 p.m., while other corridors will allow civilians to move to government-held areas.

The government’s overture to rebels and civilians trapped in Aleppo’s east follows a pattern of evacuations around the country that the United Nations has likened to “forced displacement.”

On Wednesday some 2,000 residents of the once autonomous Moadamiyeh suburb of Damascus were carried by government buses to Idlib as part of an arrangement to restore government control after three years of siege at the hands of the military.

Hassan Ghandour, a former Moadamiyeh resident who liaised between the suburb and besieging forces, said on Wednesday the evacuees included 700 gunmen. He said the government is to release all detainees from the suburb in exchange for the evacuation.

Several activists also left with the convoy. Wassim al-Ahmad told The Associated Press it would be “impossible” to live again under government authority, saying he didn’t trust official promises for amnesty.

Some of those remaining in Moadamiyeh struck a defiant tone.

“I’m not going to settle anything with the government,” said local resident Mahmoud, who declined to give his family name, out of safety concerns. “I’m going to stay in my home.”

“I’ve spent five years of my life besieged here. I’ve been through war, siege, starvation…bombardment and poison gas—I’ve survived with all this so I can stay here.” The suburb and two other areas around the capital were gassed with sarin poison in 2013, according to a UN investigation. A Human Rights Watch report concluded the government was the most likely culprit.

Some 28,000 people remain in Moadamiyeh, down from a prewar population of 105,000, according to the government.

In Aleppo, government buses queued at checkpoints leading to the besieged east prepared to take evacuees to Idlib on Thursday, according to the media arm of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah, which is fighting alongside the government in Syria. The government’s foreign ministry said soldiers were withdrawing from the designated corridors to reassure evacuees.

It is unclear how many people will take up the government’s offer after weeks of siege and bombardment pulverized the east and shattered its medical network.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says more than 640 people, including 128 children, have been killed in rebel-held parts of Aleppo and the surrounding rural areas since a truce brokered by the United States and Russia collapsed on September 19. It said 88 people, including 14 children, were killed in retaliatory shelling on government-held Aleppo.

Bassam Heji, a member of the Nour el-Din al-Zinki rebel faction, said the Russian offer is a “trap” that only reflects its intention to “exterminate” the residents of the eastern, rebel-held Aleppo neighborhoods.

The arrangement follows a proposal by the UN Syria envoy, Staffan de Mistura, to allow al-Qaeda-linked militants to leave Aleppo in exchange for a truce and local autonomy for the city’s eastern districts. Rebels, along with many residents, rejected the offer.

Russia and Syria moved ahead unilaterally with the evacuation arrangements without making any promises for an extended cease-fire or self-administration, although Russian President Vladimir Putin has held out the hope of an indefinite halt to his country’s airstrikes on Aleppo after meeting with the French and German leaders, who condemned Moscow’s actions in the Syrian city.

Russia had promised an eight-hour pause on Thursday in attacks on the city by Syrian government forces under the cover of Russian air power in order to allow suffering civilians to leave and to give rebels safe passage.

“We informed them of our intention to continue, as much as possible, considering the situation on Syrian territory, a pause in the air strikes. We are ready to do this for as long as there are no clashes with rebel formations entrenched in Aleppo,” Putin said after meeting German Chancellor Angela Merkel and French President François Hollande in Berlin.

Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said his government would work with Russia’s government to evacuate the al-Qaeda-linked Fatah al-Sham Front, formerly known as Nusra Front from the east.

Erdogan warned about the possibility of an influx of at least one million people to Turkey in the event of a population movement from Aleppo.

“We cannot pay this cost. Those who incite this must sit down with Turkey and talk,” he said.

Elsewhere, a 44-truck convoy delivered food aid and health supplies to the rebel-held pocket of Douma, east of Damascus, the UN and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent said. The suburb and surrounding towns are besieged by progovernment forces.

Kurdish-led forces, meanwhile, pressed their campaign to drive Islamic State (IS) militants from areas in northern Aleppo province, expanding the front line with rival Turkish-backed opposition fighters also operating in the area, according to local rebels and activists.

The Russian military accused a US-led coalition air strike of killing six civilians in Hassajek, hours before the announcement that the village had been taken from IS.

Despite the brief lull in the fighting for Aleppo, most of the surrounding province has become Syria’s hottest theater of combat, showcasing the complexity of the terrain where rival forces are vying for control.

In the area of Hassajek, three rival groups are battling IS: the Kurdish-led forces, Turkey-backed Syrian rebels and troops loyal to the government of President Bashar al-Assad.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the Kurdish-led forces, known as the Syrian Democratic Forces, gained control of Hassajek, killing at least 10 IS militants in fighting there.

One of the fighting units in SDF, the Rebel Army, said in a statement that the clashes with IS militants continued for the third straight day further to the south. It said its troops also seized weapons and ammunition from IS.

The advance by the Kurdish-led forces has widened the front line between them and rival Syrian rebels, who in recent weeks have pushed into northern Aleppo backed by Turkish tanks and aircraft, driving out the Islamic State group from villages and towns it controlled. The Turkey-backed offensive also aims to undercut Kurdish aspirations for a contiguous and independent east-to-west stretch of territory in Syria.

The Russian military’s Reconciliation Center in Syria said the strike Hassajek also wounded four people and destroyed two houses.

Russian military surveillance spotted two Belgian F-16 fighter jets over the area at the time of the strike, the center said, adding that Russian and Syrian warplanes were not flying over the area. Russia’s Tass news agency reported from Brussels that the Belgian defense minister denied Belgian aircraft had struck the area.
Turkish jets hit Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) militia with 26 airstrikes in three recently-captured-from-ISIL villages west of al-Bab and northeast of Aleppo. The Turkish General Staff says between 160 and 200 have been killed, while the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reports 11 dead and dozens of people wounded.