Turkish-backed fighters have been accused of carrying out a brutal execution of wounded soldiers in a military hospital in northern Syria.

In a gruesome video circulated online, injured men in hospital beds covered in bandages and wires are questioned by men in military fatigues, who then open fire on them.

The Syrian Observatory of Human Rights reported that dozens of wounded soldiers from the Manbij Military Council, part of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, were executed after the area was besieged and evacuation routes out of the city closed.

Factions under the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army launched Operation Dawn of Freedom on Dec 1 against the SDF to counter what Turkish state media calls the establishment of a “terrorist corridor stretching from the Syria-Iraq border to the Mediterranean”.

Ankara sees the People’s Defence Units (YPG), which leads the SDF, as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has staged a decades-long insurgency against Turkey.

The PKK is listed as a terror group by the US, UK and EU.