A car bomb exploded in a Turkey-controlled northern Syrian town on the border Saturday, killing at least three people, Turkey's Defense Ministry said.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, put the death toll from the explosion in Tal Abyad at nine, saying four of them were from the same family.
The ministry said more than 20 people were wounded in the explosion in the industrial neighborhood of Sinaa. The difference in numbers couldn’t be immediately be reconciled, but the Observatory said many of the wounded were in critical condition.
People attend the funeral of Said Abdel Ahad, a Christian fighter of the Syriac Military Council, in Hassakeh, Syria, Friday, Nov. 22, 2019. Ahad was killed in Turkish offensive near Tal Tamr. (AP PhotoBaderkhan Ahmad)
Turkish troops and Turkey-backed fighters captured Tal Abyad from Kurdish-led fighters in October as part of Ankara’s ongoing invasion of northeastern Syria, where it is seeking to push back Syrian Kurdish fighters from its borders.
The ministry blamed Saturday’s car bomb attack on Syrian Kurdish fighters, the third such attack in Tal Abyad this month, leaving at least 24 people dead.
Turkey is seeking to expand its sphere of influence in Syria’s north. Ankara views the Kurdish fighters as terrorists for their links to a Kurdish insurgency inside Turkey. Turkey already controls a large swath of land in northwest Syria.
People attend the funeral of Said Abdel Ahad, a Christian fighter of the Syriac Military Council, in Hassakeh, Syria, Friday, Nov. 22, 2019. Ahad was killed in Turkish offensive near Tal Tamr. (AP PhotoBaderkhan Ahmad)
The Kurdish fighters blamed by Turkey for the attack were the U.S.’s main partner in combating the Islamic State group in Syria. In a major shift of the power balance in the oil-rich northeastern Syria, U.S. troops pulled back from the border with Turkey to avoid clashes with a NATO ally, opening the way for the Turkey-backed invasion.
Despite a U.S. and Russia negotiated cease-fire, fighting in different parts of the northeast continues, as Turkey-backed fighters advance on areas more than 30 kilometers (19 miles) south of the border.
The Observatory reported intense fighting early Saturday between the Turkey-backed fighters, supported by artillery, and the Kurdish-led fighters outside Ein Issa, about 36 kilometers (22 miles) south of Tal Abyad and near the M4 highway. Syrian government troops had deployed to the town, formerly an administrative center for the Kurdish-led forces, after U.S. troops stationed there withdrew.
Comrades burry Said Abdel Ahad, a Christian fighter of the Syriac Military Council, during his funeral in Hassakeh, Syria, Friday, Nov. 22, 2019. Ahad was killed in Turkish offensive near Tal Tamr. (AP PhotoBaderkhan Ahmad)
On Saturday, the Observatory said the Syrian troops withdrew amid an advance by the Turkey-backed fighters, who have been seeking to capture the town for weeks. A Kurdish official said the Turkey-backed force is attacking the highway at the town’s entrance, leaving all fighters in the town mobilized, including the Syrian government troops. He spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss operational details. It was not clear if the Syrian troops had since withdrawn. A video of the fighting there showed Syrian government troops on the frontline.
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces said the Turkish forces launched attacks with tanks, artillery and fighters on a number of points in Ein Issa, attempting to invade it. “The cease-fire is once again violated by the Turkish army,” the SDF said in a tweet.
Meanwhile, Turkish and Russian troops completed their 10th joint ground patrol between Ras al-Ayn and Qamishli Saturday, according to Turkey’s defense ministry. The patrols are part of the Russian-brokered ceasefire to ensure the Kurdish fighters withdraw from the border area. Turkey sees their presence along its border as an existential threat and mortars fired from Syria into Turkey have killed 21 civilians since the launch of the military offensive.
BEIRUT (AP) — Amnesty International said Wednesday it has documented widespread abuses, including torture and deprivation of medical care, in detention facilities holding thousands of suspected Islamic State members and their relatives in northeast Syria.
The centers and camps hold about 56,000 people — the majority of them children and teens — and are run by local authorities affiliated with the U.S.-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces. The SDF and its allies, including U.S.-led coalition forces, defeated the Islamic State group in Syria in 2019, ending its self-proclaimed Islamic “caliphate” that had ruled over a large swath of territory straddling Iraq and Syria.
What to do with the suspected IS fighters and their families has become an intractable issue. Many countries whose citizens traveled to Syria to join IS have been reluctant to repatriate them, as have local communities in Syria.
"People held in this system are facing large-scale violations of their rights, some of which amount to war crimes,” Nicolette Waldman, Amnesty’s senior crisis advisor, told journalists.
The United States is also responsible for the alleged violations because it played a key role in establishing and maintaining the detention system, providing hundreds of millions of dollars to the SDF and affiliated forces and regularly interrogating detainees, Waldman said.
The human rights group interviewed 126 people accused of IS affiliation currently or formerly detained, along with representatives of the local administration and aid workers.
The Amnesty report said the vast majority of detainees are being held “indefinitely, without charge or trial, in violation of international human rights law and international humanitarian law,” while those who have been tried were, in many cases, convicted on the basis of confessions extracted under torture.
The alleged abuses include “beating, stress positions, drowning, electric shocks and gender-based violence,” including a male detainee who said he and others had been sodomized with broomsticks by guards, the report said. Detainees were also deprived of food, water and medical care and subjected to extreme cold and heat in overcrowded cells, with some allegedly dying of suffocation, it said.
The report added that many of the approximately 14,500 women and 30,000 children held had been victims of human trafficking, including women who were forced to marry IS fighters and minors who were forcibly recruited by the group, and that local authorities had failed to set up a “mechanism to identify trafficking victims” and protect them.
The report also criticized the practice of forcibly separating adolescent boys — some as young as 11 or 12 — from their mothers and placing them in rehabilitation centers indefinitely.
Amnesty called on local authorities, the U.S. government and other allies to bring the detention system into compliance with international law and urged the United Nations to work with them to establish a screening process to release all who are not “reasonably suspected” of having committed a serious crime.
The Autonomous Authorities of the North and East Syria Region, the civilian administration affiliated with the SDF, wrote in response to the Amnesty findings that it had not received any official complaints regarding torture in detention facilities and “if this happened, they are individual acts.”
The administration said it would take action against employees who committed violations if evidence is provided. It denied allegations that inmates were deprived of food, water and medical care. It acknowledged overcrowding in the facilities, which it attributed to lack of financial resources to secure larger centers.
The local authorities took issue with the allegation that people were arbitrarily detained, asserting that most detainees “are members of a terrorist organization and were arrested during the battles" and that many had committed crimes against humanity and war crimes.
The U.S. State Department said in its own response that “we share many of (Amnesty’s) concerns” and it has been working to address them. It called on the international community to “aid local entities’ management of these challenges” and for countries with citizens held in detention in Syria to repatriate them.
Waldman said she believes Washington "very likely knew about these poor conditions from the beginning."
She added: “We think that it may not be the case that they are doing everything they can. They need to accept a much greater responsibility, especially since they played such a key role in establishing the situation in the first place."
FILE - Kurdish forces patrol al-Hol camp, which houses families of members of the Islamic State group in Hasakeh province, Syria, on April 19, 2023. Amnesty International said Wednesday, April 17, 2024 it has documented widespread abuses, including torture and deprivation of medical care, in detention facilities holding thousands of suspected Islamic State members and their relatives in northeast Syria. (AP Photo/Baderkhan Ahmad, File)
FILE - Women residents from former Islamic State-held areas in Syria line up for aid supplies at Al-Hol camp in Hassakeh province, Syria, March 31, 2019. Amnesty International said Wednesday, April 17, 2024 it has documented widespread abuses, including torture and deprivation of medical care, in detention facilities holding thousands of suspected Islamic State members and their relatives in northeast Syria. (AP Photo/Maya Alleruzzo, File)
