Turkish army artillery opened fire on the outskirts of Tell Tamer in the northwestern Syrian province of Al Hasakah on Sunday, the SANA news agency reports.
According to its information, the shelling hit residential neighborhoods in the town of Salmasah, where two people were wounded. It also reported that a shell exploded in the neighboring Al-Qahtaniyah hospital, causing material damage and no casualties.
Tell Tamer (630 km from Damascus) is located on the strategic M-4 highway that connects the western and eastern regions of Syria. Turkish troops are firing at the area from their positions in the border town of Ras al-Ayn, the outpost of the Ankara-backed Syrian opposition formations.
One Syrian soldier was killed and 15 others, including civilians, were wounded in Thursday's shelling of the village of Tell Zeidan.
According to the Al-Akhbar newspaper, the military operation, now in its third month, is forcing Assyrian and Kurdish families living in Tell Tamer to leave their homes and move to safer areas of Al Hasakah. A total of 55 settlements are now in the firing line in the Khabur valley, which flows in the north of the Arab Republic.
On July 6, the command of the Kurdish "Democratic Syrian Forces" (SDF) declared a state of emergency in the province of Al Hasakah due to the threat of invasion of the Turkish troops. Damascus sent military reinforcements and armored vehicles to the northern areas at the Kurds' request.
Earlier, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan said that the country's armed forces intend to conduct a new cross-border operation in northern Syria, which will cover the territories on the western and eastern banks of the Euphrates River, currently controlled by the SDF.
GSV "Russia - Islamic World"
Photo: Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation
Based on materials from TASS