At least five civilians were injured after YPG/PKK terrorists opened fire on a group of Syrians protesting its killing of prominent tribal leaders in Deir el-Zour province, a report said Tuesday.
The people poured on to the streets to express their outrage about the YPG/PKK’s killing of Sheikh Mutashar al-Hafel and Sheikh Ibrahim al-Hafel, the Arab Agedat tribe’s leaders, Ihlas News Agency (IHA) reported, citing local sources.
They urged the terrorists to withdraw from the region, according to local sources.
Four YPG/PKK terrorists were also injured in the clashes, the report said.
The Agedat tribe, which spans from Aleppo to the Iraqi border, has condemned the terrorist organization and its decisions in the region, while urging the terrorists to retreat from the occupied regions. They also called on the U.S.-led coalition to give back the region that has traditionally belonged to Arabs.
The YPG/PKK established local councils in the areas it captured from Daesh with U.S. support.
Local people living in areas held by the YPG/PKK have long been suffering from its atrocities, as the terrorist organization has a notorious record of human rights abuses, ranging from kidnappings, recruitment of child soldiers, torture, ethnic cleansing and forced displacement in Syria.
The YPG/PKK has forced young people from areas under its control to join its forces within the so-called "compulsory conscription in the duty of a self-defense law" since 2017. Under this practice, young people between the ages of 18 to 30 are forcefully recruited for nine months, with the possibility of an extension, if necessary. Those who refuse to join the YPG/PKK "face serious repercussions," including imprisonment.
The terrorist organization also kidnaps children to use them as soldiers on the front lines. In 2018, a United Nations report on children in armed conflict found 224 cases of child recruitment by the YPG/PKK between January and December 2017. The U.S. State Department reported in 2017 that the terrorist organization recruited and trained children as young as 12 despite having signed a pledge of commitment with an international organization in June 2014 to demobilize all fighters younger than 18.
Various human rights organizations documented cases of forced displacement, the demolition of homes and the seizure and destruction of property under the pretext of fighting Daesh. The terrorist organization even targeted some villages it accused of "supporting Daesh." The village of Husseiniya, for example, was razed to the ground in 2015, leaving just 14 of 225 houses standing.
The group also committed atrocities, including severely punishing local people protesting the organization and enforcing an ideological school curriculum under its de facto administration in northern Syria. The October report by the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reported an increase in deliberate disruptions of education and health services in northern Syria's Raqqa and al-Hassakeh provinces.
The YPG/PKK killed hundreds of political dissidents and its own members whom it suspected had lost their faith in the organization. The YPG/PKK murdered at least 40 Kurdish politicians, activists and journalists who opposed the terrorist organization between 2012 and 2014, but these numbers decreased after Western backing for the group expanded.