Aftermath of a bombing in Azaz in northwest Syria, January 13, 2022 (AFP)

UPDATE, FEB 16:

Four civilians were killed and 12 injured in shelling of the opposition-held city of Azaz in northwest Syria on Tuesday.

Turkish officials said the rockets were fired from the nearby city of Tal Rifaat, controlled by the US-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces. They said anti-Assad units responded with artillery fire.

Three people were killing in a bombing in Azaz last month.

Turkey considers the Kurdish militia YPG, the leading faction in the SDF, to be part of the Turkish Kurdish insurgency PKK, which has fought Turkish security forces for 35 years.

The Turkish Defense Ministry said their troops killed 10 YPG fighters on Tuesday.

UPDATE, JAN 21:

Six people have been killed and more than a dozen killed in shelling of the city of Afrin in northwest Syria.

The attack reportedly came from an area where both the Kurdish militia YPG and Assad regime forces are present.

The White Helmets civil defense said residences were set on fire, and posted video showing the retrieval of a burnt body from a damaged building.

ORIGINAL ENTRY, JAN 14: At least three people have been killed in a series of bombings in northwest Syria near the Turkish border.

A civilian was killed after an improvised explosive device was detonated in a vehicle near a transport office in the city of Azaz, close to the main border crossing.

Hours later, three people were wounded in a suicide bombing in a marketplace in the town of al-Bab. Moments after that, a suicide bomber struck a roundabout in the city of Afrin.

The bombings were the first this year in an area regularly attacked by bombers.

Turkey intervened in August 2016 alongside anti-Assad factions in the northwest, initially to push out the Islamic State and then to take almost all of the Kurdish canton of Afrin. Ankara blames the Kurdish militia YPG for the attacks. The YPG accuses Turkey of killing civilians in drone strikes.

There are an estimated 4 million Syrians in the opposition-held portions of Idlib and Aleppo Provinces.

See also 3 Turkish Soldiers Killed in Bombing Near Syria Border