On the morning of Wednesday, November 12, 2025, in the al-Ashrafiya neighborhood of Afrin city in the northern countryside of Aleppo, the settler Hassan Mohammed al-Afash, originally from Deir ez-Zor province, was shot in the head by unidentified armed individuals using silencers. He was transferred to Dersim Hospital and then to hospitals in Azaz, where he died of his injuries.
The victim had previously published videos on social media in which he directed insults and obscene language toward Kurds, Alawites, and Druze, which sparked wide controversy and a wave of public anger.
Local sources suggested that Turkish intelligence was behind the operation, aiming to blame the Kurdish community and incite ethnic strife.
In connection with the incident, on the same evening, General Security forces arrested ten Kurdish youths from the neighborhoods of al-Ashrafiya, al-Ziyadiya, and Old Afrin—those who had recently returned after being forcibly displaced in 2018. All detainees were released except for Abu Nuri Khlo, who remains under arbitrary detention.
