11 killed as #Syria rebels, Kurds clash

Eleven rebels have been killed in clashes in northern Syria with Kurdish rebels of the main Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Sunday.

“Fighting last night [Saturday] in the Afrin region between PYD armed wing the People’s Protection Committees (YPG) and rebels left 11 dead and 20 wounded” among rebel forces, the Britain-based watchdog said.

It also reported clashes in the same area of Aleppo province several days previously at a checkpoint installed by rebel forces south of the town of Kubani, without saying whether there were any casualties.

Since the beginning of Syria’s uprising more than two years ago, the Kurds, who make up about 15 percent of the population, have tried to stay out of the fighting, stopping both rebel and regime forces from entering their areas.

However in some areas, such as the Sheikh Maqsud district of Aleppo city, rebels and Kurdish groups have joined together to fight forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

AFP - 05/26/2013

Syria Kurd women set up battalion - #Syria

Around 150 Kurdish women in the war-wracked northern Syrian province of Aleppo have set up a fighting battalion, a monitoring group said on Saturday.

“The Kurdish popular committees have set up the first women’s battalion, comprising some 150 women fighters. The battalion is named the Martyr Rokan Battalion,” said the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

“While women are now fighting alongside the rebels, pro-regime forces and Kurdish militia, this is the first women’s battalion as such,” said Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman.

The Observatory circulated an amateur photograph of the battalion, showing scores of members in military fatigues, standing in rows before their female leadership.

“Women are now playing a major role in the fighting in Syria,” Abdel Rahman told AFP.

The women’s battalion was announced in Ifrin, the scene in late 2012 of violence pitting Kurdish fighters against Arab rebels fighting the regime of President Bashar al-Assad.

Assad’s troops pulled out from majority Kurdish areas in 2012, and while Kurds have been split over the anti-regime revolt in Syria, most have chosen to remain neutral in the conflict.

An agreement in Ras al-Ain on the Turkish border last week brought an end to fighting between Kurds and Islamist rebels, though some activists have described the agreement brokered by a prominent Christian dissident as fragile.

The announcement of the Kurdish women’s battalion comes a month after pro-regime forces set up the National Defense Forces, a paramilitary unit in which women of all ages have been asked to volunteer.

Anti-regime activists have also distributed images of women fighters joining rebel ranks.

“Women are fighting on all the fronts now, though it’s possibly the Islamist rebel ranks that have the fewest women taking part in them,” the Observatory’s Abdel Rahman said.

A female activist in the coastal province of Latakia told AFP via the Internet that women often transport weapons and supplies for rebels as they are less likely to be searched at army and security checkpoints.

Source: afp.com

7 Nov 2012 #Syria : Syrian Kurds residing in Iraq long for a solution

A picture taken from behind a fence shows Iraqi Kurdish fans holding a Kurdistan flag bearing a slogan as an Iraqi national flag flies during the AFC Cup final football match between Arbil club and Kuwait SC in the Iraqi city of Arbil on November 3, 2012. (AFP PHOTO/SAFIN HAMED)A picture taken from behind a fence shows Iraqi Kurdish fans holding a Kurdistan flag bearing a slogan as an Iraqi national flag flies during the AFC Cup final football match between Arbil club and Kuwait SC in the Iraqi city of Arbil on November 3, 2012. (AFP PHOTO/SAFIN HAMED)

CAMP DOMIZ, Iraq: Key rings and umbrellas in the colors of the Kurdish flag are on sale at a refugee camp in Iraqi Kurdistan, where thousands of Syrian Kurds who have fled war at home are enjoying the freedom to flaunt their ethnic identity like never before.

Long-oppressed, Syria’s Kurds see the conflict ravaging their country as an opportunity to win the kind of liberty enjoyed by their ethnic kin in Iraq who live autonomously from the federal capital in Baghdad.

The war between forces loyal to President Bashar Assad and rebel fighters has so far driven some 30,000 Syrian Kurds over the border to Camp Domiz, where breeze-blocks are gradually replacing canvas as residents hunker down for winter and beyond.

A further 200-300 people are arriving each day, according to international disaster relief charity ShelterBox, which is helping put up tents.

Despite being displaced, many of the camp’s occupants draw comfort from being in a country where they can at least speak their own language and fly the Kurdish flag without fear of reprisal.

“Even if we didn’t have bread and water we’d be at ease here because we’re at home with our leader Massoud Barzani. Dirt turns to gold in his hands,” said Naja Hussein Omar, praising the leader of Iraqi Kurdistan, whose image hangs on walls around the camp.

“We want an independent state like any other. Where is our state?”

Divided between Syria, Iraq, Turkey and Iran, the Kurdish people number more than 20 million and are often described as the world’s largest ethnic group without a state.

In Syria they make up about 10 percent of the population – the country’s largest ethnic minority.

At the camp, posters advertise a concert to raise money for the people of “Western Kurdistan” – the name Kurds use to refer to the area of Syria they claim as their own.

“God willing we will get another Kurdistan in Syria, and God willing in Turkey as well,” said Ibrahim Abdel-Aziz Ali, who fled his hometown of Hassakeh several months ago after being drafted into the army.

Not everyone is so sure.

Umran Mohammad said all he and other Kurds of his generation sought was equal rights within a united Syria.

“Our country is Syria. We don’t want another Kurdistan,” he said, sitting at a table in the cafe he runs out of a blue shelter made from tarpaulin. “The president can be Kurdish or Alawite or Arab or whatever, as long as it’s through elections.”

If Assad falls, the Kurdish quest for self-rule is unlikely to be smooth.

Already, tensions between two main Syrian Kurdish groups, the Kurdish National Council and the Democratic Union Party (PYD), have at times threatened to degenerate into intra-Kurdish conflict.

Earlier this year, Barzani brought them together in Irbil, the capital of Iraqi Kurdistan, where they signed a pact to form a joint council, presenting a united front for Kurdish interests in Syria.

But the KNC has repeatedly accused the PYD of failing to keep its side of the bargain, saying its People’s Defense Units militia continue to set up checkpoints and impose their agenda by force.

The KNC was forged from more than a dozen smaller Syrian Kurdish parties, with Barzani’s blessing, and is broadly accepted by the political mainstream, unlike the PYD, which is seen as tied to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party or PKK.

The PYD says it has nothing more than ideological affinity with the PKK, which has fought a 28-year separatist conflict in Turkey that has claimed more than 40,000 lives. But Syrian Kurds at the camp use the two acronyms interchangeably.

“There are loads of PKK people here but they don’t dare say ‘I am PKK,’” said 24-year-old Zenar Ali Abd, who left the Syrian district of Malikiya because he faced army conscription.

Source: dailystar.com.lb

Assad ordered killing of Kurdish activist Mashaal Tammo: Leaked files

10/10/12

The Syrian regime sought to “neutralize” Turkey by killing Kurdish activist Mashaal Tammo, leaked files revealed. (Al Arabiya)

To view the Al Arabiya video please click on link below
http://english.alarabiya.net/articles/2012/10/10/242928.html

Prominent Syrian Kurdish politician and activist Mashaal Tammo was murdered on Oct. 7, 2011 with direct orders from President Bashar al-Assad, leaked files aired by Al Arabiya on Wednesday revealed.

Four gunmen broke into the home of Tammo, a vocal critic of President Assad, in the eastern city of Qamishli, killing him and wounding his son Marcel and a fellow activist in the liberal Kurdish Future Movement Party, which Tammou had founded in 2005.

A leaked file with the subject line “operational order” signed on Oct. 3, 2011 was issued by Col. Saqr Mannoun, upon a request from the presidential palace, and was sent to Col. Jawdat Hasan, of the air force intelligence division. Col. Hasan was ordered to travel immediately to the province of Hasaka, execute Tammo and then return back immediately.

Tammo was a member of the opposition Syrian National Council (SNC) and had been released recently after spending three and a half years in prison.


A Syrian intelligence “operational order” to dispatch an agent to the province of Hasaka and kill Kurdish activists Mashaal Tammo. (Al Arabiya)

Tammo’s killing sparked indignation at home and abroad. More than 50,000 people rallied in his funeral, on which government forces opened fire, killing five people

The United States condemned Tammo’s killing as a “clear escalation of regime tactics.” France said it was “shocked” by the news of Tammo’s assassination.

Eman Eddin al-Rasheed, head of the Political Bureau in the Syrian National Rally, told Al Arabiya that there were previously two failed attempts to assassinate the Tammo and that his fellow Future Movement Party members were pressing him to leave Syria. Al-Rasheed said that he personally spoke to Tammo on Thursday, Oct. 6, 2011 and asked him to leave the country. Tammo responded that he would just attend protests on the following day, Friday, and leave, according Rasheed.

“I called him on Friday morning, before prayers, and stressed that he had to leave on time. He said I am ready to leave on time as agreed. At 2 p.m. I was informed that he was martyred,” Rasheed said.

A document stamped “top secret” and undated, for apparently security reasons, was sent to President Bashar al-Assad from Col. Saqr Mannoun. The document confirms the assassination of Tammo based a presidential order dated Sept. 22, 2011.


A file that was sent to President Assad confirms the killing of Mashaal Tammo and points to a desire to “neutralize” Turkey. (Al Arabiya)

Information was received about the whereabouts of Kurdish activist Mashaal Temmo, who is considered a source of concern for the Turkish government. That day, information received indicated the presence of Temmo, his son Marcel, and Kurdish activist Zahida Rashkilio at an anti-Assad meeting. Following a direct order from Brigadier Jamil Hassan, head of the Air Force Intelligence Service, the house where the meeting was taking place in al-Qamishli was stormed and all that were present were eliminated,” the document stated.

The file reveals clues of why Tammo was targeted. The document pointed to “an operation that will put the Turkish leadership in a neutral and cooperative position with regards to the crisis in Syria.”

Turkey has fighting Kurdish separatists for decades and the killing of a Kurdish leader, from Damascus’s view as shown in the file, would be welcome by Ankara.

*Syrian Assistance can not independently verify the accuracy of the statements made of authenticity of the documents!

Source: english.alarabiya.net

Fighting and Chaos Spread Through #Syrian City, as Services Vanish

02/10/12


A Free Syrian Army fighter during clashes with forces loyal to President Bashar al-Assad in Aleppo, the nation’s largest city.

By ANBEIRUT, Lebanon — Chaos continued to spread in Syria’s largest city, Aleppo, on Monday, as rebels attacked the towering municipality building with rockets, sending civil servants fleeing from one of the few government buildings still functioning as dozens of soldiers worked to defend the city center. NE BARNARD

“We don’t want to hurt the employees, but we want them not to come to work or they will be killed,” Sa’id Abu Abdo, 25, an armed insurgent, said in Aleppo after the attack. “We will liberate each building in the city.”

In a city that was once considered a bastion of support for President Bashar al-Assad, and for a time was spared armed conflict, two months of pitched battles have taken a heavy toll, disrupting the city and threatening to open new rifts among ethnic groups that have long coexisted there.

Compared to six weeks ago, the contrast observed on Monday was striking. Municipal services have collapsed in many areas, and Christian, Kurdish and wealthy Sunni Muslim neighborhoods that had felt secure when fighting began have been the site of clashes once limited to the poorer Sunni areas. In one Aleppo neighborhood, corpses lay uncollected, gnawed by cats and dogs, and piles of garbage attracted clouds of black flies.

Most of the city’s malls and many health centers in anti government neighborhoods were closed. Even police stations appeared abandoned; the force draws mostly from rural and working-class areas where support for the uprising is strong. Some residents reported that their neighborhoods had been without drinking water or electricity for weeks.

Some Christians, historically a vital part of Aleppo’s bustling ethnic mix, have taken up arms to guard their neighborhoods and churches. Many of Syria’s minority communities have either sided with President Assad, fearing his fall would leave them vulnerable to the Sunni-led opposition, or stayed out of the conflict because they did not trust either side. One man patrolling his largely Christian neighborhood with a Kalashnikov rifle said the government was arming Armenian Christians in what he called an attempt to draw them into the conflict.

“Today it is clear for us that the Muslims from the countryside want to destroy our city,” he said. “They have nothing to lose.”

He identified himself as Gano, an Armenian member of what he called a popular committee recently organized to defend the neighborhood, Aziziyah, which was sheltering refugees from other Christian neighborhoods where fighting had broken out.

But he said he mistrusted the government, which he said was trying to revive an armed Armenian group it had once supported against Turkey.

“No way, because we will be a legitimate target for the Muslim rebels,” he said. “The regime wants to use us. We want to live in peace or leave. We are a minority in this country and cannot face the Muslim majority.”

As the fighting raged across the city Monday,11 people were killed and 20 wounded when a shell fell on the Othman Bin Matghoon Mosque in the neighborhood of Masaken Hnano during dawn prayers, the Local Coordinating Committees, an anti-Assad group, said. The Syrian state news service said that government forces had retaken control of two rebel neighborhoods and quoted residents as saying they “stressed their rejection of all acts of terrorism and sabotage committed by the mercenary terrorists,” its shorthand for rebels.

The road from Damascus to Aleppo was crowded on Saturday with government troops headed for the city.

In a city that has been a commercial hub for millenniums, business seemed to have almost halted; shopping malls were closed, and the few open shops were selling bread for five times its normal price.

In the city’s medieval center, much of the old marketplace lay in smoking ruins on Monday. Heavy, ancient stone walls had collapsed.

Nearby, the 12th-century citadel at the heart of the old city appeared to be damaged, its heavy wooden door pockmarked with bullets and a few stones broken from its gate. Government soldiers had taken up positions there, as well as in the old city’s Umayyad Mosque, where snipers could be seen on the minaret.

Even residents who supported the uprising appeared dejected about the damage to the city, where traces of fire and ash littered the old city and smoke lingered from a blaze the day before in the paint and chemical supply shops of Bab al-Nasr.

“It is a very sad city — it has been sad for the past few months,” said an anti-Assad activist who gave his name as Mohammed.

Abu Mahmoud, a wealthy, white-bearded garment merchant, exuded sadness even inside his well-appointed, undamaged home. He said he was on the verge of fleeing to Turkey, where his sons had opened a small clothing business.

“The rebels came to liberate the city,” he said. “But we got destruction, not freedom. The Assad forces don’t care about the stones or the people. The regime is ready to destroy each house, each shop and each building to keep the power for the Assad family.”

Source: The New York Times

Kurdish violence undermines Turkey’s stance on #Syria

19/09/12

Wed, 19 Sep 2012 15:26 GMT

Source: reuters // Reuters

By Nick Tattersall

ANKARA, Sept 19 (Reuters) - An explosion of separatist violence in Turkey’s Kurdish southeast is fuelling criticism of the government’s bellicose rhetoric on Syria and dampening what little public appetite there is for intervention in its crisis-torn neighbour.

Prime Minister Tayyip Erdogan has been one of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s harshest critics, accusing him of creating a “terrorist state”, allowing the Syrian opposition to organise on Turkish soil, and pushing for a foreign-protected safe zone inside Syria.

Washington sees Turkey as the key player both in supporting Syria’s opposition and in planning for what U.S. officials say is the inevitable collapse of the Assad government.

But with soldiers engaged in some of the heaviest fighting in more than a decade with Kurdish militants in the mountainous southeast, public sentiment is swinging against deeper Turkish involvement in Syria. A televised procession of military funerals has turned the focus of national feeling inward.

“I think the Turkish people have now made the connection, rightly or wrong, between the government’s ambitiously assertive policy on Syria and the rise in PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party) terrorism,” said Sinan Ulgen, a former Turkish diplomat and chairman of the Centre for Economic and Foreign Policy Studies think-tank.

“It is very clear that it is going to be even more unpopular going forward if the government continues to scale up the rhetoric (on Syria) at a time when, egregiously in a way, it is unable to deal with Turkey’s own security problems.”

Militants from the PKK - considered a terrorist organisation by Ankara, the United States and European Union - have ambushed military convoys, kidnapped government officials and laid roadside bombs in recent weeks.

The military has responded by bombarding PKK camps with fighter jets and attack helicopters, in some of the heaviest fighting since the PKK took up arms in 1984 with the aim of carving out a Kurdish state.

Turkish analysts suspect Assad of allowing a major Syrian Kurdish movement believed to be linked to the PKK to seize control of security in some towns in northern Syria to prevent locals from joining the rebel Free Syrian Army.

Assad has denied allowing the PKK to operate on Syrian soil.

“The Syrian administration has a history of supporting terrorist organisations, including the PKK, and using terrorism as a tool for its politics and diplomacy,” a Turkish foreign ministry official said on condition of anonymity.

“We have some information or evidence that an active link has been re-established,” the official said, declining to comment further.

Ankara has warned it could take military action if the PKK were to launch attacks from Syrian soil and has conducted military exercises on the border in a clear warning to Damascus.

But the idea of sending Turkish troops into majority Kurdish northern Syria, even under any sort of international mandate, would risk inflaming public sentiment further while Turkey battles to contain the PKK on its own soil.

“The current terrorism in Turkey is heavily influenced by the government’s Syria, Iraq and Iran policies,” Faruk Logoglu, vice chairman of the main opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), told Reuters.

“Both its domestic policies and foreign policies are contributing to the escalation in violence.”

POSTURING

Erdogan’s ruling AK Party enjoys wide popularity and public demonstrations of anger over its Syria policy have been rare. But frustrations are growing, not least in the southern border province of Hatay, which has absorbed a large proportion of the 80,000 Syrian refugees who have fled to Turkey.

Riot police fired teargas to disperse hundreds of demonstrators protesting the government’s Syria policies in the provincial capital Antakya on Sunday. Several dozen more chanted slogans against U.S. policy in Syria outside the U.S. Embassy in Ankara the same day.

Erdogan has called on domestic media to limit their coverage of PKK attacks on soldiers. Turkish TV networks barely mentioned an ambush on Tuesday in which 10 troops were killed, though several newspapers carried pictures.

A cartoon in Wednesday’s opposition Cumhuriyet newspaper showed Erdogan reading a blank newspaper and commenting: “There’s no news or analysis, just as I wanted it.”

Ankara has repeatedly denied it is supplying any weapons to Syria’s rebels, but countries including Saudi Arabia and Qatar have been directing vital military and communications aid to them through Turkey, Gulf sources have said.

The lack of international consensus on Syria has further piqued public sentiment, fuelling a sense that Turkey, increasingly isolated, is being used by Western powers eager to see Assad’s regime fall but reluctant to intervene themselves.

“The Turkish government doesn’t have its own policy in Syria, Western countries do, and the AK Party acts like their spare wheel,” said Ilker Yucel, president of the Turkish Youth Association, who took part in the demonstration in Antakya.

Taken together, rising public scepticism at home and a lack of consensus abroad could lead the Turkish government to tone down its rhetoric on Syria, Ulgen said.

“The combination of these two elements would certainly militate for a change in posturing on the Turkish side, but so far we have not seen signs of this  I think there is mounting pressure for the government to scale down its ambitions.”

“UNCOMFORTABLE POSITION”

Erdogan has been passionate in defending his stance.

“We are a country with a 910 kilometre common border, connected by relatives. For Syria, we are not the USA, nor are we England, nor Iran, nor Russia. A country in Asia can remain indifferent over Syria but Turkey does not have this luxury,” he told an AK Party meeting this month.

“While Syria is boiling and exposed to brutal killings, we could not, and did not, turn our backs.”

The stance is damaging fragile relations with Iran and Iraq.

Some fear it could also fan sectarian tensions in Sunni Muslim Turkey, which has Alawite and other minorities.

Syria’s mainly Sunni Muslim rebels are supported by Gulf Arab states in their struggle to topple Assad, whose minority Alawite faith is an offshoot of Shi’ite Islam. Shi’ite Iran has been Assad’s staunchest ally.

“Turkey finds itself in the uncomfortable position of taking sides with Sunnis. We have to take ourselves back from this perception,” one source close to the government told Reuters recently, saying the international community had underestimated the extent of Assad’s support.

“Alawites, Christians, Kurds are supporting him not because they love him but because they see the alternative as chaos.”

Source: trust.org

Turkey facing questions on #Syria policy

08/09/12


Syrian refugees flock to Turkey and Jordan: Tens of thousands of Syrian refugees have spilled across the border into Turkey and Jordan since the 17-month uprising in their homeland began.

By Karin Brulliard, Published: September 7

ANTAKYA, Turkey — Turkey, a rising heavyweight in the Muslim world, has led the international campaign to oust the regime in next-door Syria. But as the fighting drags on, Turkey is complaining that the United States and others have left it abandoned on the front line of a conflict that is bleeding across its border.

With its calls for an international haven for refugees in Syria going nowhere, Turkey is rushing to shelter an influx of about 80,000 Syrians. In the east, Kurdish militants who Turkey alleges are aided by Syria are intensifying deadly attacks. And in this Alawite-heavy border region, a rest and resupply hub for the mainly Sunni Syrian rebels, worries are growing that Syria’s sectarian strife might infect Turkey.

Turkish officials stand behind their Syria policy, and the problems have posed little threat to the moderately Islamist government of Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan or to Turkey’s carefully cultivated popularity in the region. But as opinion polls indicate declining domestic support for the government’s stance, Turkey is finding it has limited room to manage fallout that analysts say it did not anticipate when it turned against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad last year.

“Ankara now realizes that it doesn’t have the power to ­rearrange — forget it in the region, but also not in Syria,” said Gokhan Bacik, director of the Middle East Strategic Research Center at Turkey’s Zirve University. “So Ankara desperately needs American support. But American support is not coming.”

When a U.S. delegation visited late last month, the Turks made the case they had made two weeks earlier to Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, a senior administration official said: They were overwhelmed with Syrians, and they wanted the United States and others to establish safe areas, protected by a no-fly zone, for them inside Syria. Their limit, the Turks warned, was 100,000 refugees.

Clinton, confronted with emotional Turkish pleas, said that a no-fly zone would require major outside military intervention and that the United States did not believe it would help, according to the official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive conversations. But rather than dismiss Turkey’s concerns outright, Clinton called for further bilateral discussions and an “operation and command” structure for the two governments to coordinate their responses to the crisis.

Turkey’s posture toward Assad is the result of an about-face. Before the uprising, Syria was the centerpiece of Turkey’s “zero problems with neighbors” foreign policy, and trade and travel between the countries flourished.

Now Turkey hosts the opposition Syrian National Council and provides a haven to the rebel Free Syrian Army and hundreds of defected Syrian soldiers. On Wednesday, Erdogan called Syria a “terrorist state.” The stance has boosted Turkey’s credibility in the Arab world but complicated its relations with Iran and Russia, which support Assad.

Turkey has constructed a string of 11 refugee camps along its border and is building more for newcomers, who the government says enter at a rate of 4,000 a day. Thousands are packed into public schools and dormitories, and hundreds of Syrians are being treated in Turkish hospitals.

Turkey backtracked on a recent statement that it would close its doors at 100,000 refugees. But Foreign Minister Ahmet Davutoglu, who is facing growing criticism at home, suggested regret last week over the open-door policy.

“There is an increasing sense in Turkey that, through making such a sacrifice and tackling an enormous issue all by itself, we are leading the international community to complacency and inaction,” he said at the United Nations.

The refugee crisis is swelling as Turkish headlines are dominated by deadly battles in the alpine southeast between security forces and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which has waged a separatist insurgency for 28 years. Turkish officials accuse Syria of arming the guerrillas and empowering a PKK offshoot in sections of northeastern Syria along the Turkish border. Last month, Turkish officials blamed the PKK for a bombing that killed nine civilians in the city of Gaziantep.

Turkey is particularly concerned that Syrian missiles could fall into the hands of the PKK, enabling it to attack the helicopters Turkey relies on to fight the insurgents, Bacik said.

Yet even as Turkey condemns Assad, frets about a growing power vacuum in Syria and pleads for international intervention, officials and analysts say the country has no appetite for deploying its military unilaterally to confront Assad or secure a refugee zone.

There is widespread public opposition in Turkey to military action, and analysts say Turkey is wary of jeopardizing its popularity in a region where the legacy of Ottoman rule remains fresh. The Turkish military is ill-prepared for what could be a prolonged, Iraq-style sectarian war, said Henri Barkey, a Turkey expert at Lehigh University in Pennsylvania.

“They realize this is a Pandora’s box, that you go in and God knows how you’re going to come out,” Barkey said.

Barkey said Turkey’s 566-mile border with Syria made the conflict “a no-win situation for the Turks from the beginning.” Turkish commentators and opposition politicians have seized on the issue as a policy failure, and some analysts and U.S. officials said Turkey exacerbated its woes by limiting U.N. involvement in the camps and allowing Sunni rebels and refugees to concentrate in the largely Alawite province of Hatay.

“The government is facing a crisis for which it has no answers, and a public at home that is growing increasingly uneasy over this,” Semih Idiz, a foreign policy analyst, wrote in the Hurriyet Daily News, an English-language newspaper in Turkey. “If this is not a debacle, then what is?”

That unease is palpable in Antakya, less than an hour from the border. Many residents of this scenic town and surrounding Hatay province are members of the Alawite minority Shiite sect that dominates the Syrian regime. Syria and Turkey are majority Sunni.

Antakya had been a shopping destination for Syrians. Since the rebellion, it has become a base for Syrian refugees and rebels, including thickly bearded men who stand out in a town where sundresses and shorts are common. Cross-border trade has slowed, and apartment prices have spiked.

Here, support for Assad remains strong, and there is simmering anxiety that Erdogan, the prime minister, is supporting the Syrian rebellion to cement Sunni supremacy in the region. Those fears have been stoked by Turkey’s main opposition party, which has accused the government of training radical Islamists in a nearby camp for defectors. The government denies that and says it has not armed rebels.

“They’re shaping some new religious fighters. What is the guarantee those fighters would not fight back against Turkey someday?” said Refik Eryilmaz, an opposition member of parliament from Hatay, which hosts five refugee camps.

Ismail Kimyeci, the Hatay chairman of Erdogan’s ruling Justice and Development Party, or AKP, said critics are overstating the presence of fighters in Antakya. He dismissed the concerns as propaganda meant to stir division. “The Syrian people are demanding a new, free country,” Kimyeci said. Of the Syrians in Hatay, he said: “We don’t really see which religion they are. The Turkish policy is to help everyone.”

But tensions are festering. In interviews, Antakyans complained about Syrian rebels ditching restaurant tabs or robbing women of their jewelry, though none could cite personal experience. Last weekend, several thousand people protested Turkey’s participation in what was described as an imperialist plot against Syria. Some said all rebels must leave Turkey.

“They are saying, ‘After we finish in Syria, we will cut your throats here,’ ” said Ali Zafer, 33, a teacher who said he supports Assad, describing one common rumor about the rebels. Turkey, he said, “especially brought them to Antakya, to kill Alawites.”

Syrians interviewed said they generally feel welcome but know that might wear off. At a rebel safe house in Reyhanli, where the Alawite population is smaller, occupants said Turks stop by with supplies and encouragement.

“We are trying our best to obey the rules of a foreign country,” said a rebel commander who goes by the nom de guerre Abu Hashim.

But he also contended that the controversy should motivate Turkey to speed an end to the war. “It’s better for the Turkish government to send us weapons,” he said, “so they can avoid this fuss here.”

Karen DeYoung in Washington contributed to this report.

Source: Washington Post

Turkey Special: Iran, #Syria, and Ankara’s Kurdish Problem

13/08/12

A Turkish Convoy Moving Towards the Syrian Border

Last week Iranian Foreign Minister Ali Akbar Salehi visited Ankara to meet his Turkish counterpart Ahmet Davutoglu and to ask Ankara’s help over Iranians abducted by Syrian insurgets.

Salehi’s visit came in the wake of disturbing statements by Hassan Firouzabadi, the head of Iran’s armed forces, who warned that the ruling AKP could be shaken by its Syria policy. In other words, Firouzabadi was indicating that Iran could use Turkey’s Kurdish problem if the Islamic Repubic felt Turkish intervention in Syria crossed “red lines”. That prospect of support to the insurgent Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) came as the separatist organisation was countering Turkish forces in the southeastern province of Hakkari by capturing and defending “safe zones” for the first time since 1984. 

On the same day, Saeed Jalili, the head of Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, was quoted as telling Assad that “Iran will not allow the axis of resistance, of which it considers Syria to be an essential part, to be broken in any way”. Iranian Parliament Speaker Ali Larijani reinforced the warnings: “The American regime and some countries in the region are responsible for these crimes. And they will receive their response in turn.” 

The Turkish Foreign Ministry called the Iranians statement as “groundless”, “unacceptable”, and “irresponsible”. Although Salehi reportedly assured Davutoglu that they were not official views, Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan reacted harshly: 

When no one else was by its side, Turkey was the country that stood by Iran, despite everything. Turkey was also the country that defended (its right to) nuclear energy.

But on Syria, once again I ask the Iranians: Does defending a regime that kills its brothers, and I think it has reached 25,000 by now, suit our values, our beliefs?

Last Thursday, Deputy Prime Minister Bulent Arinc targeted Tehran, saying that Ankara would “do whatever is required”. Arinc dismissed Salehi’s attempt to soothe relations and implied Iranian support to the PKK:

Salehi came to Ankara and said that only the foreign minister, president and religious leaders can speak on behalf of Iran. This is not true. They can say whatever they want. Similar remarks were made in the past by other Iranian officials against the Kurecik NATO radar base in Turkey. Sometimes deputy ministers have issued similar remarks.

What I mean by disturbing behavior [by the Iranian regime] is not related to Syria.

Turkish daily Today’s Zaman, based on government intelligence, reported that PKK militias had been allowed to move into a reopened camp on the Turkish-Iranian border. 

The Iranian-Turkish tension has to be put in the context of the PKK’s new strategy —- amid the Kurdish takeover of territory in Syrian Kurdistan and the ascendancy of the Iraqi Kurdistan Regional Government’s President Massoud Barzani over Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki. 

Barzani is likely to be pleased with developments, as Ankara appears to be occupied with the PKK rather than his moves on Syria. Meanwhile, Maliki is having to tack —- having threatened to reconsider bilateral relations following Davutoglu’s visit to Barzani in Kirkuk two weeks ago, he said on Sunday that he would be pleased to improve ties. 

And inside Turkey? Last Thursday, the Kurdistan Freedom Hawks (TAK), a group connected to the PKK, attacked a Turkish military bus, that killing two soldiers and injured 12 people in the western province of Izmir. On Saturday, Hakkari Province’s Governorship announced that the military operation against the PKK, started on 23 July, had been completed successfully. However, on the same day, some military posts and checkpoints were removed in Hakkari, as pro-PKK sources claimed the insurgency is holding the districts of Semdinli and Cukurca and has not retreated. On Sunday, PKK members attacked Government-armed village guards and targeted the town of Derecik, led by the AKP’s Nusret Dinc. 

MPs of the pro-Kurdish Peace and Democracy Party (BDP) have been pressing for an “autonomous region” inside Turkey. BDP’s deputy from Mardin, Ahmet Turk, said that the borders between Kurds in Turkey, Syria, Iran ,and Iraq must be removed. Then BDP’s deputy from Hakkari, Adil Kurt, said:

Twelve prime ministers before Prime Minister Erdogan tried to destroy Kurds with violence. 22 interior ministers said the very same things before your period. 9 chiefs of staff tried to destroy Kurds, the Kurdish freedom movement. However, they couldn’t achieve their goals.

Kurdish people’s resistance sent them to the bin of history. You Erdogan, if you do not pull yourself together, this war that has been going on for 28 years in mountains will about to be carried out to Kurdistan streets, Turkey’s cities now. This has only one meaning, a civil war! A civil war in Turkey is being heard from this geography! 

On Sunday evening, an MP  of the opposition Republican People’s Party (CHP), Huseyin Aygun —- who is of Kurdish origin —- was kidnapped by PKK. Erdogan called for unity against a common enemy, “I hope we will get quick results. It is important to show what separatist terrorist group want to do. These are what are expecting”, while CHP’s Haluk Koc said:

We are facing a very troubled picture. For the first time, a deputy is kidnapped by the terrorist organisation. This happened following the policies of hatred and tension-oriented speeches. 

These Kurdish complications arose as US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton hoped to highlight Washington’s co-operation with Turkey as the new way forward in dealing with the Syrian regime. As she announced a joint working group with the Turks, Clinton to “hasten the end of the bloodshed and to help the Syrian people build the kind of democratic, pluralistic society and government”, she underlined American support against the “terrorist PKK”.

Today’s Zaman quotes diplomatic officials as saying that Ankara has two plans. With the number of refugees reaching 50,000 thousand, the United Nations Security Council will be asked to establish “protective enclaves” within Syria. If this is blocked by Chinese and Russian vetoes, then Ankara will prepared for a Washington-backed interventiion that could include no-fly zones backed by further military measures.

The problem is that, despite media interpretations of Clinton broaching a no-fly zone, there is no sign of US support at this point. Ten days ago, a US spokesman said, “We don’t want and don’t think that further militarization is the way to go right now.” Clinton’s remarks, rather than being a dramatic change in position, are more likely to be statements seeking to lower the tension among the Turkish public, easing pressure on the Erdogan Government. 

Which brings us all the way around, not to Syria but to the Kurdish situation inside Turkey —- is any sign that Ankara can defuse the issue to give itself space for action beyond its borders?

Source: enduringamerica.com

Turkey reportedly mobilizes tanks and missiles to border with Kurdish #Syria Erdoğan’s rhetoric regarding Syria has grown increasingly belligerent

13/08/12

A Turkish military truck transports a mobile missile launcher to the Syrian border, in Iskenderun, Turkey, on Wednesday. Turkey is deploying anti-aircraft units along its border with Syria following the downing of one of its warplanes by Syria. (photo credit: AP Photo)

Turkey has mobilized and deployed tanks and missile batteries on the Syrian border adjacent to a Kurdish region that declared autonomy from Damascus, the Turkish Cihan News Agency reported on Thursday.

Trucks loaded with battle tanks and missile batteries departed from the southern Turkish town of Sanlıurfa, bound for the Mursitpınar border crossing, the report said.

The border towns of Amuda, Derik, Kobani (aka- Ayn al-Arab) and Afrin were reportedly under the control of a Kurdish group called the Democratic Union Party, allegedly affiliated with the PKK.

The mobilization of Turkish troops toward the border came a day after Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdoğan warned that Kurdish control over western Syria could prompt Turkey to invade.

“If there are formations that are being set up right now that [result in] a terrorist act, then it is our most natural right to intervene,” Erdoğan said.

The presence of Kurdish groups affiliated with the PKK could provide Turkey with a casus belli in Syria, analysts believe. The PKK, a Kurdish group designated by the US, the EU, and Turkey as a terrorist organization, has waged a decades-long conflict against Ankara.

Erdoğan’s rhetoric regarding Syria has grown increasingly belligerent since the uprising there broke out 16 months ago. Last month, Syria shot down a Turkish Air Force jet, which nearly prompted military retaliation by Turkey.

Ankara warned Syria earlier this week that any cross-border violence would be repaid in turn.

Source: timesofisrael.com

#Syria border standoff a new front in Iraq-Kurdish rift

08/08/2012

KALE, Iraq (Reuters) - Beneath the green, white and red Kurdistan flag, Kurdish Peshmerga troops keep watch from hastily built earthen barricades on soldiers of the Iraqi national army dug in less than a kilometre away along a desolate stretch of road.

The standoff, for a moment last week so close to confrontation, is the most dramatic illustration of a growing rift between Baghdad and the autonomous northern region of Kurdistan. Frictions over oil revenues are exacerbated now by conflicting views of the Syrian rebellion and by territorial disputes that pose questions about the unity of Iraq.

Over a few days last week, Baghdad and Kurdish officials separately rushed troops to the Syrian frontier, ostensibly to secure it against unrest in the neighbouring country; but the mobilization brought Iraqi Arab and Kurdish soldiers face to face along their own disputed internal border.

Washington intervened and a potential clash was avoided. But the standoff opened a new front in Baghdad’s already dangerously fragile relations with the Kurds in their push for more autonomy from central government.

“We don’t want to fight, we are both Iraqis, but if war comes, we won’t run,” said Peshmerga Ismael Murad Khady, sitting under a straw awning to ward off the sun, the battered stock of a BKC machine gun pointing not towards some foreign border but at fellow countrymen manning the Iraqi army post.

Just visible are Iraqi army trenches and tents beyond the empty stretch of road that is now a de facto no-man’s land in this small frontline. Nearby, local cars kick up dust as they take sidetracks to skirt the two posts.

Behind the Peshmerga, a title that means literally ‘those who lay down their lives’, a battery of Kurdish 122-mm howitzers directs its barrels towards the Iraqi line. They are part of the heavier armour reinforcements Kurdistan and Iraq drafted into the disputed area just a kilometre from the Syrian border.

Always a potential flashpoint, tensions between Baghdad and Kurdistan escalated after U.S. troops left in December, removing a buffer between the Iraqi Arab dominated central government and ethnic Kurds who have run their own autonomous area since 1991.

Iraq’s national army units and Peshmerga have faced off before, only to pull back before clashes as both regions tested each other’s nerves, lacking however any interest in confrontation.

Iraq’s Prime Minister Nuri al Maliki, a Shi’ite muslim, and Kurdistan President Masoud Barzani have sparred more aggressively since America’s withdrawal, as Kurdistan chaffs against central government control.

At the heart of their dispute are contested territories claimed by Iraqi Arabs and Kurds and crude reserves now attracting majors like Exxon and Chevron to Kurdistan, upsetting Baghdad, which says it controls rights to develop oil.

Though autonomous, Kurdistan still relies on Baghdad for its share of the national oil revenues.

Kurdistan is growing increasingly closer to neighbour Turkey as it talks about ways to export its own oil and not rely on Baghdad. Maliki’s government accuses Kurdistan of violating the law by signing deals with oil majors.

The rebellion against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has only widened the rift between Baghdad and Erbil.

They find themselves in opposing corners of a regional struggle. Iraq with Syrian ally Iran is resisting calls for Assad to go. Kurdistan is in talks with the Syrian Kurdish opposition and closer to Turkey, a sponsor of Assad foes.

“In addition to the local dimension to this, there is the Syrian one,” said Joost Hiltermann at International Crisis Group. “Control over the border and what crosses it, is therefore of great importance.”

RIVALS AND NEIGHBOURS

Those rivalries were clear when Iraqi troops began deploying to Syria’s borders to help control refugees and spillover, and Peshmerga soldiers refused them permission to move into what they considered a Kurdish part of their disputed areas.

After calls from Washington, Kurdish government sources say, both sides agreed on Sunday to cooperate to avoid a flareup and to withdraw troops once Syria’s crisis ends.

But the reinforcements remain in place.

It was not the first time top U.S. officials have stepped into Iraq’s political fray.

Last year, Peshmerga sent 10,000 fighters to the disputed oil city of Kirkuk, officially to protect citizens there. Their presence sparked a massive U.S. effort to calm tensions.

It took a month before the Peshmerga pulled its fighters back. Analysts said the move was in part a Kurdish test of Maliki’s resolve once the American troops had gone.

Kurdish officials say Peshmerga have long controlled the area near the Syrian border in disputed parts of Ninawa province and saw no need for Iraqi army deployment. Iraqi national border police are already working there.

Some Kurdish officials see Baghdad’s military push along the border as part of an attempted landgrab.

“This force came without coordination or agreement, so the Peshmerga decided to stop them,” said Jabbar Yawar, head of Peshmerga forces.

Baghdad countered that Iraq’s army should be in charge of the country’s borders, especially because of the turmoil in Syria, and accused Kurdish authorities of obstructing the military.

Troops were deployed just as Kurdistan announced oil deals with France’s Total and Russia’s Gazprom, the latest majors to ignore Baghdad’s warnings they risked losing contracts with central government if they agreed to develop Kurdish fields.

“The bigger issue is that this exposed how relations between the two are very difficult,” one diplomat said. “The situation in Syria has triggered long-standing differences.”

In a goodwill measure, Kurdistan on Tuesday said it restarted 100,000 barrels per day (bpd) in oil exports a bid to end a payment dispute with the central government after halting the shipments in April.

SYRIAN QUESTION

For Baghdad, the Syrian question is a sensitive one. Iraqi Shi’ite leaders worry a messy collapse of Syria will lead to the rise of a Sunni regime and incite Sunni provinces along the border who feel Maliki is edging them from power.

Baghdad rejects Sunni Arab Gulf calls for Assad to go.

Barzani’s government, in contrast, has hosted Syrian Kurdish opposition activists, actively pushing them to join forces to form a united front to prepare for any post-Assad regime.

Kurdish officials are not shy to admit a long-term goal of a fully independent Kurdistan, and they see a chance for Syrian Kurds to win some autonomy after years of oppression.

Regional power Turkey is increasingly being pulled into the fray, cultivating Iraqi Kurdistan but at the same time very wary of fuelling broader Kurdish separatism in its own southeast.

Ankara wants Kurdistan to help guarantee Syria’s Kurdish areas will not become a haven for Kurdish PKK rebels who are fighting the Ankara government for more autonomy in the southeast of Turkey.

Ankara’s relations with Baghdad have deteriorated sharply.

A visit by Turkey’s foreign minister to Kirkuk, whose control is disputed between Iraqi-Arabs and Kurds, last week prompted Baghdad to accuse Ankara of meddling. Turkish and Iraqi officials have exchanged sharp words in public.

The political posturing between Baghdad and Arbil is not lost on their new frontline in north Iraq, where Peshmerga troops fortify their trenches, run through drills and wait out an end to the impasse.

“We are just here to defend ourselves,” said Peshmerga General Sarbaz Mamund. “They wait for orders from their political leaders, and so do we. But this area is Kurdish, just ask the people here.”

(Additional reporting by Ahmed Rasheed and Raheem Salman in Baghdad; editing by Ralph Boulton)

Source: Yahoo!

Exiled family living in Huddersfield call for military intervention in #Syria

As violence in Syria continues to escalate and grab worldwide attention, NICK LAVIGUEUR interviews a Syrian man who left his homeland to start a new life in Huddersfield

SYRIAN born Khalil Khalaf fled the violent regime of his homeland in 1978 amid fears for his safety – and he has never been back.

Now settled in Huddersfield, he fears there is only a bloody future for his country as the war escalates.

Born into a Kurdish family, he was involved in activity opposed to then president Hafez al-Assad and made the tough decision to abandon his family.

He paid the equivalent of roughly two weeks wages to be smuggled over the border to Lebanon and from there bought a passport on the black market and moved to West Germany.

Four years later Assad ordered the massacre of Hama, where more than 20,000 people were killed in what has been called the single deadliest act by an Arab government against its own people.

Khalil was unable to return to Syria and so his wife-to-be Rojin was also brought out of the country to Bulgaria where they were married.

Having lived in several European countries, Khalil and his family eventually moved to Huddersfield in 2003 and last year opened restaurant Med One at Westgate.

As the bombing of civilians in Syria turns to full civil war, Khalil and his daughter Jane, who attends Shelley College, have spoken out about the bloody assault by president Bashar al-Assad.

And they say there is no hope for the country – especially their Kurdish allies – unless western governments intervene.

Khalil said: “In our eyes Assad is much worse than his father.

“He came to power with the support of Britain and he’s lived here so his intuition should be a lot better than his father’s.

“It’s our last hope that Britain or the United Nations step in.

“There is not much chance that the people can overthrow the government.

“Syria is multi-ethnic with five big groups – Ba’athist Muslims, Sunni Muslims, Christians, Druze and Kurds.

“It’s not like Egypt or Tunisia or Libya where it’s one big group against the government.

“Even if there is a change there will be no change in our situation, but we will be happy if Assad goes.

“But there’s no hope unless there military intervention from outside.”

Khalil said many of his relatives remained in the country, but said a few had fled across the border to Turkey.

And he said his sister’s husband had been put into prison for two weeks for being opposed to Assad and had been beaten.

The father and daughter said they felt involved in the current uprising and were trying to do what they could to help from Huddersfield.

“We’re just as involved in the revolution as the Syrian people are,” said Khalil.

“Only the other day I got a phone call at 3am from someone in Homs asking for help.

“Our contact with them has been ongoing. We are not wanting to cut contact as we’re also involved no matter how far away we are.”

Jane added: “The people who ring, they can’t say anything. Everything is hinted because the government is checking all calls.

“Last year Assad granted us citizenship so we Kurds didn’t stand up against him, but it’s not working.”

Khalil said: “Not many Kurds have been killed as he knows we will all flee to Turkey and there will be a humanitarian crisis and then the United Nations will have to get involved.”

Khalil said, as an exiled Kurd, he tried to help by spreading information around the world so people knew the real situation in Syria.

He said he and many others would send money and mobile phones to help citizens post pictures and videos to the internet.

He explained: “It’s been 32 years since I left and it’s always been a huge problem that Syria has never been representative of the people.

“We’re trying to bring everyone together but it’s the government that is against this.

“Just like everyone else we want democracy and equality.

“I remember as a child in 1964 we were listening to a Kurdish radio station and the secret army heard it and came in and they smashed our radio.

“All the laws come from Hitler times – they are like Nazis.

“Extremists in Syria are very powerful.

“Kurds are the largest minority in Syria and yet even the official opposition to Assad are against us.”

He said the situation was so bad for Kurds that he was even afraid to go to the Syrian Embassy in London for fear of attack by opposition supporters.

Khalil – who says he is not an Arab and not a Syrian but is a Kurd from Syria – added: “We want our own country just like the Palestinians do, but for now we would just like to be recognised as a Kurdish minority and be given some support.

“It’s our dream that we are our own country but I can’t see that happening for 50 or 60 years, but for now I would just like to be living in freedom and recognised in a constitution.”

On Friday, Prime Minister David Cameron announced Britain is to supply £2m-worth of aid to Syrian civilians suffering as a result of the violent crackdown on protests against the Assad regime.

Mr Cameron said that the money will provide vitally needed medical supplies and food for more than 20,000 people affected by fighting in the city of Homs and elsewhere in Syria.

He said that the situation in Syria was “appalling” and that he did not believe the international community was doing everything it could to stop President Bashar Assad’s “butchery” of his people.

But he cautioned that the position was not the same as in Libya, where the world came together last year behind a United Nations resolution authorising military action to defend civilians.

Mr Cameron said the world had to act “as decisively as it can” against the Syrian regime without a UN resolution.

While the UN General Assembly voted overwhelmingly last week to condemn Assad’s violent repression of protests, China and Russia have used their vetoes in the Security Council to prevent the agreement of an Arab League-backed resolution calling for political transition.

Mr Cameron said: “We need to take all the action we can to put the maximum pressure on Assad to go and to stop the butchery that is taking place.

“I want us to go on working, to go on thinking, to go on combining with our allies and go on asking ourselves what more can we do to try and help transition take place in this country so we can get rid of this brutal dictator and give the Syrian people a chance of peace and stability in the future.

“I am not satisfied that we are taking all the action we need to, but it is difficult, it is complicated, and we need to work very hard with our friends, allies and neighbours in the region to make sure we can do everything we can.”

Source: examiner.co.uk