“Turkey's drone program, like the rest of the country's growing state-linked defense industry, exists almost exclusively because of Turkey's war on Kurdish armed groups and civilians both within its borders and in neighboring Iraq and Syria,” observed Meghan Bodette, director of research at the Washington-based Kurdish Peace Institute. In response, Turkey’s national spy agency, MIT, has escalated drone attacks, “neutralizing” alleged PKK targets in northern Syria as well as in northern Iraq, and proudly trumpets the results on social media. Its aim would be to drum up nationalist support ahead of the watershed presidential and parliamentary polls that are due to take place on May 14. Washington and the Kremlin have pushed back against Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s repeated demands to launch another ground invasion in northeast Syria. However, in the event of a US withdrawal, they view the rebels as their best line of defense. Many ordinary Kurds probably may not agree with the PKK’s left-wing ideology and authoritarian bent. The YPG and the SDF deny any organizational ties with the PKK, though it is widely known that the PKK maintains a shadow presence on the ground. They openly pledge fealty to imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan, whose portrait is plastered on giant billboards across Rojava.Īri market, where an alleged Turkish drone killed two Kurdish civilians on Jan. Many of the YPG’s top commanders rose through the ranks of the PKK, which is listed as a terrorist organization by the United States and the European Union. Turkey justifies such aggression on the grounds that the YPG, and by extension the SDF, are run by another Kurdish group, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which has been waging an armed campaign for Kurdish autonomy against the Turkish state for almost 40 years. Since 2016, it has launched three major ground offensives against the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Forces (YPG), which forms the backbone of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the US-led coalition’s top partner against IS. Turkey views the Syrian Kurds' experiment in self-rule as a major threat that will further foment separatism among its own rebellious Kurds. The drone strikes are part of Turkey’s systematic campaign to degrade and destroy the Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration in North and East Syria (AANES). They took pictures of the damage,” Abdurrahman said.īusiness has plummeted since the incident. “The American forces came to visit us to offer their condolences. American Special Forces who were deployed in the region as part of the US-led coalition against the Islamic State (IS) were regulars at the Ari Market, where everything from Soviet-era bric-a-brac to Damascene sweetmeats line the shelves. (photo courtesy of Salam family)Īhmed had taken the job to support his family after his dad fell ill. Undated photo of Ahmed Abed Al Khani Salam, who died in an alleged Turkish drone strike near Qamishli on Jan. He died together with the child Ahmed right before my eyes,” Abdurrahman told Al-Monitor. “The customer was buying ice cream and potato chips for his nieces. Both passengers, the intended targets, died in the blast.
They fall to the ground as the floor shakes and black smoke fills the shop.Ī split second prior, a pickup truck exploded into a ball of fire as it pulled up beside the supermarket. Within seconds, another man - the customer’s brother who is carrying a little girl and holding a second one’s hand - walks through the door. A man is seen settling his bill with Abdurrahman.
US DRONE STRIKE KILLS CHILDREN FULL
18, captured by the Ari Market’s multiple security cameras, documents the full horror of that moment. “He was bright, hardworking and big-hearted,” recalled the shop’s owner, Ari Ahmed Abdurrahman, on a recent afternoon.įour months later, little Ahmed lay lifeless in a pool of blood near the shop’s cash register, yet another victim of Turkey’s deadly drone attacks on alleged terrorists in northeast Syria. Believe me,” the boy would tell his mother over the phone after bookkeeping lessons from the store’s accountant.
“Mama, I will rise to become a manager here. In September 2022, he began working in a popular roadside supermarket on the main road running from the Iraqi border to the area’s informal capital, Qamishli. AL-DARBASIYAH, Syria - Ahmed Abed Al Khani Salam, the 11-year-old son of impoverished farmers from rural Tell Hamis in Kurdish-run northeast Syria, had big dreams.
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