In the late night of Monday, April 18, 2022, an armed group affiliated with the Democratic Union Party (PYD) set fire to the headquarters of the Kurdish National Council in the city of Derik and the office of the Kurdistan Democratic Party – Syria in the city of Derbesiya after breaking doors and windows, and throwing Molotov cocktails at them. These armed groups burned this office again on Tuesday, April 19, also on Wednesday night, which led to burning it completely and causing severe material damage, and this intimidating behavior endangered the lives of citizens of the two areas.
In addition, more than ten PYD gunmen raided the office of the Kurdistan Democratic Party – Syria in the city of Hasaka on Tuesday evening, April 19, 2022, and intimidate party members and guests in the office. They were taken out at gunpoint before they set fire to the entire office with Molotov cocktails. Several attempts were also made to burn the office of the Kurdistan Yekiti Party – Syria in Amuda on Wednesday night, but they were not successful. They also tried to burn the council office in Terba Sabi.
These terrorist acts were preceded by incendiary marches in all Kurdish cities and towns, bearing slogans of treason against the Kurdish symbols, the KDP – Iraq, the KNC and the Peshmerga forces, with the aim of dragging the region into sedition and internal fighting.
Not only did PYD militants burn the offices, but they also abused the sanctities and symbols of our people, and burned the Kurdish flag in an aggressive act that contradicts Kurdish values and morals, which confirms that this system targets our people and works to undermine their legitimate cause as an authentic people living on a land… historical land.
The continuation of a series of massive violations against our people and the KNC and its supporters by the militants of the (PYD) will have catastrophic consequences for the region in general, and contribute to the emigration of the rest of our people in light of the crazy rise in prices and the loss of safety and the spread of theft cases and the increase in the crime rate as a result of the chaos security in the area.
The policy of intimidation practiced by the PYD against our people, and the burning of the offices of the KNC and its parties, is taking place before the eyes of the international coalition and the United States of America militarily supporting these forces that use violence against us. The American side to exert sufficient pressure on the leadership of the Syrian Democratic Forces to stop these violations and collapse the entire office burning file.
The Kurdish National Council in Syria condemns and denounces in the strongest terms these terrorist acts and holds the de facto authorities (PYD) and its military wing, the Syrian Democratic Forces, fully responsible for the dangerous situation in the region in the future.
General Secretariat, The Kurdish National Council in Syria, April 20 2022
Comment: The world hasn’t stopped spinning just because Russia invaded Ukraine. The Atlantic Council article linked below by Rena Netjes and Lars Hauch fleshes out the convoluted relationship between the Rojava Kurds of Northern Syria and the Kurds of Northern Iraq. I knew there was a big difference. This just confirms it. There’s a lot of animosity here. Maybe we think we’re helping, but I have my doubts. We did good sending a few SF teams to work with the YPG early on. We should have left it at that. Now I think we’re in over our head and comprehension. Better to let the Russian Reconciliation Center have a go at it. They have a good track record. Maybe it’s because they have no emotional investment in any of these groups.
TTG
How is it that “we did good sending a few SF teams” into a sovereign nation without the permission of the government? I don’t get why it is that we have the right to send our troops into any nation on earth if it suits us.
Much better: We did good by calling all our troops back home to kill or repel every last alien parasite and job thief approaching our border.
Richard Ong,
A part of a sovereign nation that was over run by ISIS jihadis at the time. If you’re waiting for me to feel bad about killing jihadis, you’re going to have a long wait.
Operation Timber Sycamore was the US operation to arm, train, and support those jihadis who were aiding “us” in “our” efforts to effect the death or removal of Assad and the destruction of the only legitimate military force against those jigadis – the SAA.
Your position therefore is that having waged war on the sovereign nation of Syria the US is therefore entitled in its absolute discretion to directly intervene to, supposedly, fight the very forces we were preventing the SAA from destroying. All contrary to the UN Charter and the Constitution.
So, what is the legal basis for the presence of one US soldier in Syria at any time? I assure you that ”because some American thinks it’s a good idea” is not an adequate answer.
Richard Ong,
Timber Sycamore was naive and shortsighted. Those moderate jihadis were a myth we created to fool ourselves. I agree that there was (is) no legitimate justification for implementing that policy.
The Rojava Kurds are not jihadis in any form. They were instrumental in destroying the ISIS caliphate and we helped them do that. We were assisting Syrians (the Rojava Kurds) to rid themselves of the jihadi invaders of their lands. IMO it was a good and righteous thing that we did. But our continued presence there now is counterproductive. We should leave.
Amen to that.
It is Turkey’s divide-and-conquer strategy against the Kurds. Erdogan has been occupying northern Iraq like he did in Syria in Idlib, Afrin, northern Aleppo, and the TellAbyad-RasAlAyn Strip. He occupies a baker’s dozen of TAF military bases within KDP territory in northern Iraq. The Pesh Merga are not strong enough to kick him out, just as Assad’s Armed Forces have not been able to kick him out of Syria. And the Baghdad government appears to acquiesce to Turkish occupation of their country also, probably at the urging of Iran.
Erdogan has been bombing and shelling PKK guerrilla hideouts in the mountains there for years. But just recently the TAF has been mounting commando raids. Supposedly some of those raids were guided by KDP locals or maybe given a greenlight by KDP authorities in Erbil. I don’t know whether that is true or not, but apparently some in the PYD believe it, hence the firebombs. IMHO the PYD, KDP, Damascus, and Baghdad need to work together against Erdogan, the common enemy of all of them.
The KDP that runs the Kurdish region of Iraq is the party of the Barzanis. Not the Kurds. The Barzanis have a long history of massacring non-Barzani Kurds. Much corruption.
ENKS is a KDP fledgling, truly traitors in the eyes of the Kurds in Syria.
Its opposite, the PUK is the Talabani party, secular and anti-feudal and a loyal and moderate supporter of the PKK.
Jalal Talabani was president of Iraq from 2005 to 2014. His US interlocutors praised his statesmanship.
Your last wish is impossible. Another good starting point would be the withdrawal of the Turks from Syria and Iraq, which is also impossible, as the hatred towards the Kurds is so strong north of the border. As long as Turkey is not democratized and cooled down, none of this is possible. The Turkish economy is in turmoil. It could not even help the pacification of Syria.
Do not forget that Isis is still alive.
I don’t understand this. It seems that there will not be a prosperous future in that overall region until several large and powerful counties bring a pax romana to it. And better if those powers could develop an understanding among themselves. What would that look like? Perhaps: Turkic peoples and Turkey, Persians and Iran, Arabs and ?? UAE, Egypt.. And in light of that, Turkey is our allie, even though they have their own sensibilities. I would think that it is in our (USA) interest to have working relationships with all of the greater powers. I think the post WWI & II era is just over and we need to think of a better future.
“And better if those powers [:pax romana] could develop an understanding among themselves.”
Pious hopes or whishfull thinking for the antagonisms are thousands of years old.
Think that the Yezidis are in their 73rd attempt of massacre. The last one (December 2014) saw about 6000 dead, all men, and 6000 abducted women and girls.
The immediate perpetrators are known (Isis), those responsible for the order (‘Firman’) are housed in government palaces.
The issue is quite similar to the one between Palestinians and Israel. The Kurds, Christians and others under the Kurdish wing are the Palestinians. The comparison is not entirely valid, but it gives an idea of the powerlessness of the great powers.
D74 –
I’m sure you are right that it is impossible for the four parties to get together against Erdogan’s aggression.
But Barzani did help the YPG during the siege of Kobani back in 2014. He sent a company sized unit of Pesh with artillery and other heavy weapons and ammo to back up the defenders.
Plus I note that Turkey claims Assad is secretively supporting the YPG. Could be, as his father Hafez allowed the PKK to use Syrian training camps, and used them fight the Israelis during the 1982 War in Lebanon. But even if Assad himself is not now supporting the YPG, there are other non-Kurds in Syria that do support them. Including many in the Syrian Christian community, which does enjoy the backing and support of Assad. There was cooperation between Kurdish units in the Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood and the SAA during the Battle of Aleppo City. And some Syrian Shiite militias, with Assad’s blessing, did try to help the Kurds in 2018 during the 2018 Turkish invasion of Afrin province.
Just a few days ago the HRE Afrin Liberation Forces, a branch of the PYD, used ATGMs against Turkish MRAPs in occupied Marea and al-Bab. They claim to have killed ten Turkish special operations police and one of the Erdogan-backed jihadi mercenaries. Someone is backing the HRE there, and American troops have not been in that area for years.
I admit that I am pessimistic, perhaps too much so. And then, morally, I support the Kurds in Syria. Their evolution since the abandonment of Marxism-Leninism seems to me positive. They are realistic and combative guys and girls.
By Kurds I mean all those who have put themselves under their protection: 5 variants of Christians, Yezidies, Arab Muslims and even Chechens, deported here by the Turkish empire in the 19th century following the Caucasian wars with the Russian empire. They all live in peace under the Kurdish umbrella with their own faith and language.
An exception: the Aramaic people of Qamishli and its surroundings have long oscillated between the Kurds and the Syrian authorities.
While in Qamishli: the city was founded by the French Engineers in 1926 to collect the survivors of the Aramaic genocide. In the beginning it was just a muddy tent city with a train station.
Your examples, of which I am aware, show this calamity of the divided Middle East: “Friend one day, enemy the next”. All these moves of political tactics have no sincerity. It is just a matter of using others and getting rid of them when it suits. Lemon squeezed, seeds thrown out.
D74 –
I’m also an admirer of the Kurds and the other groups in the SDF in Syria. May they one day get the civil rights they are asking for.
I was aware of at least three Christian denominations working with the Syrian Kurds: Armenians, Assyrian Orthodox, & Assyrian Catholics. Who are the other two you mention?
I had read somewhere that much anti-Kurdish sentiment in Qamishli was because of the 2004(?) soccer riots. When Kurds there reacted to the taunts by out-of-town Sunnis about Saddam Hussein’s use of mustard and nerve gas on Kurd civilians in Halabja, and other atrocities leading to the death of over 100,000 Kurds, Assyrians, Yazidis and other groups.