Security campaign against “terrorist cells” | National Army’s factions amass troops and deploy checkpoints at entrances of major cities in Aleppo countryside

Aleppo Province – Syrian Observatory for Human Rights: SOHR activists have monitored Turkish-backed factions in “Olive Branch” and “Euphrates Shield” areas are being put on high alert this morning, following announcement by Minister of Defence of the “Interim Government” about a large-scale security campaign with the aim of tearing out the “terrorist cells”, as it describes. Factions of the “National Army” have established a large number of military checkpoint at the entrances of Al-Bab, Azaz and Afrin cities, amid hectic movements by patrols and militiamen in the region.

 

Yesterday, SOHR sources monitored large armed military columns belonging to Turkish-backed factions, roaming the streets of cities and towns of the north and east Aleppo countryside, along with the announcement by the “National Army” of the “Ministry of Defense” of the “Syrian Interim Government” of a security operation in “Euphrates Shield” and “Olive Branch” areas against “terrorist cells”, according to a statement issued by the Ministry of Defense.

 

A day earlier, SOHR sources said that Turkish-backed factions unleashed a security campaign in Al-Basoutah town, in the wake of the explosion which killed a young man and a girl in a house in the town in Shirawa district in Afrin city, while they were making an IED. The security forces arrested over 25 people, including elderly people, after storming their houses. The arrested people included several relatives of the young man and the girl who were killed in the explosion on Tuesday.