Kurdish YPG forces are advancing this weekend against the ISIS-held town of Tel Abyad, the primary route from the ISIS capital of Raqqa to the Turkish border, and are threatening to cut off that key supply route for the Islamists.
YPG officials are confirming coordination with the US military on the attack, and several airstrikes carried out against ISIS forces in the town, the number of which is said to be growing as civilians flee the area toward the Turkish border.
ISIS still controls the town and the border road, but Kurdish officials say they believe it is “only a matter of time” before they take the area, a move which itself threatens to fuel more Turkish anger about the US government’s close alliance with Kurdish forces in Syria.
Turkey has complained that the US is allied with Kurdish factions, like the YPG, which are considered “terrorist” organizations in Turkey, and fears Kurdish growth along the border threatens to ignite a new secessionist war among Kurds inside southeastern Turkey. If nothing else, it is saddling the region with tens of thousands of new Arab refugees, as the Kurds are accused of chasing the Arabs out of the regions “liberated” from ISIS.
Given how important Tel Abyad is to ISIS, it is unthinkable that the town will fall easily to the YPG advance, and even with US air support this is likely to be a protracted battle for control over the border crossing, one which ISIS will bring as many fighters as necessary to hold.
The U.S. is playing a very dirty game pouring gasoline over fire. They have already killed 1.5 million Iraqi's with a lie of "supporting terrorists and having Weapons of Mass Distruction", now they are helping terrorist Kurds to sloughter innocent Arabs and Turkmen to carve another Israel , this time between Turkey and Iraq-Syria. Surely a time will come when they are held accountable.
Timur
Several media outlets reported that the YPG forces launched a campaign of ethnic cleansing against Arab residents in the area.
Arab people in the liberated villages refuted rumors about their displacement or burning their farms by YPG fighters.
Asya Abdulrahman, 31, an Arab resident of Tel Temir countryside, responded to the rumors about YPG attacks, saying: “On the contrary, the YPG hasn’t displaced us from our houses nor burned our farms. We have been displaced by ISIS terrorists.”
http://aranews.net/2015/06/video-arab-citizens-re…
There are other accusations of human rights violations. Recently there were claims that the YPG forced out the Arab population of a number of villages under the cover of the struggle against the Islamic State.
The PYD stands for a Rojava that is the expression of cultural and ethnic diversity. For example, Efrin is home to many Alevites and the female co-president is Alevite. In Cizîrê, there is a large Arab population and one of the co-presidents is Arab. You see the same on a local level. A major difference between the PYD and the Syrian allies of the KDP is their attitude towards the Arab population in Rojava. The KDP current says: ‘those people have been brought here as part of an Arabization policy of the Baath-regime and they need to leave, even if they have been here for generations.’ The PYD says that everybody who now lives in Rojava should be involved in building a new society.
http://roarmag.org/2015/06/kurdish-autonomy-jonge…