Free Syrian Army

“It is common knowledge that the wives and children of [jihadist] Free Syria Army (FSA) members live in İstanbul’s Başakşehir district”

A senior PKK member sought with red notice has been neutralized by the Turkish National Intelligence Organization (MİT) in a surgical attack with an armed drone in northern Syria, local media has reported.

Mehmet Gürbüz, codenamed "Rojhat Karakoçan," was killed along with four other terrorists near him in Ayn Issa, a town in the Tell Abyad district of Raqqa governorate.

Following Ankara's announcement of an upcoming military incursion in northern Syria, the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army has deployed some 5,000 armed men in the region to act with the Turkish army to clear Tal Rifaat and Manbij provinces of PKK/YPG terrorists.

"We can take Tal Rifaat in 24 hours with Turkish soldiers," SNA commanders said, speaking on condition of anonymity.

The YPG, or People’s Protection Units, are the main component of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF)

Turkish and Russian forces have carried out their ninth joint patrol along a key highway in northwestern Syria, Turkey's Defense Ministry said on May 7.

"Within the framework of TUR-RF Agreement/Protocol, the 9th TUR-RF Combined Land Patrol on M-4 Highway in Idlib was conducted with the participation of land and air elements," the ministry said in a tweet.

The war in Syria killed 103 civilians in March, marking the lowest monthly non-combatant death toll since the start of the conflict in 2011, a war monitor said on April 1.    

Of the total deaths, some 51 people were killed in shelling and air strikes by the Syrian regime, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.     

German Chancellor Angela Merkel on March 2 called for a "protected zone" in northwestern Syria for hundreds of thousands of civilians fleeing the attacks of the Bashar al-Assad regime.

Speaking at a news conference in the capital Berlin, Merkel expressed grave concern over escalating tensions in Idlib, a northwestern Syrian province, just across the Turkish border.

Government sources on Friday stressed that authorities are boosting security at the country's border following reports that Turkey will no longer stop Syrian refugees from traveling to Europe.

An official said this in anticipation of a massive movement of refugees from the Syrian province of Idlib, where there are one million displaced people.

Turkey will no longer stop Syrian refugees from reaching Europe, a senior Turkish official said, as Ankara responded on Feb. 29 to the killing of 33 Turkish soldiers in an airstrike by Syrian government forces in Syria's northwestern Idlib region.