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Sozda Afrin, one of the YPJ commanders, emphasized that they would liberate the areas occupied by the Turkish state in North-East Syria. Sozda Afrin, one of the Women's Defense Units (YPJ) commanders, spoke to ANF about ISIS activity in Hol camp and the occupied areas.MURDERS IN THE HOL CAMPDrawing attention to the increasing mobility of ISIS women in the Hol camp near Heseke, Sozda Afrin said, "What happened in the Hol camp is an attempt to activate ISIS. Women who do not adopt ISIS life in the camp and try to create a new life for themselves are killed by...

ISTANBUL — President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s party on Sunday was facing defeat in local elections in the Turkish capital, Ankara, and possibly even Istanbul, its largest city, a result that shook the nation as Mr. Erdogan suffered the first major electoral setback of his decade and a half in power.The municipal balloting around the country came nine months after national elections that extended Mr. Erdogan’s hold on power. It was closely watched as a barometer of his standing with voters after Turkey’s economy fell into recession and he assumed sweeping new executive powers.Mr. Erdogan claimed victory over all in the...

Repression against civilians continues in occupied Afrin. In Afrin where massacre, plunder and torture have been committed systematically since its occupation by the Turkish state and allied jihadist mercenaries, civilians continue to be the target of occupation forces. According to latest reports, the Turkish state has started to give Turkish ID cards to the civilians in Afrin as part of its attempts to change the population structure in the region. The Turkish state had previously changed the ID cards of Kurdish civilians in Rajo and other districts of Afrin.

In Afrin ten teachers have been kidnapped by the occupation forces. Their whereabouts are unknown. In the northern Syrian canton of Afrin, which is occupied by the Turkish state and the pro-Turkish jihadists, ten Kurdish teachers have been abducted, seven of them women. According to the JINNEWS, the teachers were employed at three different schools in the Ashrafiyah district and were abducted after school hours. Where they were taken is not known. One of the teachers is reported to be pregnant. The names of the following teachers who have been abducted are known: Sediqa Xelil, Ronahi Şêxsîdî, Behzat Xelil, Reşit...

The Turkish state and their allied gangs confiscated the last Armenian who was still in Afrin Harut Kivork’s home and turned it into a mosque. The Turkish state and their allied gangs have continued their robbery, pillaging, rapes and all manner of inhumane attacks since the first day they invaded Afrin. Thousands of families’ homes have been confiscated to date, now including the home and all possessions of the last Armenian who was still living in Afrin, Harut Kivork. Harut Kivork’s family is one of hundreds of thousands who were forced to migrate to Afrin in 1915 during the Ottoman...

January 20 was the 1st-anniversary of Turkey’s invasion of Afrin, the northwest Syrian enclave that had been under the control of Syrian Kurdish militias from the People’s Protection Units (YPG). Discussion of Afrin is off limits in Turkey, where only acclaim of the conquest is permitted. It is likely no coincidence that, days before the operation’s anniversary, prosecutors prepared an indictment against Necla Demir and her news site Gazete Karınca for reporting the realities of Afrin. The regime is warning others not to broach the subject. In fact, there is little need for such a warning, since in Turkey the operation is...

Delusional. Arrogant. Chauvinistic. Egomaniacal. All of these words could probably aptly describe Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan at this historical moment. In a sense, referring to him as ‘president’ seems quite disrespectful to the countries that actually have a semblance of democratic institutions. Erdogan has proven himself a ‘leader’ who aspires to be a sultan, a neo-Ottoman dictator who not only sees the Kurdish people as ‘mountain Turks’ but the Turkey-Syria border as fluid and illegitimate. Fascist. Authoritarian. Dictatorial. The friend of al-Qaeda ideologues. With his government’s ill-named ‘Operation Olive Branch’, the 21st century Sultan has shown his willingness to...

World War I ended with the Ottoman Empire vanquished and facing imminent collapse, its doomed alliance with Imperial Germany costing hundreds of thousands of Ottoman lives and dealing a death blow to the already creaking empire. But 100 years after the surrender of the Ottomans to the Allied powers at Mudros on October 30, 1918, the Great War is in no way seen as a pointless waste or even a defeat by modern Turkey under President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. Rather than focusing on the four years of devastating conflict that ended in the capitulation and eventual dissolution of the empire,...

Following the explosions on June 27 in Afrin that resulted in the death of dozens of gang members, over 100 civilians have been abducted by Turkish forces. The invading Turkish soldiers abducted 18 young Kurdish people today in Afrin. The invading Turkish forces raided homes that belong to Kurds in two neighborhoods of Afrin today. 18 young people have been abducted in the house raids. Reports say at 08.00 in the morning, invading forces raided homes that belong to Kurds in the Ashrafiyah and Mahmudiyah neighborhoods in Afrin and took 18 young people away to an unknown location. Local sources say...

A Burma medic, Joseph, treats Yezidi IDPs from Afrin.This is the first of a three-part report on Syria and our recent mission there. This was our fifth mission to Syria to give medical and other humanitarian help, build playgrounds in areas previously held by ISIS, and share the love of Jesus. We were a 17 person team; five ethnic medics and cameramen from Burma, three American volunteers, our Kurd, Iraqi, and Syrian coordinators and our family. We entered Syria from Iraq and traveled to Raqqa, Tabqa, Deir ez-Zor, Ayn Issa, Membij, Kobani, Qamishli, Tel Tamir, Hasakah, and surrounding areas. Background...

Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Recep AkdaÄŸ has ruled out returning the Syrian district of Afrin, captured by Turkish troops and their allies from Syrian Kurdish forces in March, to the Syrian government, Turkish pro-government newspaper Daily Sabah said. "A free and democratic Syria can only be built without (Syrian President Bashar) Assad. He has killed many of his fellow citizens and brought much suffering to his country," the newspaper quoted AkdaÄŸ as saying. He said that Turkey did not wish to remain in the area for the long term and wanted to return it soon to the Syrian people. "We...

Locals in northwest Syria say empty Kurdish homes are being seized by Turkish-backed fighters and given to displaced Arab families. ‘By what law?’ More than 137,000 Afrin residents remain displaced outside their cities and villages as a result of the Turkish military campaign, leaving entire neighbourhoods vacant and thousands of houses unprotected from looting and illegal seizures, according to Sara Kiyyali, Syrian researcher at Human Rights Watch.“A lot of those houses are empty right now,” she told Syria Direct this month. “They were primarily Kurdish residents... [and many] are uncomfortable returning to live under Turkish control.”Muhammad Balou, a PYD supporter...

"Erdoğan has cynically referred to these students as 'terrorists,' vowed to expel them from Boğaziçi University, and to deny them the right to study at any other university. We have heard this kind of verbal attack from Erdoğan before and it was followed by the detention of thousands of academics, journalists, artists, and human rights advocates." Ankara does nothing to prevent ISIS from selling Yazidi women and children in Turkey; allows unspecified numbers of people to use Turkish territory as a point of entrance into Syria and Iraq to join ISIS or other jihadist groups; hosts and aids Hamas,...

“The Turkish state is playing on a few tables at the same time. There is no politics that is so solid and primal. Turkey tries to protect its interests by building relationships with one of the other depending on the day.” After the accusation made by the US, England and France against the Syrian regime which, they said, had used chemical weapons in Duma, there was a new turn in the Syrian crisis, which saw new attacks carried out by US-UK and France while the Turkish state has been siding with Russia and Iran for the last two years. Aldar...

WASHINGTON DC (Kurdistan 24) – CIA Director Mike Pompeo strongly criticized Turkey’s assault on the Kurdish canton of Afrin, while he hailed America’s Kurdish-led partners in fighting the Islamic State (IS) in Syria. .. Sen. Robert Menendez (D, New Jersey) told Pompeo, “Turkey is supposed to be our NATO ally,” but it “is fighting the same Kurds that we have depended upon to defeat [IS].” Displaying a picture of three leaders—Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Russian President Vladimir Putin, and Iranian President Hassan Rouhani, at last week’s summit in Ankara, Menendez asked Pompeo, “What’s wrong with this picture?” The Senator...

Permanent Representative of the Syrian Arab Republic to the United Nations Bashar Jaafari stated that they are hoping that the triple mechanism made up of Russia, Iran and Turkey will pressure Turkey to withdraw their military units. Permanent Representative of the Syrian Arab Republic to the United Nations Bashar Jaafari spoke to Russian news agency Sputnik and said Turkey is in violation of the Astana agreements, UN Security Council resolutions and Non-Aligned Movement’s principles. Jaafari said: “According to the Astana agreements, Turkey should have sent lightly armed police to observe and inspect terrorist organizations in Idlib.” But Turkey deployed soldiers...

Iran's President Rouhani, Turkey's President Erdogan, and Russia's President Putin shake hands as they meet in Ankara on Wednesday and pledge to create a 'lasting ceasefire' in Syria. Russia and Iran are strategic partners, with Russia providing military and financial support in return for influence over the Middle East. Putin supplies both countries with sophisticated military equipment. President Erdogan recently signed a $2.5 billion arms deal with Russia for S-400 sophisticated anti-aircraft missiles, which has caused consternation among Turkey's fellow Nato members. And Russia helps both countries on energy. It is also building Turkey a $20 billion nuclear power station,...

French special operations troops have moved into two US Syrian bases, Manbij and Remelin, as the US boosts its lines against Turkey. While US President Donald Trump was saying Tuesday, April 3, that he would “decide very quickly” to remove US troops from Syria, our exclusive military sources report that US Marines were heading toward the northern Syrian town of Manbij as reinforcements against Turkish inroads. They took up positions along the Sajur River, one of the three tributaries that feed the Euphrates River in Syria from sources in Turkey. This action blocked the Turkish army’s land access to Manbij,...

Aleppo province, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights: the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights obtained information from several reliable sources that Rahman Corps fighters have arrived with their families to Afrin area, and in the details monitored by the Syrian Observatory: members of Rahman Corps after their arrival to Idlib province –during the past few days on board the convoys of displacement; that have been consecutively coming over the past days, and have transported tens of thousands of fighters, their families and civilians refusing Rahman Corps’ agreement with the Russians regarding their departure from Jobar, Zamalka and Arbin– they went...

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu blasted Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Sunday over his criticism of Israel's resonse to the protests on the Gaza border over the weekend. "The most moral army in the world will not be lectured by someone who for years is bombing civilian populations indiscriminately," Netanyahu said in a statement. "Apparently that’s how they mark April 1 in Ankara." Erdogan said in Istanbul on Saturday that he “strongly condemns the Israeli government for its inhumane attack," referring to the killing of 15 Palestinian protesters on the Gaza border on Friday. “Israel will imprison Palestine under its...