Home
/
Isiam
/
Islamic World
/
Report: Syrian Kurdish forces razed Arab villages
Report: Syrian Kurdish forces razed Arab villages
Jul 18, 2025 8:29 PM

  Amnesty International has accused Kurdish armed units in northern Syria of razing Arab and Turkmen villages, actions it says amounted to war crimes.

  A report published by the rights group on Tuesday included witness accounts of fighters displacing thousands of civilians of Arab and Turkmen background, and the destruction of homes.

  The alleged abuses took place in areas administered by the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), which is affiliated with the Turkey-based Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).

  Researchers visited 14 towns and villages controlled by Kurdish forces in Hasakah and Raqqa provinces, where fighters had retaken territory previously held by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) group.

  "This report uncovers clear evidence of a deliberate, coordinated campaign of collective punishment of civilians in villages previously captured by [ISIL]," said Amnesty's Lama Fakih.

  Satellite images obtained by the group showed 225 buildings standing in the village of Husseiniyah in Tel Amees in June 2014, but only 14 remaining a year later.

  Witnesses said the PYD's armed wing (YPG) began a campaign of destroying homes and expulsions when it took the village from ISIL in February 2014.

  "They pulled us out of our homes and began burning the home … they brought the bulldozers.... They demolished home after home until the entire village was destroyed," said one witness.

  US air strikes

  In other cases, the YPG threatened to call in US air strikes if villagers refused to leave.

  The fighters have been backed in their fight against ISIL by US, which arms them and provides air cover.

  In another attack, Kurdish fighters are alleged to have doused a house with petrol and set it alight while its residents were still inside.

  The villagers were accused by the fighters of supporting ISIL.

  Amnesty International says it spoke to Kurdish leaders who said the incidents were isolated, while the YPG says civilians were moved for their own safety.

  PHOTO CAPTION

  Kurdish fighters of the YPG stand on their vehicles near Kezwan mountain, northeastern Syria.

  Source: Aljazeera.com

Comments
Welcome to mreligion comments! Please keep conversations courteous and on-topic. To fosterproductive and respectful conversations, you may see comments from our Community Managers.
Sign up to post
Sort by
Show More Comments
Islamic World
Syria: the failure of our so-called international community
  The massacres in Syria rage on and yet we stand idle. We must realize that, to millions of Syrians trapped in the country, the virtual absence of humanitarian relief is nearly as arbitrary and cruel as the war itself.   Bombs, even ballistic missiles, are tearing homes apart and more than...
Asad's thugs massacres of Sunni families and children
  The pictures appear to tell a familiar story. In one a pile of bodies lies on a street corner, shot down, apparently where they were gathered. Among them is a girl in a red blouse, perhaps five years old, spread-eagled among a dozen other family members, some covered in sheets....
Four children among the dead following joint Afghan-NATO operation
  At least five Afghan civilians, of which four were children, were reportedly killed Tuesday night during an operation by joint NATO and Afghan forces in the eastern Arghanistan province of Logar, according to reports by a local police official.   Reports indicate that the military operation included both soldiers operating on...
Israel arrests 14-year-old US citizen
  On April 11, in one of the trailer caravans that house the Israeli military courtrooms at Ofer prison, three boys sat in the brown Israeli Prison Service shabas uniform. Their feet shackled, their eyes darting between the judge, their lawyers, and their families.   The youngest was 14-year-old Mohammad Khaleq, a...
Syria air strikes 'target civilians'
  Regime air strikes have hit bakeries and hospitals among other civilian targets in Syria, a watchdog reported Thursday, accusing the Syrian government of killing thousands in such raids it said amounted to war crimes.   "Individuals who commit serious violations of the laws of war willfully, that is intentionally or recklessly,...
Camp Nama: horrors of a secret US base in Baghdad
  British soldiers and airmen who helped to operate a secretive US detention facility in Baghdad that was at the center of some of the most serious human rights abuses to occur in Iraq after the invasion have, for the first time, spoken about abuses they witnessed there.   Personnel from two...
Jordan to host 'world's largest refugee camp'
  Al-Zaatari refugee camp near Jordan's northern border with Syria is the second largest refugee camp in the world. On days when violence in Syria worsens, between 2,000-4,000 Syrians flood into Zaatari, and the stories they tell are horrific.   "Things are happening in Syria that our minds couldn't even imagine," 65-year-old...
Maliki's Iraq: Rape, executions and torture
  Heba al-Shamary (name changed for security reasons) was released recently from an Iraqi prison where she spent the last four years.   "I was tortured and raped repeatedly by the Iraqi security forces," she told Al Jazeera. "I want to tell the world what I and other Iraqi women in prison...
Iraq: War's legacy of cancer
  Two US-led wars in Iraq have left behind hundreds of tons of depleted uranium munitions and other toxic wastes.   Contamination from Depleted Uranium (DU) munitions and other military-related pollution is suspected of causing a sharp rises in congenital birth defects, cancer cases, and other illnesses throughout much of Iraq.   Many...
Afghans stranded in Pakistan's no-man's land
  Generations of Afghan refugees raised in Pakistan now face the prospect of returning to a home they have never known.   Ali Muhammad, an Afghan resident of Chaghai, in Pakistan's southwestern Balochistan province, was born in 1981, as his family was fleeing the Afghan-Soviet war for the relative safety of Pakistan....
Related Classification
Copyright 2023-2025 - www.mreligion.com All Rights Reserved