WEST KURDISTAN (SYRIA) : Fighting Spreads to Qamishli

Wladimir van Wilgenburg reports for Source: Enduring America . 7.10.2012 – The Kurdish news site Welati reports heavy clashes on Thursday evening in the northeast near the Hasakah-Qamishli road and airport in Qamishli.

The fighting follows a bomb near the headquarters of State intelligence last week in Qamishli. Welati claims the Free Syrian Army does not have much support in Qamishli, with Syrian Kurdish parties against the FSA’s deployment in the area, but wants to control the Turkish-Syrian border. The FSA, claiming that its Hasakah military council was behind the 30 September blast that killed at least four regime soldiers, said the area has remained far from the revolution and needs to be connected to other “liberated areas” near the Turkish border in Idlib and Aleppo. In response to the increase in FSA operations, the People Defence Units (YPG), linked to the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), has established a second brigade, named after a YPG member killed in fire near Tal Abayd and Derbissiyye on 2 October. The YPG also held a military parade in the Kurdish town of Kobani in Aleppo Province.

The Hasakah Province is Syria’s main wheat- and rice-producing region and also reportedly is the location of an uranium enrichment plant.