What better day than Christmas to target Kurds in Syria as the western world tucks into turkey dinners and tunes out misery unfolding elsewhere across the globe? Could that have been what Turkish military planners were thinking when they unleashed an armed drone on a house full of youth activists in the town of Kobani on Dec. 25, killing three young women and two men?

The United States and European governments rarely say anything when Turkey selectively targets its perceived Kurdish enemies. But the attack on members of the Syrian Revolutionary Youth, or Ciwanen Soresger, as they are known in Kurdish, marks a new level of escalation in Turkey’s ongoing military campaign against Kurdish groups linked to the US-supported autonomous administration in northeast Syria; one that is squarely aimed at deepening divisions between the Kurds.

Mazlum Kobane, the commander in chief of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), condemned the attack in a series of tweets, calling on the United Nations “to stop the Turkish policy of intimidation against civilians and to stop hostilities, which undermine stability efforts.”

Two of the victims of the Christmas day attack were sisters from a small village near Kobani. Both of the men were Arabs. None were known to have been engaged in any acts of violence against Turkey, according to Salih Muslim, a veteran Syrian Kurdish leader and member of the executive council of the Democratic Unity Party (PYD) which shares power in the autonomous administration. “The victims were all civilians. They were young people who organized campaigns to keep our youth off drugs and crime,” Muslim told Al-Monitor.