Free Republic

In 2014, the world learned about my hometown, Kobane, and my people, the Syrian Kurds, when we dealt the Islamic State its first major defeat in partnership with the United States and the Global Coalition. The alliances we forged there led to the end of the ISIS caliphate in 2019.Today, Kobane is again under threat — and all the gains of those partnerships are also in danger.This time, the threat comes not from Islamic State terror, but from a U.S. ally and a member of NATO. For more than a week, the government of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has...

Just two days after agreeing to lift deal-breaking objections to Sweden and Finland’s NATO accession, Turkey’s leader warned Thursday that Ankara could still block the process if the two countries fail to fully meet his expectations. President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said at the close of the alliance’s summit in Madrid that the 10-article agreement with the Nordic pair was a victory for Ankara and addressed all its “sensitivities.” He particularly stressed the satisfying of Turkey’s demand for Sweden and Finland to extradite terror suspects with links to outlawed Kurdish groups or the network of an exiled cleric accused of a...

NATO leaders meeting in Madrid issued a formal invitation to Finland and Sweden to become members, after Russia’s invasion of Ukraine prompted the two to end decades of military non-alignment and seek accession... Joining NATO marks a significant shift for both countries. Sweden would end more than 200 years of non-alignment, while Finland, which shares an 810 mile border with Russia, would end a policy of neutrality adopted as a Soviet-imposed condition of peace following World War Two. The process to finalize now requires ratification by all 30 current allies. That could take months, but the alliance stressed that “the...

The terror suspect charged with killing two people and injuring 21 more at an Oslo gay bar last night has been named as a 42-year-old ex-plumber born in Iran. Zaniar Matapour was born in Iranian Kurdistan before coming to Bergen, Norway as a refugee at the age of 12. He was charged early this morning with two murders, attempted murder and terrorism after the homophobic terror attack at city centre LGBT+ haunt London Pub. The Norwegian Police Security Service (PST) investigated Matapour just a month ago, but decided he was 'not an imminent threat', Norwegian national broadcaster VG reported. PST...

Thousands of Islamic State fighters have surrendered after almost a week of fighting at a prison in Syria. The U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces announced Wednesday that they had re-taken control of the al-Sina’a prison in the northeastern Syrian town of Hasakah. .. The attack on al-Sina’a prison in Hasakah began with a series of car bombings at the prison complex, triggering a riot after some detainees overpowered guards. The prison is one of several across northeastern Syria, where thousands of captured ISIS fighters have been held since 2019, when coalition-led Kurdish forces captured the last major territory held by the...

On Thursday night (20 Jan 2022), prisoners began revolting in Gweiran Prison (in Hasakah, Syria), where thousands of suspected IS members have been held following the defeat of the terror group in 2019. On the same evening, fighters attacked the prison and a car bomb was exploded nearby, according to reports. Shami later said that some 89 prisoners had been recaptured, but fighting continued near the prison into Saturday. In a statement, the SDF said that 17 of its members and those affiliated with allied groups had been killed since the assault in Hasakah began. The SDF also reported that...

Once other countries even covertly begin supporting the Kurdish insurgency in Turkey, there will be no turning back. Modern Turkey arose nearly one hundred years ago against the backdrop of European efforts to divide the Anatolian Peninsula. This fact drives both Turkey’s collective paranoia and its xenophobia. Its nightmare is a Kurdish secession. While the PKK and its offshoot groups long ago abandoned this goal in favor of localized autonomy, Turkish president Recep Erdoğan’s penchant for instigating fights with neighbors and regional states may soon make Turkey’s fears a self-fulfilling prophecy.  Turkey’s problem with its Kurdish problem has existed almost...

U.S. Special Operation Forces led a Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) operation against an Islamic State cell in Syria in response to increased ISIS attacks in the region. The combined operation resulted in the capturing of an ISIS leader responsible for the recent attacks in the Deir el-Zour countryside. Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTF-OIR), the U.S.-led coalition in Syria and Iraq, released a statement by spokesman Colonel Myles Caggins on Thursday highlighting the missionÂ’s success and announcing the capture of the unnamed ISIS leader. Yet, he didnÂ’t add much more regarding the operation in the Deir el-Zor region....

The Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which is designated as a terrorist group by both the U.S. and Turkey, penned an open letter in English rebuking President Trump's comparison of the group to ISIS amid a fight between Kurds and Turkish forces in northern Syria. The PKK said in Friday's letter that it “refused comparisons” to ISIS after Trump said at a press conference on Wednesday that the Kurds were “no angels” and that the PKK is likely “more of a terrorist threat” than ISIS. “We refuse comparisons being made between our movement and the inhumane thugs of ISIS,” the PKK’s...

The Kurds in Syria say the Syrian government has agreed to send its army to the northern border to try to halt Turkey's offensive against them. Syrian state media earlier reported that government forces had been deployed to the north. It follows the US decision to pull all its remaining troops from the area... (Turkey said) It also plans to resettle more than three million Syrian refugees currently in Turkey within the zone. Many of them are not Kurds. Critics have warned this could lead to ethnic cleansing of the local Kurdish population. (Just as Turkey did after it took...

The commander of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces told a senior US diplomat, "You are leaving us to be slaughtered," demanding to know whether the US is going to do anything to protect Syrian Kurds as Turkey continues its military operation targeting America's Kurdish allies in Syria. "You have given up on us. You are leaving us to be slaughtered," Gen. Mazloum Kobani Abdi told the Deputy Special Envoy to the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS, William Roebuck, in a meeting Thursday, according to an internal US government readout that has been obtained exclusively by CNN. "You are not willing...

Turkey and the US are on a collision course after President Recep Tayyip Erdogan warned he would “eliminate” Washington’s Kurdish allies in Syria “very soon”. Mr Erdogan has been threatening an assault on the Kurdish People’s Protection Unity (YPG) militia for over a year, but it is thought he now plans to make good on the promise... Turkish media outlets have often shown images in recent weeks of military convoys heading for the border area, carrying equipment and fighting units. It also appears to have opened a section of the border wall in the last few days... Kurdish officials warned...

QAMISHLI, Syria — Since the battles against the Islamic State (IS) in Baghouz ended in March, several factors have indicated the Kurdish-led autonomous administration in northeast Syria is garnering international political support. Previously, support to that region — known as Syrian Kurdistan or Rojava — from the international coalition against IS had been limited to military and security aspects. Now, diplomatic visits have increased in frequency, actually coming weekly in the past two months, Abdul Karim Omar, head of the region's Foreign Relations Department, told Al-Monitor. Most foreign delegations visiting the self-administration area used to avoid the media and focused on receiving their countries' children and wives of IS fighters held there. But...

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Turkish police on Saturday conducted raids on 127 homes in Istanbul and arrested at least 53 people, pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (HDP) candidates for the city council, as the country goes to ballot boxes for nationwide local elections in less than 24 hours. Elsewhere in the southern Sanliurfa province, police arrested 11 others campaigning for the elections, the HDP said in a statement to the public, adding the reason for arrests was not specified yet. In the cities of Adana, Van, and Igdir, authorities reprimanded 31 party members to prisons on “terrorism-related” charges. The current wave...

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...

WASHINGTON DC (Kurdistan 24) - On January 3, when the new US Congress takes office, Rep. Eliot Engel (D, New York) will become the chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee.Engel is a long-time supporter of the Kurds. In 2014, he pressed the Obama administration as to “why the Kurds, as a distinct people, aren’t entitled to the same rights of self-determination the Palestinians enjoy.”The following year, Engel backed legislation authorizing the direct US provision of arms to the Peshmerga.And two years after that, Engel supported the Kurdistan independence referendum, issuing a statement on September 25, the day of the...

Turkey does not differentiate between what it sees as terrorist organisations and any support for Syrian Kurdish forces means supporting the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), state-run Anadolu news agency quoted presidential spokesman İbrahim Kalın as saying on Wednesday in reference to U.S. backing for Kurdish fighters in Syria battling Islamic State. Turkey sees the People’s Protection Units (YPG) and its political wing, the Democratic Union Party (PYD), that control most of northeast Syria as part of the PKK that has been fighting for self-rule inside Turkey for more than 30 years. The YPG denies being part of the PKK, but...

Adil Musa Abdouljezar was captured alive in an operation that was successfully carried out by YPG Anti-Terror Units (YAT). People’s Defense Units (YPG) Press Office released a statement announcing the capture of a key figure of ISIS. YPG provided the following information about the operation; “Our struggle against the ISIS terrorist organization that had emerged as the most brutal group of history and had been calamity for the peoples of the Middle East and for the revolution in Rojava and Northern Syria, is progressing and obtaining great victories. Through our effort and struggle to defend the values and dignity of...

The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) dealt a lethal blow to the so-called ‘caliphate’ a week ago, when their troops seized the last border points that were under the Islamic State’s control in eastern Syria. According to the official spokesperson for the SDF, their troops managed to capture the entire desert of eastern Deir Ezzor and secure the Al-Hasakah provincial border that weekend.

KOBANI, Syria –  As the battle for the northwestern Syrian city of Afrin raged earlier this year, amid Turkey’s eventually successful “Operation Olive Branch” to seize control from the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), images of the bloodbath flooded social media. But there was one especially shocking video, captured via cellphone, that ignited international outcry: a fighter with the all-female Kurdish unit known as the YPJ lay dead and half-naked in the dirt, her body mutilated with deep cuts lacerating her exposed breasts. Turkey-backed Syrian rebel fighters in military fatigues can be seen swarming the corpse, groping the pockets of her...