In a three-month period, the allied U.S.-led coalition and the PKK's Syrian affiliate, the People's Protection Units (YPG) terrorists, killed 165 civilians in eastern Syria's Deir el-Zour province, a Syrian NGO said in a report on Saturday.
U.S.-led coalition forces' attacks around Deir el-Zour killed 153 civilians, including 71 children and 29 women, and attacks by YPG terrorists killed 12 civilians in the same period, including three children, said the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) in a report covering the 101 days from Sept. 11 to Dec. 20. Both the coalition and the YPG fight in the area under the pretext of expelling Daesh.
After Deir el-Zour's Hajin district center was invaded by the YPG terrorist organization, some 6,000 civilians in the remaining towns and villages in the hands of Daesh were stranded under a siege by Bashar Assad regime forces and YPG terrorists, the report said.
The report added that Daesh uses civilians as human shields, leaving them exposed to random strikes by regime forces and YPG terrorists.
Daesh still maintains control of five towns in rural parts of eastern Deir el-Zour province. With U.S. help, YPG terrorists are in control east of the Euphrates River and rural areas in western and eastern Deir el-Zour. France also provides the terrorist group with artillery support.
Regime forces, meanwhile, maintain control of the western section of Deir el-Zour.
As of today, YPG terrorists occupy some 28 percent of the total area of Syria.
Turkey has long objected to the U.S. allying itself with the terrorist YPG against Daesh, saying that using one terrorist group to fight another makes no sense.
In its more than 30-year terror campaign against Turkey, the PKK, listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the U.S. and the EU, has been responsible for the death of some 40,000 people, including women and children.
Turkey has said it would soon launch a third counter-terrorist operation against the YPG in northern Syria, citing both the threat to Turkey and to local civilians.
Syria has been locked in a vicious civil war since early 2011 when the Bashar Assad regime cracked down on protesters with unexpected ferocity.