The death toll from the August 19 rocket attack on the Turkish-occupied city of al-Bab in the northern countryside of Syria’s Aleppo have reportedly risen to 17.
The rocket attack, which was launched from an area in the northern Aleppo countryside jointly held by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the Syrian Arab Army, targeted a crowded market in al-Bab.
According to the London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, at least six of the attacks’ casualties were young children.
The deadly rocket attack took place just a few hours after threats by the SDF over the August 18 Turkish drone strike that claimed the lives of four children in the northwestern countryside of al-Hasakah. The group denied responsibility for the attack. Still, it remains the main suspect.
The SDF and its affiliate, the Afrin Liberation Unit, carried out several rocket attacks on key Turkish-occupied towns in the northern Aleppo countryside, like al-Bab, Azaz and Afrin, over the last few years.
The Turkish military and its proxies carried out a series of artillery strikes on SDF-held towns and villages in the northern Aleppo countryside in response to the rocket attack on al-Bab. The strike killed an elderly woman in the village of al-Nayrabiyah and wounded a child in the village of Ghranata.
Turkey could use the rocket attack on al-Bab as a pretext to launch its long-awaited operation against the SDF in northern and northeastern Syria.
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