Syria’s official state news agency SANA has shared video footage of what appeared to be Russian jets striking four tanks that belonged to the Turkish army.
Turkish defence ministry on Thursday had announced that two soldiers had died in an airstrike of unspecified origin in Syria’s rebel-held Idlib province, while another five soldiers had been wounded.
The images SANA shared appear to show four M60 Saber MBT type tanks being targeted.
Seems now like 4, on this position both of TAF M60 Sabres were knocked out pic.twitter.com/5okJNh8mfo
— Aldin 🇧🇦 (@aldin_ww) February 21, 2020
“Moscow has served up footage from yesterday’s airstrike on our tanks through Assad’s official news agency,” security expert Metin Gürcan said in a tweet. “The strikes are from laser guided smart ammunition. It was Russian jets that carried out the strike. That is clear.”
Fifteen Turkish soldiers have died in Idlib since the beginning of February, and Turkey has announced its forces killing more than 150 regime soldiers in retaliation.
“In this process in case of even a minor harm on our soldiers in observation posts or elsewhere, I declare here that we will strike regime forces everywhere without limiting us to the Sochi agreement over Idlib,” Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan said last week.
Turkey has 12 observation points in Idlib, constructed in accordance with the 2018 Sochi agreement with Russia to establish a demilitarised zone in the rebel-held province to prevent a regime assault. In turn, Turkey was to remove extremist and jihadist groups from the area.
The Syrian government, maintaining that Turkey failed to uphold its end of the deal, launched an offensive on Idlib in April with Russian backing, and fighting has intensified since the beginning of this year.
Rebels in Idlib including jihadist groups last week launched a counter-offensive, supported by Turkey, which threatens a full-blown operation into the province unless Syrian government forces retreat beyond its observation points.