Beirut: In an early-morning attack in the northern Syrian town of Afrin on Monday, Syrian Kurdish fighters killed at least five members of the Syrian opposition forces supported by Turkey.

The PKK, an outlawed organisation, carried out a deadly attack on Turkish soldiers on Sunday in northern Iraq, according to the Turkish Defence Ministry. In the hospital, one of the wounded soldiers passed away.

The latest act of violence between Turkiye and Turkish-backed groups and Kurdish fighters in Syria and Iraq comes after months of escalation. 

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According to Ankara, the main Syrian Kurdish militia is associated with the banned Kurdish organisation. Tens of thousands of people have been killed since 1984 as a result of the PKK's insurgency against Turkiye.

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The Afrin Liberation Forces, a Kurdish group allied with the People's Protection Units (YPG), the main Kurdish militia in Syria, carried out the attack on Monday, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based watchdog with a network of observers in Syria. Numerous attacks on Syrian fighters supported by Turkey have been claimed by the group.

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According to Syrian opposition activist Taher Al-Omar, five members of the Failaq Al-Sham faction, which is supported by Turkey, were killed in the attack, which took place about 20 km south of Afrin. 

After a military operation supported by Turkiye that drove thousands of Kurdish residents and Syrian Kurdish fighters from the region, Turkiye and its allied Syrian opposition fighters have controlled Afrin since 2018. Since then, the town and its neighbouring villages have been the target of a number of attacks on Turkish and Turkiys-supported targets.