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Syria
Thick, black smoke rises from the site of a deadly rocket attack on Afrin, Syria on August 18, 2021. Photo: handout/Turkey defence ministry
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - A number of civilians were killed and injured in a heavy rocket attack directed at Afrin city in northwest Syria on Wednesday afternoon, according to a Turkish governor and a conflict monitor.
“The PKK/YPG terrorists attacked Syria’s Afrin city center at 14:30 today. Thirteen rockets were fired from Tel Rifaat area,” Hatay governor’s office said in a statement, referring to Kurdish forces.
Thirteen rockets were fired in the attack, killing three people, including a child, and injuring four more, according to the statement.
Turkey’s Ministry of National Defence said their soldiers responded to the attack and accused Kurdish YPG forces of killing three civilians.
Tel Rifaat is in an area known as Shahba, north of Aleppo. The area houses thousands of Kurds displaced from Afrin and multiple forces operating in close proximity to each other, including Kurdish, Syrian regime, and Russian troops.
The conflict monitor Syrian Observatory for Human Rights also reported the attack, saying three were killed and several others were injured.
The People’s Protection Units (YPG) is a Kurdish armed force in northeast Syria. Ankara considers it to be the Syrian extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), named a terrorist group in Turkey. Ankara has used this alleged link as a pretext for multiple military operations across the border into Rojava.
Afrin is a Kurdish-majority region in Syria’s northwest. The YPG took control of the area after regime forces re-deployed to defend Arab-majority areas against rebels at the start of the Syrian uprising in 2011. In 2018, Turkey and its allied Syrian militias seized control of Afrin, forcefully displacing much of the local population and committing what the United Nations has said are possible war crimes against the local population. Turkey has blamed the YPG for several deadly explosions in the city.
In October 2019, Turkey launched an offensive against Kurdish forces in northeast Syria. Ceasefires were brokered by Moscow and Washington, but the truces are frequently violated.
Earlier this month, a father and his three children were killed in a Turkish bombing near Ain Issa. On Tuesday night, Turkey bombarded Zarkan district in Hasaka province, killing a four-year-old child and a woman.
Updated at 7:34 pm
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