Following the outbreak of the heaviest fighting in Syria in several years, Kurdish areas are now under acute threat from attacks by jihadist groups cooperating with Turkey. While the Islamist group Haiat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda formerly known as al-Nusra Front, has been advancing on Aleppo since Wednesday and fighting with the Assad regime’s forces, the Turkish-loyal mercenaries of the so-called Syrian National Army (SNA) are currently preparing a major attack on the Kurdish region of Tal Rifaat in northwestern Syria. The Turkish army is already bombing the region from the air and on the ground. Attacks on the Kurdish town of Ain Issa have also been reported. According to local sources, Turkey has also opened the border to northwestern Syria, allowing more jihadist fighters to enter Syria.
By the Kurdistan National Congress (KNK)
Tal Rifaat is home to several hundred thousand Kurdish refugees who were forced to flee in 2018 following Turkey’s war of aggression on Efrîn (Afrin) in violation of international law. Since then, the SNA, an alliance of various Islamist organizations and former IS fighters, and the Turkish army have controlled the region. Human rights organizations fear that the SNA’s attacks could once again drive refugees out of Efrîn. Ethnic cleansing of the Kurdish population took place in Efrin during the Turkish occupation. Since then, Turkey has expelled the majority of Kurds in the region and settled people of Arab origin, leaving the Kurdish population as a minority in the region. Systematic human rights violations such as abductions, expulsions, torture and sexual violence under the rule of Islamist militias have been reported from the region. Now the people of Tal Rifaat face a similar fate. Aleppo’s Kurdish population, which lives mainly in the neighborhoods of Shasmeqsûd and Eşrefiyê, is also threatened by the advance of Haiat Tahrir Al-Sham, an offshoot of al-Qaeda. This group has repeatedly attacked areas of Kurdish self-rule in the past during the Syrian civil war.
Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) is a jihadist alliance that has controlled Idlib province in northwestern Syria since 2017, formed by the merger of several Islamist groups, including the al-Qaeda affiliate Nusra, which rebranded as Fateh al-Sham in 2016. Listed as a “terrorist” organization by the UN Security Council, HTS has expanded its influence into SNA-held northern Syria, often with the tacit approval of Turkey. HTS seeks to project an image of respectability and governance reliability, despite reports of an increasingly totalitarian regime and Islamist theocracy in Idlib. The international community should be wary of HTS’s expansion into Turkish-occupied territory, as it has been linked to anti-Semitic propaganda and has ties to al-Qaeda, despite efforts to distance itself from its jihadist roots. Notably, a perpetrator involved in a foiled terrorist attack in Munich expressed sympathy for HTS, highlighting the group’s continued relevance in the broader landscape of extremist threats.