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Erdogan Calls on West to Throw Full Support Behind Turkey in Syria Writing in
Bloomberg, Erdogan said the so-called moderate rebels of Syria have been targeted by a smear campaign
Erdogan presented Turkey as a stabilizing force in Syria despite the fact that Ankara played a crucial role in fueling the war in its early stages in 2011 by training and sheltering the opposition group known as the Free Syrian Army. Throughout the war, Turkey has backed various groups in Syria, including militias aligned with al-Qaeda affiliates.
In 2020, Turkey sent thousands of fighters into Idlib province to halt a Syrian government offensive to retake the territory. Idlib is currently controlled mostly by Hayat Tahir al-Sham (HTS), an al-Qaeda affiliate formerly known as al-Nusra Front.
Syria s Kurds: Ten years on, what of autonomy?
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Syria s Kurds: Ten years on, what of autonomy?
AFP / Mar 9, 2021, 09:28 IST
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Syrian refugees walk through a camp for displaced muddied by recent rains near the village of Kafr Aruq, in Idlib province, Syria. (File photo)
BEIRUT: Syria s decade-long war has seen the country s Kurdish minority make strides towards autonomy while becoming a key ally of the West against jihadists.
But with the conflict winding down and the so-called Islamic State (IS) group ousted from its last scrap of land two years ago, what s next?
Syria s Kurds had been marginalised for decades when war broke out.
Turkish troops present at Afrin torture sites, U N says ahvalnews.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from ahvalnews.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
February 2021
Criminal groups abducted hundreds in north west, while ethnic and regional tensions ran high in south amid farmer-herder conflict; meanwhile, tensions rose in south east between govt and Biafra secessionists. Criminal groups in Feb reportedly killed at least 112 and kidnapped over 450 people, mostly in Katsina, Kaduna, Sokoto and Zamfara states (north west), but also in Niger state (Middle Belt). Notably, armed group 17 Feb abducted 42 students and school personnel in Niger state, released them 27 Feb; 26 Feb kidnapped 279 girls in Zamfara state. Meanwhile, Auwalun Daudawa, who masterminded Dec 2020 abduction of 344 students in Katsina state, 8 Feb laid down arms along with five of his troops. Amid rise in herder-farmer and intercommunal violence in south since Jan, clashes between ethnic Hausa and Fulani on one hand, and ethnic Yoruba on the other, early Feb killed two dozen people in Oyo state capital Ibadan (south west). Nobel laureate in literature Wole Soyinka 6 F
Istanbul, Turkey – A continuing campaign to forcibly conscript people into the ranks of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) has seen 61 teachers in northeast Syria detained and 550 arbitrarily dismissed from their jobs since the start of the year, a report by the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) says.
The conscription of teachers is affecting the education of nearly half a million students in the governorates of Hasakah, Deir Az Zor and Raqqa, areas under control of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), said the report.
Since the beginning of January, SNHR documented 34 teachers allegedly arrested to conscript them into the ranks of the Kurdish-led SDF militia, which the United States funded and armed in the fight against ISIL (ISIS) in northwestern Syria and played a crucial role in defeating the armed group.