ISTANBUL — Turkey said deadly clashes in Syria’s northwest Idlib province on Monday killed at least eight Turkish soldiers and civilian contractors and scores of Syrian troops. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed to continue military operations, risking further entanglement in the Syrian imbroglio.

Turkish Defense Minister Huluski Akar said 76 “regime members were neutralized,” though the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights put the Syrian government forces’ death toll at 13.

The Turkish soldiers were reinforcing a military outpost near the town of Saraqib, where Turkey is monitoring an all-but-defunct deconfliction zone in Idlib Ankara secured in a 2018 deal with Russia and Iran, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s backers. Turkey supports the Syrian opposition fighting Assad since 2011 in a war that has killed as many as a half-million people.

“Those who think they can test Turkey’s resolve with these types of treacherous attacks will come to understand that they have made a great mistake,” Erdogan said before departing for a previously scheduled trip to Ukraine. “We are determined to continue the operations we have undertaken for the security of our nation, our people and our brothers in Idlib.”