In a written statement on Friday, the Afrin Liberation Forces (HRE) announced counterattacks against the increasingly ongoing Turkish attacks on northern Syria.

The HRE said that the Turkish army and its mercenaries are attacking the civilian population and infrastructure in the entire autonomous region of northern and eastern Syria with fighter jets and drones. “It is common knowledge that the Turkish state and its jihadist mercenary forces have been using dirty methods such as kidnapping, looting, displacement, arrest, torture and a targeted demographic change against the population since the occupation of Afrin in spring 2018. In addition to the continuous attacks on our territories, the army of the Republic of Turkey launched a major attack on 5 October, when the villages of Şêwarxa, Merenaz, Kiştiar, Soxaneke, Bênê, Gundê Mezin, Dercimel, Ziyarete, Meyas, Şeal, Ziwan, Şêx Isa and Kefer Naya as well as Til Rifat were attacked by drones and howitzers. The villages of Beluniye, Eyn Deqne, Malikiye and Ziyaret were bombed by fighter jets. Our forces responded to these attacks.”

According to the statement, five soldiers of the occupying forces were killed, and nine other soldiers were seriously injured in an operation against a Turkish base in Dabiq near Azaz. A vehicle and an enemy base were also struck by the HRE at the same time. A drone was shot down in the village of Şêwarxa in the Shera district of Afrin.