Amnesty global on Tuesday accused the YPG, which has seized swathes of northern Syria from Islamic State this year, of committing war crimes by driving out thousands of non-Kurdish civilians and destroying their homes.
Advertisement
(Recasts adding material from US officials) BEIRUT, October 12 ( Reuters ) – A Kurdish militia that has been fighting Islamic State in Syria with help from U.S.-led air strikes has joined forces with Arab groups in an alliance announced on Monday that may be a prelude to an attack on the jihadists’ base of operations in Raqqa. The report says that YPG troops forced evictions of Arabs and Turkmen residents of the area. While Kurdish authorities have argued that cases of displacement were limited and had occurred only for security reasons, the rights group said it found examples where local populations had not only been displaced, but their homes had been destroyed.
Two days later, on Sunday, USA forces airdropped 112 pallets weighing 50 tons and containing ammunition for M-16s and AK-47s in northern Syria, Fox News learned from an unnamed senior defense official, noting that the move marks the Pentagon’s shift from training the Syrian rebels to equipping them. “They told us we had to leave or they would tell the USA coalition that we were terrorists and their planes would hit us and our families”, a witness told Amnesty. Speaking over Skype, Hamadeh, a Syrian Air Force colonel who defected and now leads the FSA’s 101st division in and around the cities of Idlib, Hama and Aleppo, sought to portray his men as worthy of USA arms because they were fighting both the regime and “its allies in ISIL” – a reference to the opposition’s argument that Assad and ISIL work together to squeeze out the rebels in the middle.
Advertisement
Oh? Does this imply that the YPG had admitted to “forced displacement”? For that, you have actually go to the text of the report, not just the press announcement that journos will use to put their media accounts together. A spokesperson for the Asayish-the police force for the Kurdish Autonomous Administration, which controls parts of Hassakeh and Raqqa provinces-described cases of forced displacement as “isolated incidents”. Elsewhere, for example in Abdi Koy village, a small number of Kurdish residents have also been forcibly displaced by the YPG. While those making the charges are quoted repteadly (and to manipulative background music in the accompanying video). There were no further information available on the outcomes of these strikes. But Amnesty also reported that many residents said their villages had not been the scene of fighting or even close to the front lines. Besides, the watchdog called on the states supporting the Autonomous Administration to “take urgent measures to ensure that the provision of military assistance, including military co-ordination with, the Autonomous Administration is not being misused to commit violations of global humanitarian law”.
