Statement regarding terrorist attacks on Syrian Kurdish town Sere Kaniye/Ras al-Ain

Media Office – National Coordination Body for Democratic Change in Syria

Our people in Ras al-Ain / Sere Kaniye in north Syria have been under suspicious armed attack from outside and inside the Syrian borders for some time which has become fiercer since 16 January 2013, with accompanying repugnant irresponsible statements aiming to split the national front and the social identity that forms the demographics of this part of Syria.

These attacks have been perpetrated by some of the brigades and divisions that claim to be the arm of the Syrian revolution, such as the Brigades of Ahrar Al’oma (the free people of the nation), Ahrar Gowairan (free people of Gowairan), Mishaal Tamo, Gorabaa Alsham, the descendants of the Ahfad al-Rasul Brigade, Abna Saad bin Abi Waqas Brigade and troops linked to the military council of the Free Army.

These brigades have alone or in collaboration carried out many attacks on unarmed civilians and on empty buildings of the state which do not now represent the regime and which are the property of the people. They forced most of the families in the city to flee, leaving their homes and properties which were looted by the above-mentioned brigades. The People’s Protection Units (YPG) were forced to retaliate against these attacks to protect the families in the area and protect the area’s versatile social structure of many religions and nationalities.  

 We in the National Coordination Body strongly condemn the actions of these groups which are alien to the revolution, and represent foreign agendas, in particular the Turkish agenda which is supporting these groups and supplying them with weapons, foreign fighters, ammunition and armoured vehicles which are illegally crossing the border. This is a clear breach of national sovereignty and an outright breach of international laws, a move that does not serve the Syrian people nor their revolution for freedom and respect. All this takes place in the shadow of a deliberate absence of the Syrian military institution which is supposed to protect the borders and nation but it has become the hostage of a Regime that is using it to maintain its dictatorship and oppress the revolution of freedom and dignity.

We call upon our people in Syria to reject these terrorist groups and expose them. We call upon the international community to put utmost pressure on the Turkish government which is evidently facilitating the transfer of terrorism and its apparatuses into Syria.

We call on our people to question the reasons and aims for attacking a main component of the Syrian community in an area where the Regime representation has ceased, and the area is run by local committees made up of all the components of the society which were living together peacefully and were in the forefront in abiding by the values and morals of the revolution from its beginning up till now through weekly demonstrations calling for the fall of the Regime.

Media Office – National Coordination Body for Democratic Change in Syria – in Exile.  January 19, 2013 – Submitted by Khalaf Dahowd, Co-Chair of the International Support Kurds in Syria Association