Turkey is exploiting the global chaos surrounding the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza to intensify its attacks on northern Syria, a Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) commander said on Saturday.

In his exclusive statement to the North Press Agency, Mahmoud Habib, spokesman for the Northern Democratic Brigade, a component of the SDF, argued that Turkey’s aim is to expand its presence in Syrian territory.

Habib also suggested that Turkey’s actions were aimed at exacerbating demographic changes in the region. Habib’s statement came in the wake of several suspected Turkish drone strikes during the week.

On Friday morning, Jwan Suleiman Muhammad, a 34-year-old employee of France-based international non-governmental organisation ACTED, lost his life after being injured in a suspected Turkish drone attack in Amuda, a town in the western countryside of Qamishli, on Thursday. Muhammad was a civilian providing social support for internally displaced persons (IDPs) in the Serêkaniyê camp.

Turkish attacks on the region began to escalate with a military campaign in October that targeted civilian infrastructure. It was one of a series of Turkish attacks in Kurdish-led North and East Syria that killed Muhammad and injured his two family members.

The Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) condemned Turkey’s ongoing military aggression in a statement on Friday, describing it as a ‘policy of genocide’ against Kurdish-led regions and calling for urgent international intervention.

The population of northern Syria suffered more than 580 air and ground attacks by Turkish forces between 5 and 9 October. During this five-day period, Turkey’s attacks killed 44 people, including two children, and wounded 55 others, according to the region’s Kurdish-led administration.