The United States has transferred aid worth $400 million, mostly consisting of security equipment, to the YPG/PKK terrorist organization in Syria, local sources said on Saturday.
The support package, which started reaching the YPG/PKK terror group last month, will be used for military purposes, according to the sources, who requested anonymity due to restrictions on speaking to the media.
They added that the equipment given to the terror group includes bomb detectors, fingerprint scanners and tracking devices.
On Sept. 25, top U.S. diplomat Mike Pompeo announced that Washington will provide an extra $720 million in aid to Syria.
In a statement, the U.S. State Department claimed that "none of this funding will be provided to security forces," saying that it was all "humanitarian assistance" that will be distributed to Syrians by "trusted partners on the ground."
Similarly, the U.S. had provided the terrorist organization with $21 million in support following the entering into effect on June 17 of the Caesar Act, which is set to sanction Syria’s dictator Bashar Assad and his backers.
The millions of dollars in U.S. support for the YPG/PKK – delivered just one day after the Caesar Act took effect in June – was meant to help the terrorist group circumvent the new law.
Furthermore, the U.S.-led coalition against the Daesh terror group had provided $1.2 million in supplies for COVID-19 prevention efforts and detention operations to YPG/PKK terrorists in April.
The equipment was sent to the Hassakeh and al-Shaddadi areas in northern Syria controlled by the YPG/PKK terror group, according to the Combined Joint Task Force-Operation Inherent Resolve.
The U.S. has primarily partnered with the YPG/PKK in northeastern Syria in the anti-Daesh fight. On the other hand, Turkey strongly opposed the terrorist group's presence in northern Syria, which has been a major sticking point in strained Turkey-U.S. relations. Ankara has long objected to the U.S.' support for the YPG/PKK, a group that poses a threat to Turkey and terrorizes local people, destroying their homes and forcing them to flee.
Under the pretext of fighting Daesh, the U.S. has provided military training and given truckloads of military support to the YPG/PKK, despite its NATO ally's security concerns. While underlining that one cannot support one terrorist group to fight another, Turkey conducted its own counterterrorism operations, over the course of which it has managed to remove a significant number of terrorists from the region.
Turkey has long pointed out the PKK's use of name-switching as a cynical ploy to muddle the international denunciation of the group.
The PKK, which is listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the U.S. and the European Union, has waged a terror campaign against Turkey for more than four decades and has been responsible for the deaths of nearly 40,000 people, including women and children. The YPG is the Syrian offshoot of the PKK terror group.
Locals in PKK/YPG-controlled areas have long suffered from its atrocities. The terrorist organization has a lengthy record of human rights abuses, ranging from kidnappings of suspected persons, recruiting child soldiers, torture, ethnic cleansing and forced displacement in Syria.