Hundreds of northeast Syrian villages and towns lost power after Turkish airstrikes pounded power stations and other infrastructure, Agence France-Presse reported on Monday, citing the region’s semi-autonomous Kurdish administration.
The Kurdish administration said Turkey had launched a series of airstrikes since Friday, mostly concentrated on infrastructure including power stations and oil refineries.
Turkey said it has carried out airstrikes against militants of the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in northern Syria in response to the deaths of nine Turkish soldiers in clashes with suspected Kurdish militants in Iraq on Friday.
The PKK is listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey and much of the international community.
The semi-autonomous Kurdish administration listed hundreds of villages and towns facing blackouts due to the Turkish airstrikes in a statement Monday, also reporting damage to oil facilities.
The administration condemned the “Turkish aggressions,” which it said were “unjustified and disregarded customs and laws.”
The administration said Turkey struck six power plants, one of which was targeted twice on Monday in the city of Qamishli, where AFP reporters saw firefighters putting out a large fire.
The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said a seventh station had been targeted later on Monday.
Syria’s northeast has been suffering from long power cuts after more than a decade of war and economic woes. Even before the Turkish strikes, many of the targeted stations had only been providing about 10 hours of power daily.
Kurdish official Yasser al-Sulaiman called for the US-led international anti-jihadist coalition and Russia to “stand by the Syrian people … and stop the Turkish aggression against our regions.”
Over the weekend, Turkey said it had hit dozens of targets in northern Syria and Iraq belonging to the PKK and the People’s Protection Units (YPG).
The YPG is the main component of the Syrian Democratic Forces, the de facto army of the Kurdish semi-autonomous administration that controls swaths of Syria’s northeast.
Turkey views the YPG as an offshoot of the PKK.
In October Turkey targeted dozens of facilities and military sites in northern Syria after an attack on the interior ministry in Ankara, claimed by the PKK.
Since 2016 Turkey has carried out successive ground operations to expel Kurdish forces from border areas of northern Syria.
Syria’s war has killed more than half a million people since it erupted in 2011 after Damascus brutally cracked down on anti-government protests, spiraling into a devastating war involving foreign armies and jihadists.
