ANKARA 

Turkish armed drones neutralized 21 Syrian regime troops following the heroic martyrdom of a soldier on March 5, the Defense Ministry said early Friday.

The drones also destroyed two howitzers and two multiple rocket launchers during the strikes, which were carried out around 4 p.m. local time, the ministry said in a statement on Twitter.

“The blood of our martyr was not left on the ground,” said the ministry.

The regime attack in the area of Turkey's Operation Spring Shield in Syria’s Idlib province is thought to have taken place prior to Turkey and Russia’s agreement Thursday in Moscow on a protocol on a new ceasefire in the Idlib de-escalation zone.

The ministry said in its statement that Turkish forces determined the regime targets in the region and immediately opened fire.

Earlier, it said that two soldiers were martyred and three wounded. However, it announced on its Twitter account that one soldier was martyred on March 4 and the other on March 5.

Turkey launched Operation Spring Shield on Sunday after at least 34 Turkish soldiers were martyred last week in an Assad regime airstrike in Idlib. Under a 2018 deal with Russia, Turkish troops were in Idlib to protect civilians from attacks by the regime and its allies.

On Thursday, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin agreed in Moscow to a new ceasefire in Idlib.

*Writing by Davut Demircan