“These things will happen, we are in a war... We might lose a helicopter, but they’ll pay the price for this.”The Turkish military in a statement did not specify a reason for why the helicopter fell. The downed helicopter was the first officially confirmed loss of a Turkish aircraft over Syria since the start of the country’s long-running civil war. The Turkish military in other statements said a total of five soldiers were killed and nine wounded on Saturday in clashes with mainly Kurdish forces near Afrin. Ankara launched an air and ground offensive last month against Kurdish fighters in Syria’s Afrin region on its border, opening a new front in the multi-sided Syrian war. Separately, the Turkish military in a statement said on Friday that the construction of a fifth military post near Syria’s northwestern region of Idlib had begun.

Source: bd News24 February 10, 2018 18:00 UTC