Three children wounded in Turkish shelling on Syria’s northern Ain Issa

AIN ISSA, Syria (North Press) –  At least three children were heavily wounded in a shelling by Turkish-backed Syrian opposition armed groups in Syria’s northern town of Ain Issa, military sources said on Saturday.

Sources from the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said intensive shelling targeted the areas around Ain Issa constantly in the past two days.

Ain Issa, a town 50 km north to Raqqa on the M4 highway, has been a strategic base for the SDF and the US-led global coalition forces against the Islamic State (ISIS) since 2017 till October 2019.

In October, the Turkish army and their affiliated Syrian rebel groups known as the Free Syrian Army (FSA), later changed to Syrian National Army (SNA), launched a military operation and pushed the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) from the border towns of Ras al-Ain and Tal Abyad, leading to the deaths of about 500 civilians and the displacement of about 300,000 people.

Since then, Ain Issa has become a front line between the SDF and the Turkish-backed militia which shell the town intermittently.

The Turkish attacks on Ain Issa created a security vacuum in Ain Issa, leading to 950 ISIS supporters escape from a camp in the town after attacking guards and storming the gates.

(Reporting by Hisham Arafat)