Eight security personnel injured in rocket attack targeting border area in southeast Türkiye

At least eight security personnel, including seven police officers and one soldier, were injured yesterday (November 20) in a rocket attack into southeastern Türkiye near a border gate into northern Syria.

The rocket fired from Syria's Tel Rifat town hit a Police Special Operations station located at the Kilis Öncüpınar Border Gate in the Kilis province, according to the state-run Anadolu Agency (AA).

The attack came a day after Türkiye's large-scale air raids targeting the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in Iraq and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) positions in Syria.

The Afrin Liberation Forces (HRE), a group affiliated with the SDF, claimed the attack, according to the Fırat News Agency (ANF). Farhad Shami, the SDF spokesperson, had tweeted, "Revenge is coming," after Türkiye's strikes.

​​​​​​​The Interior Ministry said that one police commissioner and six police officers were among the injured members of the police.

Ambulances and security forces were dispatched to the Kilis border region.

Kilis Governor Recep Soytürk later visited the wounded being treated in the hospital.

AA reported that the People's Protection Units (YPG) also fired four rockets into the Karkamış district of the southeastern Antep province. The group did not claim any attacks targeting Türkiye.

The rockets hit an empty area, and an investigation of the attack has begun, said AA.

In the early hours of Sunday, Türkiye's warplanes hit a large area from northwest Syria to northern Iraq in retaliation to the November 13 İstanbul bomb attack, which it blamed on the PKK and YPG. both groups denied involvement in the attack. (VK)