This week in Northern Syria (XIII)
This week in Northern Syria (XIII)
A rundown of key events from Turkish/SNA & SDF-controlled territories
Since it was first declared on September 10th Syria’s ongoing cholera outbreak has spread across the country, killing dozens in the process. By the end of September Unicef reported 10,039 cases nationwide, spread across thirteen of Syria’s fourteen governorates including in areas run by each of the four different administrations. These case are predominantly concentrated in the north and east of the country as “close to 98 per cent of cases are reported from Deir-ez-Zor, Aleppo, Ar-Raqqa and Al-Hasakeh.”
The geographical distribution of the outbreak corresponds with a press release put out by UN OCHA in mid September stating that:
Based on a rapid assessment conducted by health authorities and partners, the source of infection is believed to be linked to people drinking unsafe water from the Euphrates River and using contaminated water to irrigate crops, resulting in food contamination. Cholera remains a global threat to public health and an indicator of inequity.
A map of communities affected, published by REACH, shows that the vast majority of such rely on private water trucking likely sourced from the Euphrates. REACH speculates that this likely includes amounts of surface water, “easily contaminated” by cholera. Additional, much of northeast Syria is irrigated via canals stemming from the Euphrates.
Reliance on such potentially contaminated water in north and east Syria is due to the “severe water crisis… [caused by] drought, falling groundwater levels, reduced flow in the Euphrates River, and reduced functionality of the Alouk water station.” In recent years the water level of the Euphrates has continuously declined, due to drought as well as upriver dams in Turkey. In turn this has raised the overall proportion of surface water in additional to creating swamps along the river banks where raw sewage collects and festers. The water flow of Euphrates’ tributaries such as the Jaqjaq and al-Khabour has greatly declined as well, the former having been dammed by Turkey’s SNA proxies in the areas south of Ras al-’Ain/Serê Kaniyê city.
Matters have been further compounded in AANES-controlled areas by Turkey’s shutting off of the Alouk water station, located in territories it controls east of Ras al-’Ain. The last service interrupt occurred on August 9th, leaving the estimated one million people it serves without their primary source of water to this day. These cutoffs are periodically conducted by Turkey in order to negotiate the diverging of a greater share of the electricity from Tishreen dam, jointly operated by the AANES and the Syrian regime, to areas it conrols.
The more recent spread of the outbreak to areas in the northwest, particularly in IDP camps, highlights the abysmal state of Syria’s infrastructure overall. According to Unicef:
With the large-scale destruction of the water and sanitation infrastructure, a result of more than a decade of conflict and ongoing economic crisis, challenging power supply and prolonged drought, across Syria, 47 per cent per cent of the population rely on alternative and often unsafe water sources to meet or complement their water needs and at least 70 per cent of the discharged sewage is untreated which present major risks for disease outbreaks, including cholera. An estimated two thirds of water treatment plants, half of pumping stations, one third of water towers, one quarter of sewage treatment plants and one sixth of wells have been damaged during the conflict
On September 22nd, The New York Times reported that the UN WHO offices in Damascus had received diagnostic tests and treatment kids. However, as they pointed out, these vital supplies are unlikely to make it to opposition and AANES-controlled areas in any significant amount, due to regime obstruction.
Events
09/27/22: A Turkish drone strike killed the two co-chairs of the AANES’s ‘Office of Justice and Reform, Zeynep Mihemed (or Saroxan) and Yilmaz Shero. The two were traveling by car just east of the town of Girkê Legê/al-Mu’abbadah, al-Hasakah (exact location: 37.035708, 41.997244)
[UPDATE] AANES announced that the 2 co-chairs of its Justice and Reform Office, Zeynep Saroxan and Yilmaz Shero, were both killed in yesterday's Turkish drone strike. This was an explicit attack on key civilian workers in AANES' political structures.
[BREAKING] After yesterday's drone strike in Kobane, today a Turkish drone bombed a car on the road by Tal Jaman village, near Girke Lege. According to RIC data, this is the 81st drone strike this year. https://t.co/Dm6XekJCzR
Rojava Information Center @RojavaIC09/27/22: Two civilians were reportedly killed and another five injured during the shelling of the SDF-controlled town of Abu Rassin/Zirgan, al-Hasakah by the Turkish military or SNA forces.
09/28/22: The SDF and Asayish announced the discovery and seizure of the largest Islamic State weapons cache encountered since the 2019 fall of al-Baghouz. The raid, which took place in the al-Hasakah village of al-Qayrawan, was reportedly conducted using intelligence gathered during recent weeks long sweep of al-Hawl camp, 30km to the southwest.
09/28/22: A demonstration was held outside a UN headquarters in al-Qamishli protesting the AANES’s decision to close private schools which teach the regime’s curriculum (as discussed in last week’s newsletter). Protestors were reportedly attacked by members of Tevgera Ciwanên Şoreşger ên Sûriyê, or the ‘Syrian Revolutionary Youth Movement,’ a controversial organization of Apoci hardliners accused in the past of attacking and vandalizing the offices of media outlets and political parties opposed to AANES rule. While not claiming responsibility for the attack, a Telegram channel affiliated with the group published a message condemning the protestors for wanting their children to study the regime curriculum and not one in their mother tongue (the AANES curriculum is taught in Kurdish, Arabic, Syriac, and soon Armenian). Additionally this message identified the protestors as members of the ENKS (‘Kurdish National Council’), the PYD/AANES’s main Syrian Kurdish rival. The ENKS certainly supported the protest, but it’s unclear whether the protest was solely made up of party members. Additionally, the Asayish (AANES internal security forces) published a statement regarding the protest and the events that transpired. This emphasized that the protest lacked an official license from authorities, that protestors and ‘young people’ got into verbal altercations and scuffles which were broken up by Asayish forces, and that there were no arrests made. Altogether, this incident points to the continued controversy surrounding education policy in northeastern Syria, framed on the pro-AANES side as an issue of mother language instruction and on the other an issue of accreditation (in addition to objections regarding the curriculum’s ideological content), as well as the high degree of polarization within the Kurdish political landscape.
09/29/22: HRE published a video showing a rocket attack on Turkish or SNA forces in the fortified front line village of Gobelê, reportedly carried out on September 27th.
Di encama van çalakiyan de bi giştî, 3 leşkerên artêşa Tirk û 8 çete hatin kuştin, 2 leşker û herî kêm 6 çete jî birîndar bûn. Li hember êrişên dagirkera çalakiyên me yên bersivdayînê wê berdewam bikin. Hêzên Rizgariya Efrînê 29 Îlon 2022 https://t.co/bHVHtJehs4 https://t.co/uowVtp6Y9g
Afrin Liberation Forces @HRE_officialWhat’s particularly of note in this video is the recently constructed housing settlement visible in the background, located just a half kilometer to the north. This is an extension of the Jabal al-Ahlam project, built with the heavy involvement of various SNA factions and Turkish officials. While other parts of Jabal al-Ahlam are further away from this active front line and shielded by elevation, for some reason this section of housing was constructed directly behind a military position, well within range of and on the trajectory of potential ATGM fire.
Image captured March 16th 2022, courtesy of Planet Labs Inc. 09/30/22: SNA faction Harakat al-Tahrir wa’l-Bina’ published a video about an Islamic State cell its members arrested. The cell of six individuals was led by a man named ‘Anas Abu al-Zubayr,’ and reportedly involved in carrying out ‘terrorist operations’ across northern Syria. The video does not go into any detail regarding specific attacks. What is interesting is the montage in the beginning showing clips from numerous car bomb attacks over the passed several years in the city of Afrin, captioned ‘Tanzim Da’ish operations in Afrin.’ The footage includes the April 28, 2020 bombing of the entrance to a market in central Afrin city, which claimed the lives of fifty three individuals - mainly civilians - and wounded fifty others. Another attack I recognize is the October 11, 2021 car bomb which exploded near the Kawa roundabout (I did not try to identify all clips in the segment). Such attacks have never been claimed by any actor though were immediately blamed on the SDF by Turkey and others. Armed with nothing outside of conjecture, some analysts have taken to classifying unclaimed car bombings in Afrin as “PKK attacks,” a category they hold up as distinctive from attacks claimed by the SDF or HRE implying there is non-SDF active PKK military activity ongoing within Syria. Saying this without a shred of evidence is preposterous to say the least. I do not rule out the possibility that the SDF or affiliates have carried out these blatant acts of terrorism and I don’t think this Harakat al-Tahrir al-Bina’ montage is conclusive proof that the Islamic State was behind the specific attacks shown, but rather within these cases there is little to no evidence available to determine the responsible actor.
On this same day Anadolu Agency reported that MIT had uncovered and ‘neutralized’ an Islamic State cell somewhere in northern Syria plotting attacks on local Turkish targets.
10/02/22: Both the Netherlands and Australia announced their intentions to repatriate dozens of their Islamic State-linked citizens - all women and children - currently held in al-Hawl and Roj detention camps. The Netherlands is reportedly planning to collect 12 women and 29 children, figures which according to Dutch intelligence represent one third of the adults and one half of the Dutch children currently in such camps. Upon return, the women are to be detained and tried in court on terrorism charges, while the children are to be placed in foster care. According to the Guardian, Australia will repatriate approximately one third of the 20 women and 40 plus children residing within Syrian camps.
10/02/22: A Turkish Police Special Operations officer died of injuries sustained in an attack on a Turkish base (‘Ribat-2’) near al-Bab. According to Turkish Minister of the Interior Süleyman Soylu, the officer was injured by a missile fired from the Tell Rifa’at region, likely by HRE or the SDF.
(source) 10/03/22: SyriaTV correspondent Hadi Tatin and cameraman Khalid al-Habl were assaulted in Afrin by Omar Shalah (‘Abu Zayd Sharqiyah’), an officer in the SNA Military Police, after passing his car in traffic. While the three later reportedly reconciled after an outpouring of anger on social media, the incident highlights the endemic abuses of power carried out by SNA and security officials in addition to the precarious environment local journalists operate in.
Other
Statistics regarding attacks reportedly carried out by Turkey and the SNA targeting AANES territory over the month of September.
Statistics published by the Syrian Interim Government regarding civilian casualties caused by (144) regime and (6) SDF attacks on Turkish/SIG and HTS-controlled territories throughout September. 12 civilians, including two children, were killed and 31 others were injured.
Syria/Iraq Islamic State attack stats by month:
The Syria Report has a new open access website covering issues of Housing, Land & Property Rights across Syria.