ISTANBUL (Reuters) – Turkey’s intelligence agency destroyed 12 trucks loaded with missiles and heavy weapons, two tanks and ammunition stores being transported by the Kurdish YPG militia in northeast Syria, a Turkish security source said on Tuesday.
The source said that the military equipment had been left behind by the armed forces of ousted President Bashar al-Assad when they abandoned the area of Qamishli in northeast Syria.
On Monday night, two Syrian security sources had said Israeli planes had bombed Syrian army air bases in Qamishli.
However, the Turkish security source said that the YPG, which Turkey regards as a terrorist group aligned with militants fighting an insurgency against Turkey, “had started to spread the lie that Qamishli Airport was targeted by Israel.”
The YPG is central to the Kurdish Syrian forces allied with a U.S. coalition against Islamic State militants.
The Turkish source said the operation by the Turkish MIT intelligence agency was carried out after its field agents detected that the YPG seized the military supplies and was taking them to its own warehouses.
The United States recognises Turkey’s legitimate counterterrorism concerns, White House spokesperson John Kirby told a briefing with reporters, but added that Washington will continue to focus on countering ISIS in northeastern Syria and on its partnership with SDF.
“And where those two goals overlap or potentially conflict, we will have the appropriate conversations with the Turks about how both those outcomes can be achieved,” Kirby said.
(Reporting by Ece Toksabay and Katharine Jackson; Writing by Daren Butler; Editing by Hugh Lawson and Alistair Bell)
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