Turkey: Man arrested after kicking elderly Syrian woman in video, army bombarded Syrian villages

 

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An elderly Syrian woman is recovering in hospital after being kicked in the face by a man in the Turkish city of Gaziantep, in the midst of a rising wave of anti-refugee sentiment in the country.

A video, shared widely in Turkey and Syria over the past few days, shows the woman, Leyla Muhammed, attacked while she sat on a bench.

The attacker, named by police as Sakir Cakir, has been arrested on charges of willful injury. The Turkish citizen said he had been told that Muhammed was a kidnapper, according to a statement he gave to police.

The victim is mentally disabled, local news reports indicated.
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2. A US-backed militia group in Syria has issued a warning that a new Turkish military invasion in the country could derail the fight against ISIS and cause a fresh humanitarian crisis.

Previous invasions against the Syrian-Kurdish group — there have been four since 2016 — have forced small units of US advisers to pull back from Kurdish positions as Turkish air and artillery strikes rained down on the militias.

The warning from the SDF comes after US Secretary of State Antony Blinken and Nato Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg said a new incursion by Turkish forces could unravel fragile gains in the area.
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3. Turkish forces bombarded Syrian villages and towns under the control of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in northeastern Syria with artillery and missiles.

Local sources and eyewitnesses told Sky News Arabic that the bombing targeted separate areas in Tal Tamar in al-Hasakah province.

A Turkish drone bombed the outskirts of the town of Tal Rifat on the northern outskirts of Aleppo near the Syrian-Turkish border without any casualties.

The Tal Rifat area west of the Euphrates River, which has been under the control of the Syrian Democratic Forces since the beginning of 2016, has been targeted by Turkish forces and, along with other border areas in the Hasakah area, has been attacked by Syrian forces. Continuous bombardment for days by Turkish forces and Ankara-backed factions