ERBIL, Kurdistan Region – Five Kurdish fighters of the People’s Protection Units (YPG) in the northern Syrian city of Kobane were killed on Thursday when a bomb exploded near their base, according to a war monitor. Several civilians were also killed and injured in a separate blast in the northwestern city of Afrin.
Another YPG fighter was reportedly injured in the Kobane blast. The city, which was liberated from the Islamic State jihadist group (ISIS) in 2016, lies close the Turkish border.
No one has claimed responsibility for the attack.
The YPG, which makes up the backbone of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), has spearheaded the ground offensive against ISIS. It is on the brink of liberating the last speck of territory controlled by the jihadists in Deir ez-Zor.
A separate attack earlier on Thursday saw a car bomb strike central Afrin shortly after a parade of Turkish-backed armed groups through the northwest Syrian city, according to a war monitor.
At least 10 people, including children, were injured in the blast near Dirsem Hospital in the Villat Street, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights reports.
The opposition-linked White Helmets said two civilians were killed, including a little girl, and 22 were injured.
Two civilians including a little girl were killed, and 22 others were injured, after IED car explosion in the center of #Afrin city, north of #Aleppo.
— The White Helmets (@SyriaCivilDef) February 21, 2019
15:50 #Syria local time. pic.twitter.com/LM1HqOHqe6
A video has emerged on social media purportedly showing the aftermath of the blast. Rudaw English has not been able to verify the footage.
#Now
— afrin activists (@afrinactivists) February 21, 2019
An explosion shook the city of Afrin near Dersim Hospital. It has been told that a car bomb was the reason behind the explosion. Initial information indicated that there are murdered and wounded in the ranks of mercenaries without knowing the real number.#afrin_activists_ pic.twitter.com/6MfFjCFROK
It was not immediately clear who was responsible for laying the explosives.
Turkish armed forces and their Syrian proxies took over Afrin in March 2018, forcing the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) to withdraw.
Ankara believes the YPG poses a threat to its national security, accusing it of fostering ties with the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
‘Operation Olive Branch’ lasted several weeks and saw thousands of ethnic Kurds displaced from the canton in northern Aleppo province. Evidence has emerged of abuses, looting, and ethnic cleansing perpetrated against Kurdish residents by the Turkish-backed militias.
The National Army – a Turkish-led amalgamation of Syrian opposition groups – issued a statement on February 20 announcing a new security campaign ostensibly targeting drug dealers and funders of terrorism, the Observatory reports.
“To our people in the Syrian North, as a completion of the peace campaign launched by the Syrian National Army achieving its first goal of arresting the corrupted and rebel commanders and groups, a new phase of the campaign starts today,” the statement, seen by the Observatory, states.
“It is going to work on achieving the second goal through prosecuting and arresting the drug dealers in order to stop their criminality by dealing with their peers of the gangs of the PKK and of the criminal regime in the occupied areas,” the statement added.
The SDF has pledged to prioritize the “liberation” of Afrin from Turkish-backed forces once ISIS has been defeated.
Turkey has threatened to send its forces east from Afrin to push Kurdish forces back from its southern border.
Kurdish forces fear Ankara will launch such an offensive if US troops stationed in northeast Syria withdraw.