US-backed Kurdish authorities in northeast Syria are responsible for torture and “mass death” due to inhumane conditions at detention facilities that were set up after the defeat of ISIS, Amnesty International said in a new report on Wednesday.
Amnesty said that the US is “involved in most aspects of the detention system,” which holds more than 56,000 people, including 30,000 children, 14,500 women, and 11,500 men.
The Kurdish authorities, officially known as the Autonomous Authorities of the North and East Syria Region, include the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the US’s main partner in Syria. The majority of those in custody were detained in 2019 when ISIS lost the last significant piece of territory that it had.
Amnesty said many of the women are victims of human trafficking and forced marriage to ISIS members, and many detained boys and young men are victims of ISIS’s child recruitment. The report said other ISIS victims are being held in the facilities, including as many as hundreds of Yazidis.
Amnesty interviewed people who were held in the camps who detailed the torture they experienced, which included beatings, stress positions, and electric shocks. “I was given electric shocks. I was pregnant at the time. The [interrogator] knew, he told me: ‘I am going to force you to have a miscarriage’, and that’s what he did,” one woman said.
The Amnesty report detailed how the US has funded and supported the detention facilities. “The US-led coalition, with funding from the US Congress, has refurbished existing detention facilities, constructed new ones, and frequently visits them. The US Department of Defense has provided hundreds of millions of dollars to the SDF and affiliated security forces,” Amnesty said.
Former detainees said that the “combination of physical abuse, inhumane conditions and lack of medical care caused outbreaks of disease and other health conditions, and led to the deaths of hundreds of people.”
Back in January 2022, there was a prison break at one of the facilities in Hasakah. A major battle ensued, and the US gave air support to SDF fighters on the ground. According to US Central Command, more than 420 suspected ISIS members and 120 SDF fighters were killed in the battle. A 17-year-old Australian boy who was in the prison at the time of the battle told Human Rights Watch that he estimated 15 to 20 children were killed. The boy said he was injured by a US Apache helicopter strike.
By backing the SDF, the US is able to maintain control of a section of eastern Syria that’s about one-third of the country’s territory. The US also has about 900 troops deployed in the area, which is where most of Syria’s oil and gas fields are located. The government in Damascus is strongly opposed to the US presence, making it an illegal military occupation.
Just curious, when did America become the Nazis.
“Are we the baddies?” …
About the time the CIA was allowed to be born out of the OSS. Kind of like in the movie, “Alien”. From the original birth there came all sorts of agencies, in lock step to bend, recreate governance in the U.S. Of course fertile ground was there from the killing moments of the 1800’s with the savagery against Native Americans, then taking of lands from Mexico. Very fertile ground for the birth of the CIA. And so, there evolved the presentation of the Bible, wrapped in the American flag, as the symbol of peace, justice, the rules-based American mantra. To promote peace, America had to suppress peace, freedom in other countries, to impose our “democratic values” on other countries. Very succinct, I would add, in that most Americans don’t have a clue.
Carry on. Bring on “Freedom and Democracy!” I’m confident the Western Media will discuss Amnesty’s report in detail and blame… …Wait For It: …ASSAD. (If I have to add “Sarcasm” to the end of this post, we all have lost our minds)
Nice allies we got here … would you all be content if, when they inevitably lose the war and get kicked out, these folks came to live next door in Birmingham, Dusseldorf, and Peoria?
I had no idea this was still going on, how horrible. Especially for Yazidi victims and children. This along with the US funded bombing of Gaza is causing so much misery, I am afraid of the kick Karma is going to give at some time. A country can’t do this much evil without some cosmic payback, wouldn’t want to be in the way when that happens.
Amnesty needs to swing by Russia and check on those Gulag torture prisons too.
Oh wait, they won’t be allowed.
Russia and China have bad human rights records without a doubt. However as far as I know, they don’t seem to have a penchant for running or funding these secret international so-called prisons and detention facilities which amount to no more than torture chambers. For some reason the US government likes to spread their atrocities all over the world, one as to wonder what is going on that Amnesty Intl hasn’t uncovered yet.
They also do not have a penchant for military basses all over the world, like the freedom master, the U.S. of Atrocities (750 and counting).
These minds of relorts are always too kund to perpetrators. And especially — the motives for such conditions. Let me remind you that US sub-contracted most of fighting against ISIS to Kurdish YPG and Kurdish supposedly multinational SDF. Of course, there are no Syrian Arabs in “Syrian” Democratic Forces. And even after the palace coup in June 2017 removed US friendly Crown Prince MB Nayaf with MBS, and ISIS project was shut down, Wahhabi funding stopped — US and Kurds continued to treat all locals that fought back against Kurdish rule in MAJORITY ARAB areas as ISIS.
Things got muddy. ISIS leeadership disappeared from the scene, eaving all those imported ISIS rank and file behind. Those fought in Mosul and later Raqqa. But those were tiny munority. Majority of those in this wretched camp today are Syrian Arabs, declared ISIS and prevented rom going home. It is ethnic clensing — pure and simple. Kurds want through the US prolonged occupation of those Syrian regions to establish facts on ground — Kurdish region. Since they did not succeed in Afrin (Turkey defeated YPG), and did not succeed in Jarabulus/Al-Bab operations against Turkish, Syrian and Rusdian forces, and did not grab power Manbij, or in Kurdish majority Kobane region — this US occupied area is where they hope to establish some sort of Kurdish area carved out of Syria. Natives who are th majority constantly are rebelling — not that mainstream cares about it.
Given the incoherent US Midfle East policy — the camp wil be there for a forseeabe future. Babies grew up there, There is no incentive for Kurds to release then to their homes. Some countries have rescued children of their countrymen who left to be ISIS fighters. But majority there are Syrians that are not allowed to go home.
Oh h*ll, we did not “defeat” ISIS. ISIS is our foreign legion. It was ISIS-K that murdered many at the concert in Russia. Interestingly, not long after “cookies” Nuland said Russia should prepare for “nasty surprises”. She is out of office, but she is not out of the loop.
What’s a few more tens of thousands of children amongst our underwriters of genocide?
There are so many, it seems satanic to me.
Judging Freedom with Judge Napitalano interviewing Col Lawrence Wilkerson: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKlFASqQqtU
So, we’re not there just to steal Syrian oil. We’re doing other important work also. This really increases my pride in the USA.