Four Turkish soldiers have been killed and two others wounded in two separate cross-border attacks by Kurdish militants on Saturday, the Defence Ministry said, adding that the army had retaliated in both cases.
One Turkish soldier was killed and another was lightly wounded after an attack by the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia in the mainly Kurdish-controlled northern Syrian region of Tel Rifaat, the Defence Ministry said in a statement.
The attack took place in a region where Turkey carried out a cross-border operation dubbed Euphrates Shield in 2016, aimed at driving ISIS militants and the YPG from its border with Syria, the ministry said.
It said the army had retaliated with artillery fire but gave no further details on the whereabouts of the attack.
Three other Turkish soldiers were killed and another wounded in the southeastern province of Hakkari, which borders northern Iraq, after Kurdish militants shelled the region, the Defence Ministry said in a separate statement.
It said the military had returned fire and launched a cross-border operation in the region backed by fighter jets to destroy the militant targets.
Turkey's military has regularly carried out air strikes against Kurdish militants in northern Iraq. It also shelled YPG positions in the Tel Rifaat region earlier this year, saying this was in response to YPG fire.
Tel Rifaat is controlled by Kurdish-led forces and is located some 20 kilometres east of Afrin, which has been under the control of Turkey and its Free Syrian Army (FSA) allies since an operation last year to drive out the YPG.
Turkey, which has long been one of the main backers of rebel groups fighting against Syria's President Bashar Al Assad, has conducted patrols with Russia, one of Assad's main allies, in northern areas under agreements reached last year.
In March, the Defence Ministry said Turkish and Russian forces had carried out the first "independent and coordinated" patrols in Tel Rifaat
Look north
BBC business reporters, like a new raft of government officials, are being removed from the national and international hub of London and surely the quality of their work must suffer.
If you go
The flights
There are direct flights from Dubai to Sofia with FlyDubai (www.flydubai.com) and Wizz Air (www.wizzair.com), from Dh1,164 and Dh822 return including taxes, respectively.
The trip
Plovdiv is 150km from Sofia, with an hourly bus service taking around 2 hours and costing $16 (Dh58). The Rhodopes can be reached from Sofia in between 2-4hours.
The trip was organised by Bulguides (www.bulguides.com), which organises guided trips throughout Bulgaria. Guiding, accommodation, food and transfers from Plovdiv to the mountains and back costs around 170 USD for a four-day, three-night trip.
What is blockchain?
Blockchain is a form of distributed ledger technology, a digital system in which data is recorded across multiple places at the same time. Unlike traditional databases, DLTs have no central administrator or centralised data storage. They are transparent because the data is visible and, because they are automatically replicated and impossible to be tampered with, they are secure.
The main difference between blockchain and other forms of DLT is the way data is stored as ‘blocks’ – new transactions are added to the existing ‘chain’ of past transactions, hence the name ‘blockchain’. It is impossible to delete or modify information on the chain due to the replication of blocks across various locations.
Blockchain is mostly associated with cryptocurrency Bitcoin. Due to the inability to tamper with transactions, advocates say this makes the currency more secure and safer than traditional systems. It is maintained by a network of people referred to as ‘miners’, who receive rewards for solving complex mathematical equations that enable transactions to go through.
However, one of the major problems that has come to light has been the presence of illicit material buried in the Bitcoin blockchain, linking it to the dark web.
Other blockchain platforms can offer things like smart contracts, which are automatically implemented when specific conditions from all interested parties are reached, cutting the time involved and the risk of mistakes. Another use could be storing medical records, as patients can be confident their information cannot be changed. The technology can also be used in supply chains, voting and has the potential to used for storing property records.
More from Rashmee Roshan Lall
Founders: Abdulmajeed Alsukhan, Turki Bin Zarah and Abdulmohsen Albabtain.
Based: Riyadh
Offices: UAE, Vietnam and Germany
Founded: September, 2020
Number of employees: 70
Sector: FinTech, online payment solutions
Funding to date: $116m in two funding rounds
Investors: Checkout.com, Impact46, Vision Ventures, Wealth Well, Seedra, Khwarizmi, Hala Ventures, Nama Ventures and family offices
