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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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. 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.
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.