HASAKAH, Syria (North Press) – Sere Kaniye (Ras al-Ain) and Tel Abyad, northern Syria, have witnessed security chaos and internal fighting among the Turkish-backed armed opposition groups in January, accompanied by frequent bombings, continued arrests, kidnappings of civilians, and the seizure of residents’ property.
Explosions and casualties
On January 2, four people, including children, were killed and others were wounded, in addition to material damage in an explosion of a VBIED in the center of the city of Sere Kaniye (Ras al-Ain).
On January 6, an explosive device which was planted inside a Turkish-backed armed opposition groups’ military vehicle, detonated in the city center, injuring two militants of the Sultan Murad armed group.
On January 19, members of one of the armed groups’ security checkpoints killed 55-year-old civilian Mustafa Sido in the village of Rihaniyah, east of Suluk town in the countryside of Tel Abyad.
On January 26, four civilians were killed and others were wounded as a result of a suicide bombing near the Municipality roundabout in the city center of Tel Abyad.
Arrests
The series of arrests still continue in both regions, while the fate of many of them remains unknown.
On January 7, the armed groups arrested six people, including two women, in the village of Hammam Turkman in the countryside of Tel Abyad on charges of dealing with the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
On January 8, local sources from Sere Kaniye (Ras al-Ain) reported that the Turkish army had transferred three detainees from the prisons of the opposition groups to its prisons in the city of Urfa in southern Turkey.
Three days prior, the opposition groups arrested a 40-year-old Kurdish civilian named Saleh Ali from his home in Dewa Square in the city of Sere Kaniye (Ras al-Ain), without details about his fate so far.
On January 28, the Turkish-backed armed groups conducted a campaign of indiscriminate arrests in the town of Suluk in the countryside of Tel Abyad.
The campaign took place under the command of the Levant Front, in which it arrested about 17 young men from the town.
In its report submitted to the Human Rights Council on September 15, 2020, the UN Independent International Commission of Inquiry said, “the transfer of Syrian citizens to Turkish territory for trial after being detained by the opposition militants may amount to a war crime represented in illegal deportation.”
The report itself stated that “during the period under review, civilians residing in the Afrin and Ra’s al-Ayn [Sere Kaniye] regions of the Aleppo and Hasakah Governorates witnessed an onslaught of violations perpetrated by members of the Syrian National Army as well as shelling and vehicle-borne improvised explosive devices.”
At the time, the SDF Commander-in-Chief Mazloum Abdi tweeted, commenting on the commission’s report, saying: “What was mentioned in the report is a small part of the war crimes committed by the armed groups against our people in Afrin, Sere Kaniye, and Tel Abyad under a political cover by Turkey.”
Stolen property
A resident of Sere Kaniye countryside, who preferred not to be named for security reasons, told North Press that on January 9, members of the al-Badr Martyrs Brigade stole about 50 sheep from a civilian home.
He pointed out that the armed groups stole agricultural machinery belonging to the residents of al-Rawiya village, west of Sere Kaniye, in addition to a several heads of cattle.
The Badr Martyrs Brigade, led by Abu Jemmu, controls the western countryside of Sere Kaniye.
Weapons shop
The armed opposition groups turned a clothing store in Sere Kaniye owned by a displaced former resident into a weapons shop.
Youssef Sheikh Hamo, the owner of the shop who currently resides in the city of Erbil in Kurdistan Region of Iraq, posted photos of his shop on his Facebook page after it was turned into a weapons store.
In a statement to North Press, Sheikh Hamo said that his shop, which he opened to sell clothes two months before the Turkish incursion in his city, is now occupied by Turkish-backed armed opposition groups and turned into a weapons shop.
Water cutoff
Last month, the Turkish forces cut off the water supply to the city of Hasakah and its countryside for ten days, in violation of the agreement with the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES).
During the cut-off, residents were forced to buy drinking water from tankers at high prices or to rely on mineral water, which cost them additional financial burdens.
Since October 2019, Turkey and the armed opposition groups have controlled Sere Kaniye and Tel Abyad following an incursion which caused the displacement of 300,000 people, according to AANES data.