The Turkish army has carried out more than 40 artillery attacks on several areas in the northern Syrian cantons of Afrin and Shehba throughout Saturday, according to ANHA.

According to reports from the ground, the villages of Til Medîq, Misrifê, Şêx Îsa and Bêlûniyê and the district of Til Rifet in the Shehba Canton were targeted by at least 30 howitzer and mortar attacks. A civilian named Azad Hisên Guldedo was injured in the aggression on Til Rifet.

On the other hand, over 10 artillery attacks were carried out on the village of Merenaz in Afrin’s Shera district.

Tel Rifat is located 35 kilometres north of Aleppo in the canton of Shehba, where thousands of people displaced from Afrin by the Turkish invasion in 2018 live. According to the autonomous administration, the town is currently home to around 1,660 families from the shattered canton of Afrin and 35 more from Idlib. The number of Tel Rifat's own inhabitants was decimated in the course of wars under occupation from originally more than 20,000 to less than 5,000. Tel Rifat was named in 2022 by Turkish head of state Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, along with Manbij, as the first target for a new war of aggression against northern and eastern Syria. According to the wishes of the government in Ankara, both cities are to become bridgeheads for the invasion of a 30-kilometre-wide strip along the Turkish-Syrian border.