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SDF repel attack by armed factions near Afrin

By Waleed Abu al-Khair in Cairo

A Syrian Democratic Forces position in Aleppo's countryside. The SDF repelled an attack by Ahrar al-Sham and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham on June 12th near the town of Afrin. [Photo courtesy of the SDF]

A Syrian Democratic Forces position in Aleppo's countryside. The SDF repelled an attack by Ahrar al-Sham and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham on June 12th near the town of Afrin. [Photo courtesy of the SDF]

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) on Monday night (June 12th) repelled an attack by armed factions near the northern town of Afrin in the Aleppo countryside, activists told Diyaruna.

Fighters from Ahrar al-Sham and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, an alliance of extremist factions including al-Nusra Front, targeted several positions of the SDF, the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) and the Women's Protection Units (YPJ), said journalist Mustafa Bali who follows military developments in northern Syria.

The attack occurred late on Monday night on the outskirts of Jandaires, south of Afrin, he told Diyaruna.

The SDF repelled the attack, he said, and "forced the attackers into multiple traps that they had set up around the area, killing and wounding many of them".

"The bodies of 23 attackers are still lying in the fields where the battles took place," he said, adding that "30 other attackers were wounded and the remaining elements fled".

Shelling operations followed the attack and continued through the night, Bali said, in an "apparent effort to withdraw the wounded from the battlefield".

"The attempt came days after a similar infiltration was thwarted on the outskirts of Tel Rifaat, 35 kilometres north of Aleppo," Bali said.

Those groups take advantage of the SDF's preoccupation with battles elsewhere, notably in al-Raqa, to launch these attacks and aim at dispersing their efforts and energy, he said.

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