ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - At least four people were killed and several wounded in a car bombing in a market in the center of Afrin on Monday, a watchdog and local media reported. The explosion killed four people and wounded six others, North Press Agency (NPA) reported, citing an unnamed source. The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported six were killed, including one member of Turkish-backed forces, and another 12 people were injured, including children. North Press and the Observatory both reported two arrests were made in connection with the bombing. Afrin is a Kurdish-majority region located in Syria’s northwest. It has seen many deadly bombings since Turkish forces and their Syrian proxies invaded in 2018, expelling Kurdish forces, the People’s Protection Units (YPG), and forcefully displacing much of the local population, committing what the United Nations has said are possible war crimes. Turkish media blamed the car bombing on the YPG. Ankara considers the YPG to be the Syrian offshoot of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a designated terrorist group in Turkey, and has accused the group of carrying out several attacks and bombings in Afrin. Eight civilians were killed and injured in September, three others were killed in a rocket attack in August, which Turkey blamed on the YPG. The YPG has denied the attacks, saying they do not target civilians. On Monday, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a US-backed umbrella force that includes the YPG, denied involvement in an attack on the city of Jarablus inside Turkish-held territory in northern Syria.
