At least 13 people were killed and several wounded in two separate artillery attacks [carried out bloody-minded YPG/PKK] on the northern Syrian town of Afrin on Saturday, according to the information gained from the local sources.
In a statement, the Governor's Office in Hatay, just across the border, said that grad missile and artillery shells fired by the terrorist group YPG/PKK from the Assad regime-controlled Tal Rifat region hit the emergency department of the private Shifa Hospital in the center of the Afrin district.
The first attack struck a residential area, while the second hit a hospital shortly afterwards, civil defence sources said.
Video footage on social media showed casualties amid the ruins of the Al Shifa hospital.
Turkey's Anadolu agency also put the number of those killed at 13 and said 27 were injured.
A local Turkish official said sources at the hospital said that the YPG/PKK terrorists hit the building with a missile launcher, according to initial reports. The official said Turkish artillery are shelling rural positions near the city of Maarat al-Numan in response..
The governor's office in Turkey's Hatay province, bordering Afrin, said it was investigating the incident.
Afrin was largely cleared of YPG/PKK terrorists in 2018 through Turkey's anti-terror offensive Operation Olive Branch, but the terror group still targets the region to disturb the peace establish by Turkish forces.
The terror group often targets Jarabulus, Azaz, Afrin and al-Bab by attacking from adjacent Tal Rifaat and Manbij regions.
In its more than 35-year terror campaign against Turkey, the PKK-listed as a terror organization by Turkey, the US, and the EU-has been responsible for the deaths of nearly 40,000 people, including women, children and infants.
The YPG is the PKK's Syrian offshoot.
Since 2016, Turkey has launched a trio of successful anti-terror operations across its border in northern Syria to prevent the formation of a terror corridor and to enable the peaceful settlement of residents: Euphrates Shield (2016), Olive Branch (2018), and Peace Spring (2019).
