Assad reporter who insulted Turkish troops, Erdoğan hit by missile

The vehicle of a reporter working for Syria’s state agency was shot with a missile by the Syrian National Army in western Aleppo, Syria.

Shadi Helwa, a field reporter at SANA news agency, the mouthpiece of the Assad regime, had recorded a video in front of a Turkish observation point in Syria and insulted Turkey’s troops and its people.

The reporter who called Turkish soldiers “mice”, had also previously hurled insults at Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan.

Following the attack on his vehicle, he was pictured in front of a hospital with his face wounded.

At least five Turkish troops were martyred and five injured in an attack by Assad regime forces in Idlib earlier this week.

That followed last week’s attack by regime forces in Idlib which martyred seven Turkish soldiers and one civilian contractor working with the Turkish military. It also injured more than a dozen people.

In retaliation, Turkey neutralized more than 120 Assad regime military personnel since last week.

Turkish troops are in Idlib -- nominally a cease-fire zone, under a deal between Turkey and Russia -- as part of an anti-terror and peace mission.

Idlib has been a stronghold of the opposition and anti-government armed groups since the outbreak of the Syrian civil war in 2011.

In September 2018, Turkey and Russia agreed to turn Idlib into a de-escalation zone in which acts of aggression are expressly prohibited.

But more than 1,800 civilians have been killed in attacks by regime and Russian forces since, flouting a 2018 cease-fire and a new one that began on Jan. 12.