Syrian Kurds Clash with Islamists, Prepare for Autonomy

[Aslan]

Syrian Kurdish militants clashed Tuesday with Al Qaeda-linked rebel fighters, killing at least four members of the Jabhat al-Nusra (Al Nusra Front) terrorist organization as the Kurds prepared to set the stage for an autonomous region, while Islamists group attempt to establish their own independent "emirates", ruled by sharia (Islamic law).

Gunfire also spilled over the border with Turkey into the nearby town of Ceylanpinar, killing a 17-year-old Turkish boy and wounding two other people.

The Kurdish People’s Defense Units (YPG) issued a “victory message” late Tuesday, celebrating the 'liberation’ of Ras al-Ain, in northern Syria, and called on Arabs in the city to cooperate with its group, according to Hawar News. The YPG claimed to hold control over the entire city, as well as the headquarters of the Islamist combatant groups in Ras al-Ain.

The battle took place in the city of Ras al-Ain in the northern province of Hasakeh, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, about 62 miles (100 kilometers) from the unofficial Syrian Kurdish capital of Qamishli.

The city is home to some 50,000 people, a mix of Kurds, Arabs, Christians and the Kurdish religious minority Yezidis.

Last January, a Turkish citizen was seriously wounded when a bullet was fired from Ras al-Ain into a Turkish border village. It was the third such incident in a week to occur in fighting between the jihadist rebel forces and Kurdish fighters for control over the city, which have been going on since last year.

The Kurdish National Council, a pro-opposition umbrella group of Syrian Kurdish parties, in January condemned what it said was an ongoing assault “against unarmed civilians” by jihadist insurgents on Ras al-Ain, AFP reported. The Kurds called on the Free Syrian Army to “pressure these militants to stop this criminal war which is detrimental to the Syrian revolution.”

According to a jihad expert quoted by the Al-Monitor website, Middle East Forum Shillman-Ginsburg Fellow Aymenn Jawad al Tamimi, there is a possibility that the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) – the merged group formed from the Iraqi branch of Al Qaeda and Syria’s Jabhat al-Nusra – may be planning to set up Islamic emirates in the areas controlled by its armed terrorist groups.

“In towns such as Jarabulus, where ISIS... has control, ISIS has declared an ‘emirate of Jarabulus,’ for instance,” Tamami wrote in an email to Al-Monitor. “ISIS has an emir of northern operations: Abu Omar.... who leads Jaish al-Muhajireen and was appointed... in May.”

Apparently to counter these moves, the Kurdish militants are reportedly planning to form a transitional Kurdish administration in the areas they control as well.

The YPG is allegedly uniting with Syria’s Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) and the Turkey-based Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which is listed as a terrorist organization in Turkey and the United States. The groups have formed a plan to hold elections for a local Kurdish government in Syria within six months.

PYD spokesman Alan Semo told the Al-Monitor in a Skype interview, ‘If they are declaring Islamic emirates, why can the Kurds not form their own government? It would be moderate, democratic and non-fanatic, and benefit regional and international interests,” he said.

Tensions in Middle Eastern nations with Kurdish populations – Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey – are high due to the conflict in Syria, as well as disputes over oil and gas resources (particularly in Iraq) and the loyalties of the Kurdish population in southeastern Turkey.

Kurds in Iraq, Turkey and Syria dream of an independent state of Kurdistan, although they acknowledge it is unlikely one will emerge anytime in the near future. They are the largest nation in the Middle East without an independent homeland.

[Aslan]

At least 29 people have been killed in fighting between Kurdish and Al-Nusra Front fighters in northern Syria in the past two days, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said Thursday.

At least 19 Al-Nusra Front fighters and 10 Kurds have been killed since the day before yesterday in clashes in the oil region of Hassakeh," the NGO said.

On Wednesday, the group said Syrian Kurdish fighters had pushed members of Al-Nusra and the al-Qaeda-affiliated Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant out of the town of Ras al-Ain and its nearby border crossing with Turkey.

The clashes erupted after Al-Nusra Front militants attacked a convoy of Kurdish women fighters, Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman said.

Elsewhere in the country, the Observatory reported five killed in an air strike on the town of Saraqeb north-western Idlib province.

The group said at least four missiles fired by regime war planes hit residential buildings, killing five civilians and injuring dozens more.

At least 120 people were killed throughout Syria on Wednesday, according to the group, including 42 civilians, 61 rebels and 17 soldiers.

Syria's Kurdish minority have walked a sometimes ambiguous line in the country's conflict, which is now in its third year.

Despite occasionally cooperating with rebel fighters, the country's Kurds have largely chosen to remain outside the conflict, and have sought to keep both regime troops and rebels out of their areas.

Their position has earned them the ire of some rebels, who fault them for failing to back the uprising.

[Aslan]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXNArpSiuxg&hl=en&fs=1&rel=0&hd=1   

[Anthea]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XXNArpSiuxg

Thank you - very interesting

[Aslan]

Syrian Kurdish fighters have expelled fighters of al-Qaeda-linked groups from a checkpoint in the northeast of the country and seized their weapons and ammunition, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

"Clashes raged during the night from Friday to Saturday, pitting [Kurdish fighters] against Al-Nusra Front, ISIS and other [rebel] groups... near the villages of Tal Alu, Karhuk and Ali Agha," said the Britain-based Observatory on Saturday.

The Kurdish fighters then seized ammunition, light weapons, a vehicle mounting a heavy machine gun and a mortar launcher from the fighters, the monitoring group added.

The advance comes just days after Kurdish fighters loyal to the Democratic Union Party (PYD) expelled fighters allied to the Al-Nusra Front and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS) from the strategic Kurdish town of Ras al-Ain.

The PYD chief Salih Muslim has stated that Syria's Kurds are planning to create a temporary autonomous government to administer their regions in the north.

Kurdish regions have been administered by local Kurdish councils since President Bashar al-Assad's forces withdrew from the areas in mid-2012.

The redeployment was seen as a tactical move by the regime, freeing up forces to battle rebels elsewhere, and encouraging the Kurds to avoid allying with the opposition in order to maintain their new-found autonomy.

Air raids

Meanwhile in northwestern Syria, the air force kept up a fierce campaign against the town of Saraqeb and staged 10 air strikes there on Saturday, killing three children, the Observatory reported.

The strikes on the rebel-held town in Idlib province also killed a medical volunteer and a woman, the group added.

Air raids also hit areas where the rebels were reportedly advancing in Aleppo province in northern Syria, it said.

The raids came as rebels advanced on Khan al-Assal, the only town in the west of Aleppo province still under regime control.

Saturday's violence comes a day after at least 95 people were killed across Syria, said the Observatory.

More than 100,000 people, most of them civilians, have died in Syria's 28-month war, the group says.

[Anthea]

The terrible thing about all this fighting is that hardly anyone in the world knows what is happening - there are so may other conflicts that the Kurds of WK are generally ignored or forgotten

Think for a moment - if ALL Kurds UNITED - what a fantastic voice they would have - the entire world would hear them