Lelun Afrin
Last February 2024, Human Rights Watch issued a detailed report on the ongoing violations in areas under the control of National Army factions, entitled “Everything by the Power of the Weapon”. The report discussed the most prominent violations taking place in areas under the control of Turkey and the National Army factions, including the Afrin region, describing Turkish control over those areas as “Occupation.”
The report consists of 97 pages, which includes pictures and maps, in addition to two letters from the HRW to the Syrian Interim Government and the Turkish Ministries of Defense and Foreign Affairs. The report’s methodology was based on four main axes, including background, violations related to detention, violations of HLP rights and the latest of which is the lack of accountability.
HRW conducted research for this report between November 2022 and September 2023. The research included 58 interviews with victims, survivors, relatives, and witnesses to violations residing in Afrin, Ras al-Ain, the Autonomous Administration areas in Northern and Eastern Syria, and the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, some in Europe, Lebanon and Turkey.
The report explained the background section of the Turkish role in weakening the Kurdish presence through its operations along the Syrian border through three main military operations:
The first operation launched in April 2016 and March 2017 was called the “Euphrates Shield” operation, through which it captured the city of Jarablus from the west side of the Azaz city and Al-Bab city from the south.
It launched the second operation in January 2018 under the name “Olive Branch Operation,” through which it took control of the Kurdish-majority Afrin region located northwest of Aleppo city with a military operation and an intensive air campaign until it took control of it completely in March 2018.
The third operation launched by Turkey in October 2019 under the name “Peace Spring Operation,” during which it took control of the “Tal Abyad” and “Ras al-Ain” regions, which are inhabited by the diverse Syrian components of Arabs, Kurds, and communities of Yazidis, Christians, Armenians, Syrians and other ethnic and religious minorities. As a result, more than 200,000 residents of the region fled.
The report indicated that the leaders of the military factions of the Syrian National Army are coordinating with the Turkish army, according to an intelligence briefing from the “New Lines Institute” in December 2022, which stated that “The Turkish military and intelligence officers heading these centers coordinate the distribution of ongoing military responsibilities, make all decisions, and inform the Syrian commanders, who then carry out the orders.”
The report listed patterns of violations committed by Turkish-backed Syrian National Army factions, including arbitrary arrests, incommunicado detention, kidnapping, and torture. The report said in this regard: “Afrin residents found their homes, their businesses, their lands, and their crops pillaged and seized by SNA fighters and their families – acts, which under the laws of war, are prohibited and can constitute war crimes. They also saw their cultural, religious, and historic sites destroyed.”
The report also explained the difficult humanitarian situation experienced by those forcibly displaced from the Afrin region in the Shahba areas, describing their lives as: “They now live in desperate conditions. The region of Shahba, which is under the control of the Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), has been under a blockade by Syrian government forces since August 2022.”
The report referred to the ongoing processes of demographic change in the region through “Türkiye quickly orchestrated the resettlement of hundreds of displaced Sunni Arab families from Eastern Ghouta in the homes of Afrin’s Kurdish inhabitants who had fled.”
The report noted that the Turkish authorities and the Syrian National Army arrested Syrian citizens and illegally transferred them to Turkey with the intention of prosecuting them, which is considered a prohibited act under the law of occupation “regardless of its motives.”
The report stated that, under international law, territory is considered “occupied” when it comes under the effective control or authority of foreign armed forces, whether partially or entirely, without the consent of the domestic government. This is confirmed by the report through Turkey’s dealings with the areas it occupies as part of its country, such as the supervision of state authorities of Kilis, Gaziantep, Hatay and Şanlıurfa administratively control the Syrian regions under their control, in addition to trading the Turkish currency in place of the Syrian currency in those regions, teaching the Turkish language as a second language after Arabic in schools, and renaming Kurdish landmarks with others linked to Turkey, such as: “The Newroz roundabout in Afrin city has since become known as the Salah ad-Din al-Ayoubi roundabout, and the Kawa al-Haddad roundabout as Olive Branch. One square was renamed to Recep Tayyip Erdoğan square“.