#rojava: news

**warning: graphic content update as of october 9th, 2019

donald trump has withdrawn american forces from rojava, enabling turkey to launch its military offensive on rojava

hundreds of civilians are now fleeing the area

heavy shelling in serekaniye has been reported

the SDF has reported that dozens of civilians have been injured as a result of the shelling and at least five are dead

Over the weekend, Genocide Watch released the following Genocide Warning for Kurds in Turkey, Syria and Iraq. A Genocide Warning is called when a genocidal process is under way, often indicated by genocidal massacres, with the imminent danger of root and branch destruction.

Kurds are at risk for large-scale genocide by the regional powers of Iran, Iraq, Turkey, and Syria, all of which have sizable Kurdish minority populations. Currently the largest threat comes from Turkey. On January 20, 2018 Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan launched cross-border military operations into northwestern Syria with the code name “Operation Olive Branch,” The mission aimed to oust Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units (or YPG) from the district of Afrin. Turkey considers the YPG to be an extension of the Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK), which has been waging an insurgency within Turkey on and off since 1984 in the name of greater rights and regional autonomy. The YPG denies being an extension of the PKK and has been allied with the United States (among other countries) in the fight against the Islamic State/Da'esh since 2014.

The Turkish Armed Forces have conducted Operation Olive Branch with little apparent concern for the laws of war, dropping bombs and shelling towns indiscriminately. Hundreds of civilians around Afrin, including religious minorities displaced by the Syrian War and by Da'esh, have been killed. There is evidence that suggests that Turkish forces may have intentionally targeted civilians.

The Turkish government and media have characterized the YPG as a “terrorist organization,” casting its invasion of Syria as an anti-terror operation. It has also referred to its aggression against its southern neighbor as “jihad,” echoing language used by ISIS and other extremist groups. The term “terrorist” is used in Turkey as a catch-all phrase to dehumanize opponents and legitimize the suppression of human rights and freedoms. Since the attempted coup of 2015, the Turkish government has dismissed thousands of civil servants and jailed hundreds of teachers, professors, journalists, politicians, human rights workers and other cultural leaders for being suspected supporters of “the opposition.” Many of these detainees have been charged with terrorism. The term “terrorist” has also been used to justify military-style violence against the Kurdish minority populations in the country’s South East, where the PKK presence is strong. The Afrin operation is not unlike “anti-terror” operations conducted in South East Turkey since 2015, where, in towns like Cizre, Turkish security forces have displaced much of the population, imposed harsh curfews (sometime lasting twenty-four hours a day for weeks and even months), cut off water and electricity supplies, killed dozens of civilians, destroyed cultural institutions (including mosques), desecrated cemeteries, and laid waste to homes by defecating on furniture and bedding, destroying cooking implements, and killing domestic and farm animals. Soldiers have also written racist slogans on buildings and have hung the Turkish flag from windows. In Cizre – as in Afrin – the bodies of killed female fighters have been mutilated, videotaped, and shared widely on social media. These life force atrocities are strongly suggestive of genocidal intent.

Kurds have accused Turkish-backed rebels of mutilating then filming the body of one of their female fighters after a video emerged of her corpse.

Turkey and allied Syrian rebels have pressed an offensive since 20 January against the Kurdish enclave of Afrin in northern Syria, whose Kurdish fighters Ankara views as terrorists.

A Kurdish official identified the woman as Barin Kobani, who took part in a US-backed campaign to drive the Islamic State jihadist group from the northern town of Kobani.

The Kurds blamed the “terrorist allies of the enemy Turkish state” for mutilating the body of Kobani, who was a member of the all-female Kurdish Women’s Protection Units.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group based in Britain, said it received the video from a Syrian rebel fighting with Turkish forces in the Afrin offensive.

The rebel told the group the footage was filmed on Tuesday after rebels found the young woman’s corpse in the village of Qurna near the Turkish border in the north of the enclave. In the footage, a dozen men, some armed, gather around the badly mutilated body of a woman lying on the ground.

The Kurdish community reacted with outrage, and social media users shared a portrait of Kobani smiling next to another shot of her brutalised body.

“Barin did not surrender. She fought to the death,” said Amad Kandal, an official with the Women’s Protection Units, vowing to avenge her comrade’s brutal murder. “This kind of behaviour will only serve to reinforce our determination to resist until victory.”

Afrin residents say Syrian ‘curse’ has arrived as war hits Kurdish enclave Male and female YPG fighters have taken part in the battle by the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to expel Isis from large parts of Syria.

An SDF spokesman, Mustefa Bali, said the video was reason to continue fighting back against Turkey and its allies. “Imagine the savagery of these invaders with the bodies of our daughters. How would they behave if they took control of our neighbourhoods?” he wrote on Facebook. “All this hatred and barbarity leaves us with a single option: to continue the resistance.”

january 28th - 8th day of attacks on efrîn

the attacks on civilians, ypg, ypj, and efrîn have entered their 8th day

erdogan has said in statement that “operation olive branch will continue until it reaches its goals. we will rid manbij of terrorists, as it was promised to us, and our battles will continue until no terrorist is left until our border with iraq.“

turkey has also urged the US to withdraw their forces from manbij. “the US must cut all ties with the terrorist group. it needs to make [kurdish forces] lay down arms. it needs to take back all the weapons it gave them. it has to withdraw from manbij immediately,” said mevlut cavusoglu, turkey’s minister of foreign affairs

the SDF has released stats for the week.

according to the SDF, the turkish army has fired 699 mortars and arillery shots and has laucnhed 191 aerial raids on efrîn and other nearby regions

136 clashes between the two armed factions have also been reported

the SDF claims to have killed 308 turkish soldiers and their allies, while 43 SDF fighters were killed, including 8 YPJ fighters

59 civilian casulties, as well as 134 injuries have been confirmed as well

Saleh Muslim, a former co-chair of the main Kurdish movement in Rojava, the Democratic Union Party (PYD), was reportedly arrested on Saturday.

Turkey issued an arrest warrant for him over a year ago and is now likely to seek his extradition.

Ankara views him as a terrorist and had offered $1 million (£715,000) for his arrest.

News of his arrest was reported by Kurdish political parties, and Czech police confirmed he was being held to the AFP news agency.

The Turkish government regards the PYD as an offshoot of the armed PKK group. It sees the PYD and its associated militia, the YPG, as terrorists.