BEIRUT: Turkey shelled Kurdish fighters in Syria for a third day on Monday and a suspected Russian air strike on a hospital left several dead, as violence shook the country ahead of a hoped-for ceasefire.

The cross-border Turkish artillery fire, which began on Saturday, comes amid deep concern in Ankara over advances by Kurdish-led forces in Syria’s Aleppo province.

Turkey accuses the Kurdish forces of links to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), an outlawed movement that waged a decades-long insurgency against the Turkish state.

Following similar fire on Saturday and Sunday, Turkish shelling again hit several parts of Aleppo province on Monday, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based monitoring group.

A journalist on the Turkish border said Turkish howitzers opened fire on Monday afternoon for around 20 minutes from the Akcabaglar region near a border crossing with Syria.

The Observatory said the shelling hit areas including a road west of the town of Tal Rifaat, where the coalition of Kurdish and Arab fighters known as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) has launched an assault.

The town, only 20 kilometres from the Turkish border, is held by an alliance of mostly Islamist rebels and one of their few remaining bastions in the area.

The shelling killed at least two children in the area on Monday, the Observatory said. The SDF was advancing despite the shelling, it said, and there was heavy fighting inside the western limits of Tal Rifaat.

The SDF has already seized the nearby Minnigh airbase from rebel forces, and severed the road between Tal Rifaat and the key rebel-held town of Azaz on the border with Turkey.

Turkey fears the Kurds will be able to create a contiguous Kurdish territory just across the border in northern Syria.

Turkey’s Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu warned on Monday that Ankara “will not let Azaz fall” to the SDF, adding “the necessary intervention will be made”.

The situation is a major headache for Washington, which has backed the Kurds in their battles against the militant Islamic State group despite the discomfort of fellow Nato member Turkey.

In recent days, Washington warned the Kurds not to “take advantage” of the situation in Aleppo to seize new territory.

Turkey is also a key member of the US-led coalition fighting IS in Syria, and is allowing coalition planes to fly sorties from its Incerlik base.

Ankara’s shelling has prompted criticism from Damascus, which has urged the UN Security Council to take action.

Turkey on Monday also denied claims it had sent troops into northern Syria and rejected reports it was planning a ground intervention.

In northwestern Idlib province meanwhile, suspected Russian strikes hit an MSF-supported hospital, the Observatory said.

MSF confirmed the hospital’s destruction, without saying who was behind it, and reported at least seven people had been killed, with another eight staff members missing, presumed dead.

It said the dead were five patients, a caretaker and a guard, and added that an unknown number of patients were also missing.Russia began strikes in support of ally President Bashar al-Assad in September.

Published in Dawn, February 16th, 2016