MESOP FLASH : Kurdish villages stormed by Islamists, north Syria

ARA News – 9.5.2014 – Urfa, Turkey− Militants of the Islamic state of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) stormed on Wednesday morning the predominantly Kurdish village of Bir Tameh in south-west of Tel Abyad/Girespi in Raqqa province.

The ISIL group arrested most of the village’s youth and displaced entire families, according to the field media activist Saman Kalo, who talked to ARA News on the phone. “ISIL militants warned villagers earlier to leave their homes at gunpoint, that’s to evacuate the region of the Kurds and implement a demographic change,” Kalo said.  Kalo pointed out that an ISIL convoy( consisting of 20 vehicles) arrived in the city of Tel Abyad.

Meanwhile, sporadic clashes broke out on Wednesday dawn in villages of al-Kitkaniya and Bir Kino between the Kurdish forces of the Popular Protection Units (YPG) −affiliated with the Democratic Union Party (PYD)− and ISIL militants. Light and heavy weapons were used during the clashes, local sources reported. The number of casualties is unknown till the moment. Noteworthy, Ahmad al-Jarba, the head of the Syrian National Coalition (SNC) −the main entity of the Syrian opposition− declared that the armed opposition expelled most of the ISIL groups from the areas and cities under the group’s control earlier this month. However, ISIL members recorded progress in the vicinity of Raqqa city, according to observers and field activists.