Click to see full-size image. (Syrian Democratic Forces)
The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) on January 10 accused Turkey of joining the ongoing attacks on its forces by the Islamist-led Interim Government, as its last fighters withdrew from the Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo.
In a statement, the Kurdish-led group said that a Turkish Bayraktar Akıncı combat drone bombed one of its positions near al-Thawra oil field to the south of the city of Tabqah in the southern Raqqa countryside.
Fighters from the SDF’s security forces, Asayish, lost their last positions in the neighborhood of Ashrafieh and most of Sheikh Maqsoud to government forces overnight. The SDF claimed in a statement released earlier in the day, that Turkish Bayraktar TB2 combat drones struck its fighter there also.
Turkey’s Minister of National Defense Yaşar Güler and Syria’s Minister of Defense, Murhaf Abu Qasra, had a phone call during the day, but neither side reported any Turkish involvement in the ongoing operation against the SDF.
The drone strikes near Tabqah came following an attack with at least ten fixed-wing suicide drones that targeted government buildings in Aleppo city.
The operations command of the Syrian military held the SDF responsible, saying in a statement to the state-run SANA news agency that the group “entered a phase of escalation.”
“In response to this escalation, the army targeted the launch sites of these drones appropriately,” the statement reads. “The army managed to destroy a number—which we will announce later—of heavy tracked and wheeled vehicles at one of the SDF’s positions. This is our initial response.”
Besides Tabqah, escalation was also reported near the town of Deir Hafer in the eastern Aleppo countryside, with the government accusing the SDF of shutting down water pumps at the nearby Alababira Station. This accusation was rejected by the group.
The SDF from its side accused government forces of arresting dozens of men who left Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood after separating them from their families.
“In the context of systematic genocide crimes committed by factions and militias of the Damascus government, these militias kidnapped dozens of young civilians after forcibly separating them from their families as they left the Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood, then paraded them in the media and falsely presented them as fighters in our forces,” a statement released by the group reads.
Videos showing dozens of men captured by government forces were posted online. In the videos the men are being insulted, mainly called “pigs.”
In another worrying video, government fighters are seen throwing a female Kurdish fighter from the balcony of a damaged building in Sheikh Maqsoud.
The current situation inside the neighborhood is unclear. A batch of civilians were evacuated in buses to SDF areas in the afternoon. Before that at least dozens, including women and children, were trapped inside Khaled Fajr Hospital, along with many wounded.
The strikes in Tabqah and the accusations over the pumping station near Deir Hafer indicate that the government wants to take the battle against the SDF east after securing Sheikh Maqsoud.
U.S. Special Envoy Tom Barrack issued during the day a lengthy statement after meeting with Syrian President Ahmad al-Sharaa in Damascus. In the statement, he stressed Washington’s support for an integration agreement signed by the government and the SDF in March, and called for dialogue and de-esclation.
The agreement was not, however, strict in any way, which indicates that the U.S. is not interested in imposing its will on either side. Considering this, and all other development, the battle will likely go on.
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kurdish ypg-pkk-sdf terrorists helped the suni-wahhabi-hts-nusrah-qaeda-isis-zenki brigades headchoppin terrorists take over the secular government in syria, now they’re reaping what they sowed.
all i can say is that they both deserve each other
foolish kurds sided with usa to break apart the syrian arab republic and now they are suffering the consequence!
thou clearing aleppo is no satisfaction to me, aleppo kurds were rather cooperative with assad, it’s the al hasakah region kurds that were the devious oil thieves! their annihilation will at least provide some satisfaction.
they re like pawns in the game assad is putin is macaronr van dump loaden scabs moros all of them just pawns pushed into positions all as fall guys for optional outcomes. to cover every base
those scumbags like throwing people off roof tops, in 2012 when these animals came over the border into aleppo from turkey first thing they did was throw workers off the roof of aleppo post office, but kurds are partly to blame they have time after time collaborated with the americans instead of siding with assad and the saa.
scumbags were taught well by your mob. those scumbags will never come close to what the british empire did nowhere even vaguely close. they won’t be enslaving mlions of africans, massacring 10,000 indians by machine gun in one day, enslaving pakistan, dealing opium tobacco sugar causing millions and millions of deaths from. cancers diabetes alcoholism and so on so take a long look at your own.
don’t be fooled, it was a patio not a roof and it was a dead body.
to me, the syrian army is a mossad led israeli mercenary team created to incite division wherever it might. support of israel only brings war and death.
it would be to you but that’s just your opinion.
they use both side to kill each other at the end and honour no agreements. its a chess board game to them.
kurd-turds flushed!!!
obviously nice deflection though from the facts of the contacts you know very well are the underpinning for the 100 years coming.
merika pigglets turn a blind eye to more muzlim genocide. thats a lesson for the kurds who did not support assad but their own demise layer to come as like today. never trust murikan piggs, all they are is about free oil.
kurds are muslim….
didn’t these same kurds help overthrow assad’s secular government..?
they don’t have a right to complain now. they got exactly what they asked for. what else did they expect to happen? lol
karma can be a bitch.
the turd whores are the backstabbers of the middle east, in bed with the jooz. they stole syria’s oil and grain and starved the syrian people. they deserve all they get. they always get thrown under the bus the moment they outlive their usefulness. they never learn. f the turds.
usa favorite sdf fighters get chew by head chopper pumpkin head erdogan alqaida terrorist.trump has the oil that he wants under false pretense of middle east democracy thievery.