(Reporting by Mohamed Al Hussein; Translation by Yusra Ahmed)
Fighters of The Democratic Union Party (PYD) have expelled many families from their houses in Hasakah countryside, including a family of a commander in the Free Syrian Army, who was killed by the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, in an ongoing operation to evict all the Syria opposition’s members and their families from the area and occupy their lands and properties.
Local source reported to Zaman al-Wasl that fighter of the Democratic Union Party (PYD) led by Hussein Kojar, have informed families of any member of the Free Syrian Army (FSA) to leave the city of Ras-al-Ain, controlled by the party since the beginning of 2013, moreover, they prevented people to take their belongings and vehicles, where their ownership went to PYD including lands and fields.
The sources mentioned that among those forcefully displaced was the family of Ammar al-Sayad, a commander of the FSA and one of its prominent founders in the Eastern region, where his family were informed to leave their home and go outside the city, and Kojar took a family’s house as a base for him. Furthermore, PYD’s fighters seized all the shops in the Western entrance of the city.
In his talk to Zaman al-Wasl, the Commander of Brigade 313, Hareb al-Kahtani, mentioned that the family of Ammar al-Sayad, the Commander of Ahara Ras al-Ain battalion, who was killed by Abo Sulaiman, Nusra Front’s Emir, had been forced to leave their houses among dozens of Arab, Kurdish, Turkmen, Christian, and Chechen families because of their support to the Free Syrian Army in liberating Ras al-Ain in 2012.
Al-Kahtani added that PYD aims to evacuate the area from all the revolution’s supporters, frightening them by taking their lands and properties. “Despite they let some people to return to their houses in Honwa village, they in the same time completely evacuated the village of Nafayel from its people in a campaign to humiliate Arab people in the area.
The Commander mentioned that PYD with the help of Syrian regime had now occupied more than 1000 villages in Northern Hasaka, like villages of Ras al-Ain, Tal-Tamer, Tal Khamis, and Tal-Brak.
Osama Hilali, the Commander of Mishaal Tamo Brigade, one of the Free Syrian Army Brigades, told Zaman al-Wasl that rebels in Eastern region consider fighting groups supporting the Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK) as terrorist groups and pro-regime militias and they were not unable to prevent expelling people and rebels’ families from their houses and villages.
Hasaka province in the Northeast corner of Syria is one of three areas where the Syrian Kurds have set up their own government since 2012, when the Syrian regime voluntarily withdrew from the province, leaving PYD and its militias to practice control without annoying, Moreover, the province is strategically important in the fight against Islamic State because it borders areas controlled by the group in Iraq.
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