Turkey’s ongoing military assault in Syria has left more than 100 Kurdish forces dead, President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan claimed Thursday morning, a day after his troops launched airstrikes and unleashed artillery shelling on Syrian towns and villages along its border.
Information about the rising death toll came as Turkey's state-run news agency said Turkey-allied Syrian opposition fighters have "cleared of terror" two villages across the border in Syria — meaning there are no more Syrian Kurdish fighters in those villages. Turkey has long threatened to attack the Kurdish fighters whom Ankara considers terrorists allied with a Kurdish insurgency in Turkey.
Erdogan told party officials Thursday that 109 "terrorists" have been killed so far in Operation Peace Spring — a reference to the U.S.-allied Syrian Kurdish fighters. He did not elaborate, and the reports on the ground, according to the Associated Press, did not indicate anything remotely close to such a large number of casualties.
The Turkish leader also warned the European Union not to call Ankara's incursion into Syria an "invasion," and renewed his threat of "opening the gates" and letting Syrian refugees flood Europe.
https://www.foxnews.com/world/turkey-military-assault-in-syria