By Steven Sahiounie shared with thanks| via aletho news Mideast Discourse | August 24 ,2020. illustrations added
Turkish President Erdogan has sought to create an image for himself as the champion of religion. The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) also tried to claim they were following a religion, yet both used water as a weapon of war.
Water in Islam
Turkey is almost 100% Muslim and has made world headlines converting Christian cathedrals into Mosques. Turkish President Erdogan has been converting a secular democracy in Turkey, founded by Ataturk, into a Muslim Brotherhood haven, which follows Radical Islam as a political ideology, which is the same ideology as ISIS.
Water in Islam is considered as a gift from God, belonging to all equally, which has to be distributed equally among all living beings, humans, animals, and plant life, according to Cherif Abderrahman Jah, an Islamic academic and humanist.
The ISIS terrorists have often used water as a weapon of war in Iraq and Syria by cutting off supplies to villages that resisted their rule and as a tool to expand their control over the region’s water infrastructure.
They wanted to seize the water to prove they were building an actual state. In 2014 ISIS besieged the Syrian town of Kobane to secure a piece of the border with Turkey.
6 years later, 2020, the same scenario plays out, and in the same area, but ISIS has been defeated, and the Erdogan regime in Turkey has taken their place. Many experts feel ISIS and Turkey have been connected in their use of Radical Islam as a political tool, devoid of any connection to Islam, which is a religion.
ISIS was using water as a weapon, according to Tobias von Lossow of Berlin’s Institute for International and Security Affairs. He said, “IS uses water systematically and consistently. IS uses the entire range of possibilities and variations of water warfare.”
Death without water
A person can survive without water for about 3 days; however, a person living in a very hot climate will sweat, causing them to lose more water, which leads to dehydration, causing extreme thirst, fatigue, and ultimately, organ failure and death. A person living in a hot place, like Hasaka, and having to perform laborious activities such as taking care of animals, or small children, could die in only a few days without water.
The role of the SAR in the crisis (Syrian Arab Army, racist even in the title! Assad regime)
Friday marked the ninth consecutive day without water in Hasaka. The Turkish occupation forces, and their Radical mercenaries, are endangering the lives of more than a million civilians.
The SAR water authorities continue to try to provide clean drinking water, with cooperation from the Hasaka City Council and civil society groups, who used many water tankers to provide the locals with drinking water from Nafasha and al Himah Water Projects.
This far Northeast section of Syria is split by various groups. The SAR based in Damascus controls some areas, and has forces, checkpoints, and provides health care and education to those areas it controls. So the Hasaka area is now administered jointly by Rojava revolutionaries (AANES Autonomous Administration of NE Syria) with their coalition army the SDF(Syrian Democratic Forces) and Damascus SAR(Syrian Arab Army) , as a way to block
expansion of the invading Turkish army and jihadi mercenaries. It also has some oil wells and the US is trying to make a base there.)
Chairman of Hasaka City Council Adnan Khajou, said that the daily quantity of water to be transported is 300,00 liters, which came from shallow wells dug by the locals, but is not drinkable and used only for cleaning.
The Turkish Army of occupation and its terrorist mercenaries in Ras-al-Ayn countryside continue to stop the operation of Alouk water project and to cut off the drinking water from Hasaka city, threatening one million persons with thirst and causing them to suffer from the spread of Coronavirus (COVID-19).
General Director of Hasaka Water Establishment Mahmoud Ukla said that since the Alouk Water Station was shut off by the Erdogan regime army, and their mercenaries, the summer temperatures have soared and water demand has increased, with the devastating additional threat of the COVID-19 pandemic, which needs water for hygiene.
Aziz Michael, geologist and water specialist, said that the Alouk water station is essential for water and it should be reopened.
The role of Turkey in the crisis
Turkey has a long history of using water as a weapon of war in Syria. In 1998 Erdogan had threatened to shut off water to Syria, which brought the two countries close to military conflict.
24 August 2020 Damascus, SANA-Foreign and Expatriates Ministry condemned, with the strongest terms, the continued crime perpetrated by the Turkish regime which cuts off water to about more than one million Syrian citizen in Hasaka city and its vicinity, affirming that cutting off water is a war crime and a crime against humanity.
In May the water supply to 460,000 civilians in northeastern Syria was cut off by Turkey for the sixth time.
Syrian Observatory activists have reported Friday that residents have been protesting in Ras al-Ain, which is under Turkish Army occupation, and were calling for water, and electricity to be restored.
The role of the UN
On Friday, Ambassador Bashar al-Jaafari, Syria’s Permanent Representative at the UN, called on the UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres to intervene immediately and to exert all his efforts to stop the Erdogan regime’s crime of cutting off drinking water for nearly one million Syrian citizens in Hasaka. In the phone call between al-Jaafari and Guterres, the Ambassador stressed that the Turkish aggression constitutes a war crime and a crime against humanity.
He said that the situation caused by this crime is exacerbated by hot weather and the threat of the COVID-19 pandemic.
Guterres said that he has tasked the UN team in Syria and his Special Envoy Geir Pedersen with taking steps to address this matter, resolve it urgently, and deliver humanitarian aid to affected people. He said he will exert his best efforts by contacting the Turkish government to put pressure and resolve this matter.
Guterres has asked Pedersen to meet the representatives of the US, Russia, and Turkey in Geneva on Monday, as the committee for drafting a new Syrian constitution meets, which is part of the UN 2254 resolution which will pave the way to a peaceful solution to the Syrian conflict.
Covid-19 danger
“Turkish authorities’ failure to ensure adequate water supplies to Kurdish-held areas in Northeast Syria is compromising humanitarian agencies’ ability to prepare and protect vulnerable communities in the COVID-19 pandemic,” Human Rights Watch said in a report published late March.
What is The Solution
The Kurdish leaders of the ‘Rojava’ area, and the central government of the SAR in Damascus, are in complete agreement that the solution of the water crisis in Hasaka must be the removal of all Turkish occupation forces, and their Radical terrorist mercenaries. The SAR is a secular government, and this is what the Kurdish leadership of ‘Rojava’ also claim as a core value of their administration. With so much in common, and both ‘Rojava’ and the SAR facing the same enemy, Turkey, and the possible resurgence of ISIS, it appears they may soon form renewed cooperation to re-take the land from occupation forces and defend the borders from all enemies.
Steven Sahiounie began writing political analysis and commentary during the Syrian war, which began in March 2011. He has published several articles, and has been affiliated with numerous media. He has been interviewed by US, Canadian and German media.
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Water is only one of the emergencies….
The AANES of Rojava with the SDF, still resists attacks from all sides
The AANES is the Autonomous Administration of delegates from decentralised democratic councils in every town and village, it is NOT a separate group of Kurds. The AA includes equally citizens of all races and religions, its the only admin in the middle East which has at least 50% women. The AA, with the SDF colaition forces successfully administers volatile cities like Raqqa , Manbij and Tabqa, liberated from ISIS, which have only a Kurdish minority, as well as Qamishlo, Hasakah.
- Erdogan’s forces and mercenaries have occupied a large part of the border region, expelling and Turkifying about 200,000 refugees
- Turkey had already invaded, looted and occupied Afrin, up to 200,000 refugees
- Rojava’s SDF forced to pact with US occupation in Deir Es Zor
- Donald Trump claimed ‘not a single person was killed’ when he allowed Turkey to invade North and East Syria.
But RIC research finds that hundreds of civilians were killed and 200,000 displaced, among other war crimes: https://rojavainformationcenter.com/…/report-turkeys-war-a…/‘Turkey’s war against civilians’, via Rojava Information Center
The AA is following an anarchist/communist political platform, promoted by Ocalan, the legendary leader still imprisoned by Turkey. The AA areas are often known as “Rojava” . They have a military wing, the 60,000 strong Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF),which is a decentralised coalition of dozens of brigades, (note: the SDF is accused by Turkey of being aligned with the Kurdish revolutionary defense group PKK as an excuse for its 3 invasions and occupations of Syria)
2)Communes meet the needs of the Afrin refugees Shehba
Shehba is the region of Rojava holding hundreds of thousands of people displaced from Afrin which is being ‘Turkified’ in an ethnic cleansing campaign. live in 5 main refugee campsand. Bit the Rojava revoluition is alive here, despite frequent heavy artillery attacks by Turkey from nearby occupied Azaz.
One of 5 camps fro Afrin’s ethically cleansed by Turkey, with a Russian okay for bombing and NATO armaments
Their primary needs are met by the commune to which each dwelling is connected. Surrounded by Syrian government forces on one side and Turkish-backed rebels on the other. Liberated from ISIS in 2016, its infrastructure is still devastated. Their former homes and lands have been seized by the Turkish paid jihadi gangs who continue to murder, loot, rape and kidnap to support their dwindling wages as the Turkish Lira devalues. Shehba is often seen as the Gaza of Turkish imperialism.
3)The SDF has problems downriver in the Deir Es Zor border area where the realtively small Syrian oil deposits are concentrated though they finally defeated ISIS, Turkish financed sleeper cells are active, along with rightwing arab sheiks aided by Damascus.
A volunteer puts up the SDF flag as ISIS finally lost its last territories, moving from an extreme regime where gays faced death and women could be sold in the street towards a female led direct democracy.
In Dier Es Zor the US Army is in power on the East bank seized by the SDF, along the Iraqi border and Trump boasts that ‘We Are Taking The Oil’ in imperialist fashion, and using the SDF as local allies, which puts them in a contradictory position.
The SDF are now tasked with stealing Syrian oil by the Trump regime. This is in spite of the US betraying the SDF and Kurds by pulling out of the Turkish border zone unexpectedly , allowing their Turkish NATO ally to invade, and seize a border zone including the cities of Serkineye (Ras al Ain).
The SDF has no choice, having no air force or financial backing, but to betray their own principles by allying with the execrable and unreliable US, as they are faced by Syria, Turkey, Iran, Iraq, Russia, ISIS, Marxist left, Al Qaeda, etc all keen to grab whats left of their land and exterminate their unique, progressive, democratic and feminist revolution. But by doing so they risk a Turkish or Syrian uprising against them and half their forces leaving the coalition. The fierce and sadistic economic sanctions being imposed on Syria by the US are already a growing atrocity and provocation.
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