RAQQA, Syria (North Press) – Recently, the targeting of civilians by gunmen on the Raqqa-Hasakah road, also known as the Abyad-Abyad road, has been frightening drivers and passengers in light of the lack of the Internal Security Forces (Asayish) checkpoints.
Director of the Media Center of the Asayish in North and East Syria Abdullah al-Sheikhani said that they are working on increasing the number of checkpoints in conjunction with conducting continuous patrols on the Raqqa-Hasakah road.
The new procedures would prevent the recurrence of accidents targeting passengers and drivers on the road, al-Sheikhani said in an exclusive statement to North Press.
Over the past few days, unidentified gunmen killed a fuel tanker driver on the Raqqa-Hasakah road.
Several days after that, gunmen shot at a car heading from the city of Kobani to Qamishli, killing a woman from Kobani and seriously wounding her brother.
The gunmen fired a hail of bullets at the car and stole money, gold, and phones from the passengers, local sources told North Press.
The statement of al-Sheikhani came after demands of drivers and travelers to secure the road, which is the only connection between the Jazira region and the Euphrates region after the Turkish-backed armed factions took control of parts of the M4 Highway.
In October 2019, Turkey and the Turkish-backed armed factions took over parts of M4 Highway following a military operation in the areas of Sere Kaniye and Tel Abyad.
Al-Sheikhani indicated that investigations are underway to uncover the circumstances of the crimes that affected the travelers, and that the Asayish continues to work to “secure the safety of the population in northeast Syria.”
After the Turkish-backed armed factions took control of the M4 Highway, transport movement between the Jazira and the Euphrates regions moved to the Raqqa-Hasakah road south of the Hasakah city, which passes through the eastern countryside of Raqqa to Hasakah.
This road is used to transport passengers and goods. It starts from the town of al-Karama, 30 kilometers east of Raqqa, and passes through the areas of Abu Khashab and Sabah al-Khair and ends at the southern entrance of Hasakah, at a length of 155 kilometers.
Khalil al-Habash, a transport driver, said, “we are concerned about the safety of the road after civilians are being targeted.”
Al-Habash and others are afraid to pass the road for fear of being targeted and looted, as they demanded to speed up securing the road.
The M4 Highway was reopened in May 2020 after long talks between Turkey and Russia to allow the passage of civilians from Tel Tamr to Ain Issa under Russian protection, according to a previous statement by Pavel Igorian, the Russian officer at the Russian Reconciliation Center in Syria, to North Press.
Moreover, the exposure of the town of Ain Issa and the surrounding villages to frequent Turkish bombardment results in the stoppage of the movement of convoys on the M4 Highway.
Yahya Muhammad, a passenger vehicle driver working on the Kobani-Qamishli road, said that the area between the town of Sabah al-Khair and the city of Hasakah is very “dangerous”. He attributed this to “the lack of the Asayish checkpoints there.”
“They should establish a checkpoint every 10 kilometers,” he added.