Death toll in Turkish offensive continues to rise

The death toll among Syrian Kurdish-led forces battling a Turkish offensive has risen to 74, most of whom have been killed in the Tel Abyad area, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Saturday.

Observatory Director Rami Abdulrahman also said 49 fighters with Turkish backed Syrian opposition groups had been killed since the assault began on Wednesday.

The death toll among civilians in Syria had climbed to 30 after two people died in the city of Qamishli, he said. Most of the civilian deaths were also in Tel Abyad, a border town that is one of the focal points of the operation.

Since it began on Tuesday, the Turkish incursion has opened a new front in the eight-year Syrian civil war and drawn international criticism. A war monitor gave a death toll of more than 100 so far and the Syrian Observatory said more than 200,000 people had fled their homes.