Around 100,000 people have been displaced from Shahba area in northwest Syria to the Kurdish held areas in the face of recent attacks by the opposition militia groups. A recent offensive by Ankara-backed groups has led to the displacement of some 30,000 families from Shahba to the Kurdish-held Raqqa province's Tabqa town, Sheikhmous Ahmed, head of the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (DAANES) office for internally displaced persons and refugees, told Rudaw English. Most of these people hail from the Kurdish city of Afrin which was controlled by the same militia groups and Ankara in 2018. A coalition of Syrian rebel groups spearheaded by the jihadist Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) launched a major offensive against the Syrian army over the past week. They took control of the northern city of Aleppo, the largest in the country, and advanced their offensive into Hama province. Ankara-backed militants earlier this week offensive against Kurdish forces that held their positions in Shahba.
