Baladi News – (Abdulaziz Al-Khalifa)
No sooner had the Syrian uprising broken out in March 2011 than the Kurds rushed to participate in it. Amuda, the city located in al-Hasaka countryside, a prominent revolting city characterized by mocking the regime, and particularly its president Bashar al-Assad. Indeed, the crowds in the peaceful demonstrations had always cried, “Syrians are one people” in order to indicate the unity of Syrians in the face of the regime. Activists also gave the name “Azadi”, which means freedom in the Kurdish language, to one of the Fridays of demonstrations. However, such a climate did not continue for long, and things started to deteriorate gradually until direct clashes broke out in al-Hasaka between the militias of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) and the Free Syrian Army (FSA), and then spread to Aleppo.
As for the Kurdish revolutionary movements, Abu Shiro Qamishlo, an activist in the Kurdish Coordination Union, spoke to Baladi News, clarifying that all Kurdish young people had participated in the demonstrations in al- Qamishli, which called for toppling down the regime, including PYD. This had lasted about two months until the leadership of PYD, which had been constituted by three people, namely, Issa Hissou, Jamil Abu Adel Omar, and Bashar Jettou, was changed. The three men had resigned, but Hissou and Jetto were forced to return under threat, knowing that Hissou was assassinated at the end of July 2013, whereas Jetto was kidnapped by unknown assailants in 2012 after he had withdrawn from the party and established the Kurdish Democratic Political Union (KDPU) that raised the independence flag exclusively in their demonstrations.
Before that, the Kurdish leader, Mashaal Tammo, was assassinated by PYD in October 2011. Tammo was leading the Kurdish revolutionary movement against the Syrian regime, which supported the demands for freedom, dignity, and toppling down the regime.
Qamishlo added that “turning against PYD leaders started when Salih Muslim, alongside an armed group that would be known later by the name the “Kurdish Units”, visited Salman al-Farsi mosque in the eastern part of al-Qamishli. That time, what was called “the joint leadership” was changed and replaced with Muslim as well as other leaders coming basically from Turkey. Qamishlo also revealed that he, as well as other Kurdish activists, were told not to chant slogans calling for toppling the regime or sympathizing with Syrian besieged cities. Rather, they were asked to focus on national Kurdish demands only. However, the activists refused this request, so the advocates of PYD started attempts to disturb the demonstrations that used to be arranged near Qasmo mosque in the western part of al-Qamishli by chanting their own slogans and raising PYD flags.
As the militarization of the Kurds in the revolution is concerned, the speaker indicated that the first manifestation of Kurdish armed power was begun by PYD when Saleh Muslim, accompanied by armed men, visited Salman al-Farisi mosque two months after the beginning of the revolution, and turned against the party’s old leadership. Later, the formation of Kurdish militias followed. Early in 2013, the battalions of al-Sheikh Ma’ashouq, Martyr Firhad, and Tahsin Mamo, appeared in Amuda. The battalions were loyal to the Syrian revolution, but all of them were uprooted and their leaders were captured by the democratic union militias that grew in power after receiving notable support from the regime that granted them the agricultural school in Himo near al-Qamishli as a military training center, which graduated its first group of soldiers in the beginning of the same year.
Kidnapping Kurdish Leaders
In November 2012, it was announced that the Kurdish Military Council was established, which was an affiliate with the Free Syrian Army in Aleppo. The council consisted of six Kurdish Syrian military officers who had defected from the regime forces under the leadership of Brigadier General Khalil al-Ali. It was emphasized then that the officers defected because of the regime bad practices and in support of the Syrian revolting people. The council emphasized its commitment to the establishment of a national army and a civil state.
However, the officers of this council disappeared when they were trying to cross to the north of Iraq through Simalka crossing border in the eastern Syria, which was under the control of PYD.
Confrontation with FSA
After liquidating all its Kurdish opponents, PYD engaged fully in fighting the Free Syrian Army (FSA). About the same period, exactly in November 2012, FSA could liberate Ras al-Ayn in al-Hasakah. Consequently, the regime left the fronts in this area and entrusted the Kurdish units with fighting FSA. These units started to rise gradually after providing them with financial and military support by the regime. The units engaged in clashes against FSA until they could capture the city in July 2013.
Activist Mosab al-Hamdi, member of Hasakah Youth Union, gave Baladi News an account of that period. He said, “Four rounds of clashes broke out in the city, and PYD, just like the regime, charged FSA with being takfiri groups belonging to Al-Qaeda, although the FSA factions raised the revolution flag. At that time, al-Nusra front related to al-Qaeda had very limited presence on the ground. ”
Al-Hamdi added that the Syrian Opposition Coalition formed a committee for bringing about conciliation between FSA and the Kurdish Defence Units in the third round of clashes, but PYD refused the truce unless al-Nusra front guarantees the agreement. Al-Nusra agreed and asked FSA to leave Ras al-Ayn, which was done by the FSA that evacuated the city and positioned its troops in the outskirts. However, the Kurdish units took control over the city after evacuating it by all the factions except al-Nusra in less than a day in July 2013.
Expert in the Kurdish affairs, Muhannad al-Qati’, said that since the beginning of the Syrian uprising, the regime realized that its fundamental battle in the Syrian interior would never be won without securing the northern and north eastern parts of Syria, and it looked cautiously at the rise in the Kurdish revolutionary activity that went hand in hand with the Syrian activity. The regime concerns grew after the appearance of full solidarity at the popular level among the components of the Syrian community and the chanting of slogans that called for unity.
According to al-Qati’, “for all these reasons, the regime decided to exploit Kurdistan Worker’s Party (PKK) militants, some of whom had been placed in the Syrian regime jails under the security agreement that the regime made with Turkey after the extradition of PKK leader Abdallah Öcalan.”
Al-Qati’ said that the regime armed PKK, utilizing the partial withdrawal agreement between the PKK leadership and Turkey. That time, the regime attracted them as mercenary militias and provided them with support, particularly in the bordering area with Iraq in the northeastern corner of the country. In the beginning, “such a practice aimed at having a Kurdish party oppress the Kurds, because it is the best available option that would spare the regime a confrontation with the Kurdish public, and at the same time would guarantee calm in the areas controlled by PKK. Indeed, PKK achieved this task by oppressing the Kurdish youth and parties that had changed their loyalty from the regime to the opposition in recent years.”
In October 2015, the Kurdish Unit militia announced its affiliation with Syria’s Democratic Forces (SDF), which backbone was formed by these units and were grafted by other Arabic militias such as al-Sanadid and al-Sotor as well as Liwa Thuwar al-Raqqa group that had been subservient to FSA. The formation of SDF followed a report by Amnesty International in the same month before DF establishment, indicating that its fact-finding mission revealed a wave of forced displacement and houses’ destruction in the north of Syria by PYD self-administration in the country sides of al-Raqqa and al-Hasaka, which were considered as war crimes.
PYD failed in convincing the Kurds of being their representative. Last May, in an unprecedented event during the difficult circumstances witnessed by the Syrian revolution, military battalions were formed by Syrian Kurds to stop the violations and suspicious projects of the Kurdish units in Syria, announcing that they side with the Syrian people and adhere to the united Syrian identity. In a video clip, these forces, calling themselves (the Kurdish rebel’s battalions), declared that there goals are defending the Syrian people in general, and the Kurdish people in particular, against the crimes of the regime as well as PKK party.