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In response to several recent violations of the Russian-Turkish demilitarized zone agreement, the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) artillery and rocket launchers pounded positions of the al-Qaeda-affiliated Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP) in the village of Ankawi in the northwestern Hama countryside on December 28.
“A number of terrorists of the TIP were killed in the shelling and others were injured, most of them are mercenaries who came from Turkey,” the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) said in a press release.
The state-run news agency said that the army artillery also shelled several gatherings and mortar positions of the Turkish-backed Jaysh al-Izza in the town of al-Lataminah in the northern Hama countryside. The attack was also a response to recent violations by the group that’s allied to the former branch of al-Qaeda in Syria, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).
Militants violate the demilitarized zone agreement on a daily basis. However, Turkey is yet to implement its part of the deal and force them to withdraw of the zone, which covers wide areas around the northern governorate of Idlib.
