Turkey says its forces capture 18 Syrian soldiers in Syria

Turkish military forces captured 18 Syrian government soldiers in northeastern Syria, Turkey's defense minister said Thursday, in one of the most dramatic examples of an increasingly muddled battleground following the withdrawal of U.S. forces from the area.

Turkish Defense Minister Hulusi Akar said the soldiers were captured during Turkish reconnaissance operations southeast of Ras al-Ayn but didn't say when. Ankara was already in talks with Russia to hand over the Syrian soldiers, he added. Akar spoke during a visit to Turkish troops at the border with Syria. His comments were carried on the official ministry website.

A Syrian Kurdish official said the soldiers were captured Tuesday during an intense battle between Syrian government forces and Turkey-backed fighters. Kurdish fighters were fighting alongside the Syrian troops. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to brief reporters.

Relatives visit a grave of Syrian Democratic Forces fighter recently killed during Turkish offensive, in the town of Qamishli, north Syria, Thursday, Oct. 31, 2019. (AP PhotoBaderkhan Ahmad)

Turkey agreed to a cease-fire brokered by Russia in which Kurdish fighters would withdraw 30 kilometers (19 miles) away from the Turkish border. As part of the deal, Syrian government forces would take positions along the frontier.

In a wide-ranging interview late Thursday, Syrian President Bashar Assad described the Russian-Turkish deal as "good" and a temporary arrangement. He said with the deal Moscow has managed to reign in Turkish aspirations to seize more Syrian lands and outmaneuvered Washington. The deal also prevented bringing in international forces to Syria's northeast.

"It does not achieve everything, in the sense that it will not pressure the Turks to leave immediately," Assad said. "However, it limits the damage and paves the way for the liberation of this region in the future, or the immediate future, as we hope."

Assad said Russia also preceded the cease-fire deal with Turkey with an agreement with Syria's Kurdish group that gradually restores state authority to the area after seven years. Syrian troops had pulled out of the northeast in 2012, leaving it to the Kurdish group to administer. The Kurdish group had then allied with U.S. forces to fight Islamic State militants — and set up a self-administration that controls nearly 30 percent of Syria, including the country's largest oil and gas resources.

Earlier this month, U.S. President Donald Trump ordered US troop withdrawal from the north, making way for a Turkish military offensive there. He said he wanted out of America's "endless wars" but would leave U.S. troops in the region to secure oil facilities.

Ankara views the Syrian Kurdish fighters as an extension of the decades-long Kurdish insurgency in southeastern Turkey. But Washington has partnered with those Kurdish-led forces to fight IS over the last five years, putting in a difficult spot between its NATO ally and battleground partners.

The Kurdish forces leaned on Russia and the Syrian government to protect them against the advancing Turkish forces. But Turkey seized a stretch of land across the border before the U.S. negotiated an initial cease-fire.

"Of course, the Syrian Army cannot be deployed only to carry out purely security or military acts," Assad said. "But certainly, the Syrian Arab Army will reach these areas simultaneously with full public services, which means the return of full state authority. "

Assad said state authority would have to be restored gradually because there are armed groups that still have to be disarmed.

"We do not expect them to hand their weapons immediately," Assad said. A day earlier, the Syrian government called on the Kurdish groups to join the official military. But the Kurdish group, which is seeking a degree of self-rule, said there has to be a dialogue with Damascus first.

In another sign of the changing battleground, U.S. forces said the first batch of mechanized armored vehicles arrived in southeast Syria on Thursday, where they are to take part in securing oil fields and fighting remnants of the Islamic State group. U.S.-led Coalition spokesman Col. Myles Caggins said the first batch of Bradley armored infantry carriers arrived in Deir el-Zour Province and will provide infantry with maneuverability and firepower. He said the deployment is "de-conflicted" with other forces operating in the region.

The province is home to some of Syria's largest oil fields. It is also where IS militants continue to wage an insurgency and where they lost their last territory in March.

Assad said his forces would not clash with U.S. forces, if the Kurdish group united with the state against American presence, "I assure you that the Americans will leave on their own accord."

For much of the Syrian war that broke out in 2011, Turkey has offered financial and logistical backing for the Syrian opposition that worked to bring Assad's government down. Ankara has also carried out three military operations into Syria and now controls territory in northwest and northeast Syria to push Islamic State militants and Kurdish fighters away from its borders.

Under the Turkey-Russia deal, Kurdish fighters would withdraw to 30 kilometers (19 miles) away from the Turkish border. Under the deal, Syrian government forces would take positions along the frontier and joint Turkish-Russian patrols are due to begin Friday.

But the truce has been marred by accusation of violations from both sides.

For days now, Turkey-allied fighters have been fighting Kurdish forces near Abu Rasein, a village between Ras al-Ayn and Tal Tamr, despite the deployment of Syrian government forces. Syrian state media also reported some government soldiers clashed with the Turkey-backed forces.

The Kurdish official said the Syrian government soldiers were captured in the area. He said the forces then withdrew after their soldiers were captured.

A war monitor group, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, also reported that Syrian troops pulled out from the Tal Tamr area on Wednesday, amid a Turkish-backed advance with air cover. The area is home to Syria's dwindling Christian Assyrian community. The commander of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, Mazloum Abdi, warned that Turkey-backed fighters began entering Christian villages and are attempting to break into the main town.

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)