On July 24th, a Turkish armored vehicle was hit and destroyed by the Syrian Democratic Forces near the city of al-Bab, in Northern Aleppo, using an anti-armored missile. This led to the deaths of two Turkish soldiers, Fatih Guneh and Emrah Arslan, which was later mourned by the Turkish Ministry of Defense.
The Turkish side, along with the Syrian National Army, retaliated swiftly shelling the fronts and positions of the SDF in different parts of Aleppo countryside with heavy artillery, including Grad rockets, which led to the killing of 13 SDF members, according to different reports from the Turkish and SNA sides.
The following day, July 25th, the SDF escalated further as they bombarded the liberated residential neighborhoods of Afrin – targeting civilian homes and the local Syria Civil Defense Center with a barrage of rockets. This resulted in casualties amongst civilians, including two women and four children, and caused hefty material damage to the White Helmets Center.
Recently, the situation between the SNA and the SDF has escalated with the exchange of fire between both sides increasing. This in turn has led to the liberated areas suffering from the bombardment by the SDF on residential areas, causing heavy casualties – the most recent, before this incident, being the bombing of the hospital in Afrin, in mid-June, rendering it out of service and resulting in high civilian casualties, including dozens of deaths.
Afrin, after it had been freed by the Turkish Army and the SNA from the SDF, during early 2018 through the Olive Branch Operation, has experienced numerous cases of IED explosions, bombings and sporadic exchanges of fire between opposing sides. Sometimes these clashes intensify violently and numerous cases of such have been reported by local authorities. The highest and worst outcome from such incidents were the amount of civilian fatalities endured by the locals present in the area.
