Shelling in northern Syria kills 5; at least 15 wounded

BEIRUT (AP) — Turkey-backed Syrian forces and Syrian Kurdish fighters shelled one another’s positions in northern Syria, leaving at least five people dead and more than a dozen wounded. The U.S.-backed Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces said Turkish troops and Syrian fighters backed by Ankara shelled on Wednesday the area of Abu Rassine, killing a woman and a child and wounding 15. Kurdish fighters later shelled the northern town of Afrin killing three. That’s according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor. Turkey and allied Syrian fighters took control of Afrin in 2018 in a military operation that expelled local Kurdish fighters and displaced many Kurdish residents.