Turkey has launched a new wave of strikes against the Kurdish-led region in northeastern Syria targeting critical infrastructure and killing at least 17 people, 15 of them civilians, Syrian Kurdish officials say. Turkey began carrying out the airstrikes on Wednesday using drones and fighter jets, hitting bakeries, oil wells, grain silos and other vital facilities. Ankara said it was retaliating for the Oct. 23 attack by Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) militants on a state-run defense complex near Ankara that killed five people. In an exclusive interview with Al-Monitor, Mazlum, Kobane, commander in chief of the Syrian Democratic Forces, the United States’ top ally against the Islamic State, denied the Turkish government’s claim that the assailants had come from territories under his control.

Speaking from an undisclosed location in northeastern Syria on Saturday via WhatsApp, Kobane insisted that Ankara’s main objective was to destroy the Syrian Kurds’ self-declared autonomous administration in northeastern Syria. Turkey insists that the quasi statelet is run by the PKK in SDF clothing and wants the Pentagon to scotch its alliance with the Syrian Kurdish group.

The violence came amid a surprise effort by the government of President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to resume peace talks with the PKK's leader, Abdullah Ocalan, leading to speculation that saboteurs were at work. Erdogan’s continued calls for dismantling the self-administration and for the SDF to lay down its weapons along with the PKK on the grounds that they pose a threat to Turkey’s national security suggests that Ankara is making this a central pillar of any peace talks with the PKK.

Kobane told Al-Monitor that any effort to destroy Rojava, or Western Kurdistan, would result in failure.