Eight Turkish soldiers killed, 13 wounded in clashes in Syria's Afrin

The military said the wounded soldiers had been “swiftly evacuated” to receive treatment. No further details were immediately available.

Turkey launched an offensive into Afrin in January against the US-backed Kurdish YPG militia, which Ankara regards as a terrorist group linked to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) which has waged a three-decade insurgency against the Turkish state.

Since the start of the operation, Turkey has captured 115 “strategic points” and 87 villages, according to state media, pushing Kurdish fighters back from the area near the Turkish border to effectively create a “crescent” of control on Syria’s side of the frontier.