Erdogan’s Imperial Boast- “The cities that we call Aleppo, Idlib, Damascus and Raqqa will become our provinces, like Antep, Hatay and Urfa”,
on Sunday, February 14 , 2025 info from SDFpress Kurdiscat Al Jazeera Hawarnews via thefreeonline at https://wp.me/pIJl9-G1R
The Afrin canton and city was once a peaceful area and, during the horrors of the Syrian Civil War, it was saved from the destruction of other areas by Kurdish self-defense groups which eventually coalesced around the YPG or People’s Defense Units. Afrin became a major quiet refuge for internal refugees (IDPs).
Afrin almost became part of Turkey in 1939 when the neighbouring Hatay province was separated from Syria although it had a demographic Arab majority, and given to Turkey in a dirty and still disputed deal by the French, and has been aggressively Turkified ever since.
Jan 2o 2018 Afrin City falls: Turkish Fascist massacres as Resistance goes Guerilla Turkey militarily occupied the Kurdish canton of Afrin/Efrîn (Rojava, Syrian Kurdistan) with its offensive that began on January 20, 2018 and was completed on March 24, 2018.
Afrin was sold out. The same day that the invasion began President Erdogan agreed to build a Russian Nuclear plant and allow a 2nd Turkstream pipeline, in exchange for key invasion support and for airspace permission for its air force to bomb Afrin (Efrin).
Defeated but defiant. Reports of massacres by Turkish troops and the mercenaries of FSA came from around Afrin as the NATO tanks finally rolled in. The local defense groups, YPG and womens YPJ held out heroically for 2 months against Turkey which has the 2nd largest NATO army.
During the fighting, the Kurds of Afrin were forcibly expelled from their homes, lands and businesses and forced to flee. Minority groups, such as Yazidis, were declared infidels and murdered.
Since March 2018, human rights violations against the indigenous population have been constant, kidnappings, rapes, murders, demographic replacement, thefts, environmental destruction including 280,000 century-old olive trees of the Kurdish region.
The areas around Afrin were occupied by a plethora of divided Syrian jihadist groups from around Syria which had formed when Qatar, Saudi, Turkey and the US had directed their funds and arms to religious extremists in the first phase of the civil war and many who fled north to Idlib and Afrin due to the Russian backed Assad victories,
The Afrin areas were often contested between elements of the Syrian regime and over 50 Syrian rebel and jihadist groups, many claiming divine rights. Turkey controls all border supplies and over time co-opted the Syrian rebel groups and turned them into proxies. Turkey endlessly accused the YPG Kurdish defense in Afrin of being “terrorists” even though there was never any proof of a single “terror” attack on Turkey.
Turkey’s Den of Thieves, Racists, Rapists and hired Al Qaeda Thugs
Supervised by Turkey the religious jihadist infested the area, looting, kidnapping women for slaves and ransom and murdering civilians to take their property. In many ways, they behave like ISIS, targeting minorities and each other in a depraved manner.
Meanwhile, many ISIS commanders, who fled from Raqqa when the SDF conquered their capital and NE Syria, also came to live in Idlib and Afrin, some of them via Turkey .
The theft of anything of value continued in Afrin. More than 50 separate militias operated in Afrin.
Turkey adopted the jihadists as poorly paid mercenaries (with continuously devaluing salaries in Turkish money) and set about Turkifying the Afrin canton, destroying any vestige of Kurdish customs and history and introducing Turkish currency, police, education and local government etc.
For Turkey Afrin’s fate was ultimately a failed experiment in Erdogan’s public quest to reestablish a Turkish Empire in much of the Middle East.
However by ceding it to the new HTS/AlQaeda regime Erdogan presents the loss as a step to increasing the dozen Turkish fortified military bases in Idlib, Manbij Azaz etc across Syria.
“The cities that we call Aleppo, Idlib, Damascus and Raqqa will become our provinces, like Antep, Hatay and Urfa”, Erdogan has publicly declared.
The Afrin invasion and ethnic cleansing was preceded by Turkish attacks from August 24, 2016 to March 29, 2017 in which it occupied neighboring Azaz. However an area south of Azaz Tal Rafat/Shehba was left to house up to the 180,000 mainly Kurds expelled from Afrin.
Up to 180,000 refugees from Turkey’s genocidal invasion of Afrin spent over 6 years in camps in Shehba and Tal Rifaat
Use Them or Lose Them?
Turkey’s Afrin based proxies, named the SNA, had agitated for years to be let loose on the Afrin refugees, and when HTS began destroying the demoralized Damascus armies in December 2024 Erdogan gave permission and military support from his Azaz HQ, and the ‘jihadi horde’ attacked.
Tal Rafaat was devastated (see below) and amid fierce fighting and massacres most of the Afrin refugees fled in a chaos of huge convoys of up to 100,000 , defended by their SDF defense forces, right across Turkish held areas to a warm welcome in the central Rojava revolutionary AANES area.
The Turkish backed offensive continued, seizing and sacking the thriving multi ethnic Manbij city, (taken by the Kurds from ISIS) amid fierce battles and massacres ending with SDF injured executed in their hospital beds.
After sacking Manbij the offensive, initiated on November 30, 2024, advanced towards Kobanê, the famous symbol of the liberating Rojava revolution, and is currently still being stopped at the Manbij dam from crossing the Euphrates into central Rojava./ see extensive reporting of heroic months long military, human shield and women’s resistance..see https://t.me/thefreeonline
The invasion across the Euphrates has so far failed with extensive ongoing Turkish bombing, heavy artillery and numerous drone attacks continuing on civilian and military targets with hundreds of villages and towns cut off from water and electricity in freezing winter weather..
The ‘interim’ HTS regime is busy consolidating and has not yet attacked Rojava/AANES, which is still attempting negotiations for autonomy under its progressive multi ethnic and multi religious Constitution.
📢 INFOCALL: What is happening at Tishreen & what can we do?
For the past month, the people of Rojava have come together to protect the vital Tişrîn Dam. Despite relentless Turkish air strikes and attacks by Turkey’s SNA militia on both civilians and SDF forces, the people remain steadfast in its support for the SDF and the defense of the dam.
Journalist and writer Jenni Keasen and Internationalists from @womens_front
will be joining us to talk to us about their experiences at the #Tishreen dam in North-East Syria!
➡️ Join us on Feb. 17th – 19:00 CET via: Zoom – Instagram – Telegram*
*The link for the Call will be shared on our socials shortly ahead of the starting time
Web: riseup4rojava.org
X/Twitter: https://x.com/RISEUP4R0JAVA
Telegram: https://t.me/RiseUp4RojavaEng
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/riseup4_rojava/
Meanwhile Turkish control of Afrin fell apart and it was take over, along with the Tal Rafaat/Shehba enclave by HTS/Al Qaeda forces from neighbouring Idlib, and provisionally declared part of the’New Syria’
“The meeting on February 6 between Erdogan and Jolani (who now calls himself Ahmed Al Sharaa) and the head of Al Qaeda/HTS (Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, Organization for the Liberation of the Levant), the new strongman of Syria and self proclaimed President, had immediate results and the remaining Turkish mercenary forces have handed over Efrîn to the new Islamist government which has deployed internal forces on the same day 6.”
In fact the Turkish debacle in Afrin/Tal Rifaat was already happening. The most capable mercenaries had been enticed to the Manbij/Tishreen front with bonuses and the promise of plunder.
Reports asserted that many people welcomed the new forces, some held signs demanding greater law enforcement and an end to the detention of locals and ongoing looting, kidnapping and violence and among the Turkish backed mercenary groups.
Most of Turkish mercenaries deployed in Efrîn had been moved to the Manbij front where they are fighting against the SDF Kurdish-Arab resistance in Rojava/AANES centered on he Tishreen Dam.
The remaining Turkish proxies were fast disappearing where possible to their original homes across Syria. Turkey was posing as a liberator proposing new military bases and in no position to fight the HTS militants who took control.
Some civilians came out with Kurdish flags to receive the ‘new government forces’ as they hope for an easing of their persecution and the chance of recovering land and property stolen from the in the 2018 Turkish ethnic cleansing
But the fighting leaves the local Kurds and others still surviving in Afrin and Tal Rifaat with little hope that their lives will improve. The area of Afrin is rural, with little industry, made up of rolling hills and olive orchards.
And the latest twist to the story:
Abdullah Ocalan, who is the popular leader of the Kurdish revolution is due to make a major initiative, allowed by the Turkish Regime, from his cell on an island where he is endlessly jailed.
Ocalan, the Nelson Mandela of the Kurds, previously called and led two long ceasefires with the PKK resistance. – The second leading to the liberating ‘Kurdish Spring’, eventually drowned in blood by the Erdogan/AKP ultra right nationalists in 2015, when Kurdish parties threatened the ruling AKP with gaining the balance of power.
Turkey is presently attacking and repressing the 20 million Kurds inside Turkey in every way possible. A peace mission led by Ocalan would be a relief, or perhaps just a cynical manipulation by Erdogan with superficial concessions.
The Peace Initiative could also be a way for Turkey to split support for the embattled SDF in Syria and their supporters in Iraq, Iran and internationally.
Another possible recent game changer is a report that many of Turkey’s jihadi mercenaries attacking Rojava are deserting and disappearing. It was claimed that they are demoralized by the high kill rate by the fearless SDF defenders, and some are keen to travel back to their former home areas which they can now enter in the ‘New Syria’.
If true this could be a victory, although the present war on Rojava is by now dominated by direct Turkish airforce, drone and heavy artillery bombing.
Turkey is also threatening a direct joint HTS/Turkish offensive against Rojava when/if the new regime is consolidated. There also remains a likely pullout by Trump of the the now mainly symbolic US bases in the eastern NE .
In defense of humanity: Internationalists in Italy honored Şehîd Ronahî Yekta (Arşîn Hisên) , one of the many revolutionary women killed repelling the new attacks of the Turkey-backed mercenaries on Rojava
“The cities that we call Aleppo, Idlib, Damascus and Raqqa will become our provinces, like Antep, Hatay and Urfa”, Erdogan has boasted.
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The Syrian Democratic Forces are negotiating with the new Syrian Government which refuses to grant any autonomy within the country. As a concession the SDF have expressed their willingness to share and deliver the limited oil wells they control to the Damascus “caretaker” government,
The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have expressed their willingness to deliver the oil provided that wealth is distributed fairly among the Syrian provinces.
They clarified their stance on the proposal for integration into the Syrian Ministry of Defense, stating that they will not dissolve themselves but could be incorporated into the Syrian army as a military bloc.
In an interview with Asharq channel on Tuesday, January 14, the commander of the SDF, Mazloum Abdi, stated that decentralization is the best option for the current reality in Syria, explaining that it does not contradict the concept of the unity of Syrian territory.
SDF also offers as a concession to hand over border management to Damascus government
SDF Commander Mazloum Abdi Enab Baladi 28/12/2024
The leader of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), Mazloum Abdi, also added SDF/AANES readiness to hand over border control in areas under their forces’ control to the new Damascus government.
The SDF has over 100,000 women and men soldiers, formed by militia’s of a wide variety of ethnicities and religions.
Importantly the SDF wages are NOT paid by the USA, but by taxes collected by the Autonomous decentralized admin.
Abdi told the Asharq al-Awsat newspaper on Friday, December 27, that he is “in principle” ready to transfer the responsibility of border security to the new authorities in
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