TURKEY is using banned weapons such as napalm and white phosphorus against Kurds in Syria as photographs emerge showing badly burned children.
Kurdish authorities are alleging Turkish forces have been using the deadly weapons, which are forbidden by international law, in the eight day old conflict.
President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has today vowed to continue his bid to crush the Kurdish stronghold in north eastern Syria, which began after US troops were pulled out of the region ten days ago.
A Kurdish statement said: “The Turkish aggression is using all available weapons against Ras al-Ain.
“Faced with the obvious failure of his plan, Erdogan is resorting to weapons that are globally banned such as phosphorus and napalm.”
Meanwhile a spokesman for the Syrian Democratic Forces, the autonomous Kurdish region’s de facto army, called on international organisations to send in experts.
“We urge international organisations to send their teams to investigate some wounds sustained in attacks,” Mustefa Bali said on social media.
“The medical facilities in NE Syria lack expert teams,” he added.
INCREASING NUMBER OF BURN PATIENTS
Today British-based war monitor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), said it could not confirm the allegation.
But it said it had seen a spike in burn wounds over the last two days from casualties, including civilians in areas near the Syrian/Turkey border.
Turkish Defence Minister Hulusi Akar today denied the charges.
He said: “It is a fact known by everyone that there are no chemical weapons in the inventory of the Turkish Armed Forces.”
Napalm was infamously used by US forces in the Vietnam War and are mixtures of a gelling agent and a volatile petrochemical which can ignite and stick to the skin.
White phosphorus can be used to create a smoke screen or as a battlefield marker.
Yet it can also be deployed as a deadly incendiary weapon.
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Turkish troops and Turkish-backed Syrian fighters launched their offensive against Kurdish forces in northern Syria a week ago, two days after Trump suddenly announced he was withdrawing the US from the area.
Ankara has long argued the Kurdish fighters are nothing more than an extension of the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, which has waged a guerrilla campaign inside Turkey since the 1980s.
