OPEN LETTER Systematic bombing against civilian areas by Turkish forces in Northern Iraq
Rt Hon Boris Johnson MP
Prime Minister
10 Downing Street
SW1A 2AA
Copy to
Rt Hon Keir Starmer MP
Leader of the Opposition
OPEN LETTER
Systematic bombing against civilian areas by Turkish forces in Northern Iraq
Dear Prime Minister,
We write to you on an urgent basis following the news overnight of the aerial attacks on civilian targets in Northern Iraq by Turkish forces.
On February 1st at 10 pm the Turkish Air Force carried out a systematic bombing campaign against civilian areas throughout Iraqi Kurdistan. These areas include the Refugee Camp in Mexmûr (Maxmur), which is a UNHRC registered camp * Geliyê Kersê, Barê and Çil Mêra near Şengal (Sinjar) in Southern Kurdistan (northern Iraq); as well as the village of Teqil Beqil near Dêrik in Rojava (northern Syria).
Maxmur Camp houses approximately 12,000 Kurdish people displaced from Turkey in the 1990s. The UNHCR completed a registration process in order to build international confidence in the civilian nature of the camp, countering Turkish state attempts to conflate the camp with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). Continue reading “OPEN LETTER Systematic bombing against civilian areas by Turkish forces in Northern Iraq”
Meredith Tax: Turkey Helps ISIS Attack Rojava
[ Photo: Orhan Qereman / AP ]
*Originally published in The Nation
On the night of Thursday, January 20, ISIS mounted a fierce attack to free its prisoners, several thousand of whom were being held in Sina’a prison in Hasaka, a city in the autonomous, majority-Kurdish area of Syria often called Rojava. As a car bomb ripped into the prison gates, fighters from ISIS sleeper cells attacked with gunfire and a coordinated riot began inside the jail. In the battle that followed, prisoners took human shields and ISIS snipers occupied nearby buildings while the Rojava militia—the Syrian Defense Forces (SDF)—brought in as many as 10,000 soldiers, with air and ground support from the United States. After prematurely declaring the battle over on Wednesday, the SDF discovered 90 more ISIS fighters hidden in a basement, while sniper and suicide attacks continued in the surrounding neighborhood, from which thousands of residents had fled. The battle did not finally end until January 30.
Continue reading “Meredith Tax: Turkey Helps ISIS Attack Rojava”