Three people were killed in a Turkish drone strike Friday in Hasakah province, northeast Syria, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported.

SOHR said that the victims, all women, were members of the Women’s Protection Units (YPJ), part of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

The women were travelling by car on the road between Qamishli and Al-Malkiyah (Dêrik) when the drone targeted the vehicle. Passersby are also reported to have been injured by shrapnel.

According to SOHR report, the recent drone strike is the latest in a series of 38 attacks carried out by Turkish forces since early 2022, targeting areas under the control of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES).

In the last seven months Turkish drone attacks have left 27 people dead, including two children and nine women, and 74 injured.

The latest attack is also the fourth in the last 48 hours, an indication of how Turkish forces have recently been ramping up drone attacks.

A position of Syrian government forces in the village of Zor Maghar near the city of Kobani, north Syria, was targeted by another Turkish drone strike on Friday, causing only material damage.

The deadliest month was February, when eight people were killed in 10 Turkish drone strikes.

About the YPJ

The YPJ is an all female militia, consisting mostly of Kurdish fighters, which emerged in the first phases of the Syrian civil war and came to global recognition especially in the fight against the Islamic State (ISIS) in Syria.

It constitutes a part of the SDF, the armed force of the AANES, which put an end to ISIS control over Syrian territories in early 2019 after several bloody battles.