(Zaman Al Wasl)- Turkish-backed rebels have seized residents' property in the border town of Ras al-Ayn, seeking to settle their families on the expense of residents, local activists said Sunday.
About 80 vehicles carrying 60 families of the National Army fighters crossed into Ras al-Ayn on Sunday.
Turkey backed by the SNA launched a military operation on October 9 to uproot Kurdish-led forces from a borderline but since then the public discontent has spread as a result of looting and theft of civilian property by some rebel factions in Ras al-Ayn.
Abdul Razzaq Hassan, a 34-year-old resident of Tel Halaf, said that he had been displaced since the clashes began near Ras al-Ain last October. When he returned, he found that the National Army " has ransacked their shops and machinery.”
In a previous statement to Zaman al-Wasl, Colonel Hassan Hamadeh, Deputy Minister of Defense in the opposition’s Interim Government, said the violations committee, which he heads, is following all the complaints submitted to them since the formation of the Ras Al-Ayn investigation court, stressing that “it takes time.”
The Syrian National Army is an umbrella group in northern Syria consisting of an assortment of rebel forces. Many of the group’s factions, made up largely of Arab fighters, had already fought at Turkey’s behest in two previous military operations over the past three years.
Hamadeh explained that anyone who has a complaint can consult the court set up in Ras al-Ain and submit it to the Follow-up and Verification Commission and that the establishment of the military court in Ras Al-Ain and Tel Abyad came to facilitate and expedite the resolution of all complaints and abuses.
The YPG-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) withdrew from Ras al-Ain on October 20, in the first pullback under a ceasefire deal with Turkey brokered by the United States.
A fighter of the National Army, spoke to Zaman Al-Wasl on condition of anonymity, said the members of Hamza, Sultan Murad and Suqour al-Shamal divisions did not just rob the shops in Ras Al-Ayn and the houses under the pretext of supporting the Democratic Union, but their actions are contributing to the destruction of infrastructure, like the electricity network by stealing wires and dismantling transistors in search of copper.
The seizure of agricultural tractors and fuel tanks by members of Sultan Murad and Suqour al-Shamal foreshadows a crisis in the field of agriculture, especially with the approaching winter planting of wheat and barley amid scarcity in seed, fertilizer and other supplies.
The looting led to the displacement of people from these villages once again for fear of the deteriorating situation, the theft of their cars and property, and the arrests under pretext of connections with the Union Party and its self-administration.
Turkey considers the Syrian Kurdish People's Protection Units, or YPG, terrorists for their links to a decades-long Kurdish insurgency inside Turkey that has killed tens of thousands. The same fighters were the United States' partners on the ground in fighting the Islamic State group.
According to AP, Ankara's campaign in October — the so-called Olive Branch operation — drew widespread international criticism and the U.S. was seen as abandoning the Kurdish force that had helped fight IS. Two ceasefires, brokered by the U.S. and Russia, required the Kurdish force to withdraw away from the Turkish border for Turkey to halt its offensive. Joint Russian and Turkish patrols were established.
Zaman Al Wasl
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