A report by the U.S. State Department released on Monday highlights how U.S. partners in northeastern Syria affiliated with the PKK terrorist group continued to recruit children.
The State Department's 2024 Trafficking in Persons Report said the recruitment or use of children in combat and support roles in Syria remains common. "Since the beginning of 2018, international observers reported continued incidents of recruitment and use by armed groups, though the prevalence of the practice differs by group," the report said. It cited Syrian government forces, pro-regime militias and armed groups that include the PKK's youth wing, known as the YDG-H, and the PKK's Syrian affiliates, the SDF and YPG, as well as its all-women wing, the YPJ, "who recruit and use boys and girls as child soldiers.” It said the YDG-H in northwest Syria continues to recruit, train and use boys and girls as young as 12 years old.
"The SDF continued to implement the UNSCR-mandated action plan to end the recruitment and use of children and demobilize children in SDF ranks; however, an international organization reported SDF-affiliated armed groups recruited and used children in 2022 and 2023," said the report. It accuses the YDG-H of recruiting children into the radical Kurdish youth organization through fraudulent announcements for educational courses in northeast Syria.
International organizations and nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) report that the PKK's youth group continued to fraudulently and forcibly recruit and use children. "Observers report these children have undergone military training in the Qandil Mountains of Iraq," the report stated.
Last month, a U.N. report revealed that the PKK/YPG and affiliated structures forcibly integrated 231 children into their armed ranks in 2023 in Syria.
The "Children and Armed Conflict Report" by U.N. Secretary-General Antonio Guterres, which contains data from 2023, said that the PKK/YPG terror organization and affiliated structures operating under the name SDF in Syria forcibly recruited children into their armed ranks. The PKK/YPG usually takes the kidnapped children and teens to terror camps for armed training – a violation of international law forbidding the use of minors in conflict.
U.S. support for PKK's Syria wing, YPG, has long strained relations between Ankara and Washington.
The U.S. Army frequently provides military training and supplies to members of the terrorist group in bases in Syria located in the Mount Abdulaziz region of Hassakeh, as well as in the eastern al-Omar oil field and Conoco area of Deir el-Zour province, all regions occupied by the terrorists, which Washington calls its “partner forces.” Last August, it deployed more reinforcements to U.S. bases in the region as a convoy of nearly 50 trucks, tankers and armored trucks delivered fuel, weapons and ammunition to the U.S. forces stationed at the natural gas and al-Omer oil fields.
Since early 2023, the U.S. Army sent reinforcements to bases and stations in Tal Beydar and Ash Shaddadi on Jan. 6, 8, 22 and 25, again on June 19 and 20, and July 11. Last July, days after President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan called on Türkiye’s NATO allies to take a concrete stance against all terrorist groups, the U.S. House of Representatives approved a military spending bill that ensured continued funding for the YPG and authorized the continuation of joint operations from the end of 2023 through the entirety of 2024. The bill encompasses all Syrian groups, including the PKK/YPG. It would also include funding for non-PKK/YPG groups, including local Syrian military forces at a strategic U.S. military installation along the Syria-Jordan-Iraq border.
Since 2016, Ankara has been leading counteroffensives against the terrorist groups and striving to establish a 30-kilometer-deep (19-mile-deep) security line, for which Russia and the U.S. committed to providing support in October 2019. The same month, Türkiye launched its Operation Peace Spring against the PKK/YPG and Daesh, another terrorist group, in northern Syria, with Washington promising that the PKK/YPG would withdraw from the region. The U.S. military then evacuated all its bases in the area, prioritizing stationing near oil fields. It, however, maintained its support, namely military training and truckloads of equipment, to the terrorist group under the guise of a joint fight against Daesh. It also conducts regular patrols with the PKK/YPG. Thanks to U.S. help worth millions of dollars, the PKK/YPG has grown stronger in northeastern Syria, despite Washington’s promises to Türkiye that it would “consult and work closely” with Ankara against Daesh and the PKK.
