Death toll in Turkish airstrike on Syria Kurds said to hit 28

The death toll in Turkish air raids on Kurdish positions in northeastern Syria rises to 28, a monitor says, a day after Ankara said it had targeted “terrorist havens” near its border.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says most of those killed were members of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), which is battling the Islamic State group in northern Syria.

Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman says 19 others were wounded in the Tuesday raids on a media center and other buildings in Al-Malikiyah, a town in Hasakeh province.

Fighters from the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) visit the site of Turkish airstrikes near northeastern Syrian Kurdish town of Derik, known as al-Malikiyah in Arabic, on April 25, 2017. (AFP/Delil Souleiman)

Abdel Rahman says a female Kurdish fighter was among the dead.

The YPG yesterday gave its own toll of 20 fighters killed and 18 wounded.

The US State Department said it was “deeply concerned” that the strikes were conducted “without proper coordination either with the United States or the broader global coalition” that is fighting IS in Syria and neighboring Iraq.

— AFP