Islamist rebels, Kurds clash in northern Syria
Khaled Yacoub Oweis, Reuters, Jun 20 2013
AMMAN – Islamist rebels have cut access to a Kurdish area in northern Syria and clashed with PKK fighters whom they accuse of backing Assad, sources on both sides said on Thursday. Fighting erupted overnight on the edge of Ifrin, a rugged, olive-growing area on the Turkish border, the sources said. Four people were killed, bringing to at least 30 the death toll from battles and assassinations in the last few days. Dozens more have been taken in tit-for-tat kidnappings, the sources said. Attempts to bring the main Kurdish parties into the umbrella Syrian National Coalition have failed, amid rows over how to define Kurdish rights in a future Syria. Assad has pulled his troops out of cities in eastern Syria and out of many parts of Ifrin in the northwest, in effect granting the Kurds an autonomy many of them fear losing if he is toppled. Ifrin was thrust deeper into the conflict when Assad’s forces reinforced Zahra and Nubbul, two Shi’ite villages situated between Ifrin and Aleppo, as part of an apparent attempt to capture the rural north, a supply line to Aleppo and to various rebel-held areas in the interior. Hezbollah fighters deployed in Zahra and Nubbul. The army also airlifted troops and loyalist militia to an area in Ifrin behind rebel lines, opposition sources said. Accusing PKK fighters of supplying the two villages, Islamist rebels cut main roads from Ifrin to the provinces of Idlib and Aleppo this month, causing prices of basic goods in Ifrin to soar, residents said. Kurdish farmers are also struggling to market their crops, the sources said, with rebels extorting high fees at roadblocks. Abboud Hakim, a retired government official in Ifrin, said:
Ifrin has been sympathetic to the revolution but the rebels are not serving their cause by what they are doing. They accuse the PKK of delivering supplies to Nubbul and Zahra when they themselves let trucks go there if they pay them at the roadblocks.
Rebel sources said the overnight clashes began when PKK forces attacked a roadblock held by a Nusra offshoot near Jindaris, a Kurdish town southwest of Ifrin city, despite a truce brokered two days earlier by FSA Colonel Mustafa al-Sheikh. Under the deal between the FSA and the PKK’s Kurdish Protection Units, the siege on Ifrin was to be lifted on Wednesday and both sides were to have freed their prisoners. An opposition source in northern Syria said the ceasefire deal had little effect because Sheikh had only limited influence on the Islamist brigades which hold sway on the ground. The PKK, the source said, also seemed to have little interest in the deal, especially after Arab reconciliation delegates sent to Ifrin were reportedly killed a few weeks ago. Massoud Akko, a Kurdish activist based in Norway, said the conflict in Ifrin had become turf warfare with scant relevance to the Kurdish cause or the aims of the anti-Assad revolt. Akko said:
Even if the Kurdish Protection Units have committed violations, it does not justify besieging 150,000 civilians living in over 300 villages. The rebel forces are using the same methods of collective punishment as Assad.
