Turkey carried out air strikes against targets linked to Kurdish militants in Iraq and Syria after Wednesday’s shooting and suicide attack that killed five people at a defence firm near the Turkish capital. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the attackers infiltrated from neighbouring Syria, vowing there would be no let-up in the fight against Kurdish militants.

“We opened an internal investigation and I can confirm that none of the attackers entered Turkey from Syrian territory,” Mazloum Abdi, the head of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) told AFP. The SDF is a US-backed force that spearheaded fighting against the Islamic State group in its last Syria strongholds before its territorial defeat in 2019.

Turkish strikes on Kurd-held Syria since Wednesday have killed 15 civilians and two fighters, according to Abdi. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, said Turkey has launched more than 100 strikes, most of them using drones, since Wednesday.

“We are ready to resolve issues with Turkey through dialogue, but not under the pressure of attacks, so these operations must be stopped for dialogue efforts to continue,” Abdi said.

Abdi criticised his US allies for not protecting Kurdish forces, saying the position of the US-led coalition “seems weak”. The United States has about 900 troops in Syria as part of an anti-jihadist coalition.

The US presidential election on November 5 could also weaken support for the SDF if Donald Trump is elected, according to Abdi. In 2019, Trump announced a decision to withdraw thousands of US troops from Kurdish-held Syria, paving the way for Turkey to launch an invasion there that same year. “In 2019, we had an unsuccessful experience with the administration of US President Trump,” said the SDF commander.