FSA to form committee over mutilated Kurdish fighter in Afrin
ERBIL, Kurdistan Region — Turkey-backed Free Syrian Army announced on Saturday that they will form a committee regarding the mutilation of a Kurdish female fighter in Afrin to address “these allegations and investigate directly, and with proof.”
The FSA statement stressed that they will abide by the principles which they have followed so far and that they consider Kurds as their people.
“We affirm that Free Syrian Army works in the framework of Operation Olive Branch to liberate our Kurdish people and our Syrian land invaded by YPG militia terrorists,” said FSA Chief of Staff Salim Idris in a statement. “We will treat captives and fighters of militia terrorists in accordance with our Sharia and religion.”
The FSA is a group of proxy fighters in northern Syria who are supported by the Turkish military.
Graphic video emerged on social media this week appearing to show
the mutilated body of female YPJ fighter Barin Kobani, allegedly killed in fighting around the village of Qarnah near Bulbul, north of the city of Afrin.
The footage, captured on a mobile phone, shows a woman’s body spread out on a concrete floor surrounded by gunmen in military fatigues. Her bloodstained clothes have been partially removed exposing her breasts and genitals, parts of which appear to have been cut off.
“This is the pigs of the PKK,” one of the militiamen is heard saying, referring to an armed Kurdish group active in Turkey.
Zeyad Haji Obeid, another FSA official, told Rudaw on Saturday that “neither the FSA nor the Turkish army will accept such conduct.”
He said it was done “on an individual level and the perpetrator/s will face measures," claiming what was done to Kobani's body was similar to the conduct of Bashar al-Assad’s regime troops.
People in Afrin, Syria and Hatay, Turkey attend burial processions in early-February 2018. Video: Rudaw
A spokesperson for the SDF, Mustafa Bali, told Sky News Arabi on Saturday that “the problem is not whether the fighter is Kurdish or non-Kurdish, the problem is the scenario in general.”
But he did confirm that the corpse belongs to a YPJ fighter who was killed along with four other YPJ fighters.
The spokesperson said they reject Islamist ideologies like the Muslim Brotherhood and al-Qaida in the region.
Regarding the role of women in society, Bali claimed that the Turkish proxies believe that women should stay home and take care of the kitchen rather than going to war.
YPJ expressed its concern over “the silent public opinion [who] watched the brutal scenes” of Turkish forces and its proxies who “played with the corpse of one of our fighters” in Afrin, according to a statement on Friday night.
The YPJ is an all-female force that fights alongside the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG).
“Fighting in Bulbul district was the hot spot of clashes between our fighters and the invading forces. As a result of the fierce battles there, four female YPJ fighters raised to the rank of martyrdom after they demonstrated heroic resistance against the invading groups. Their corpses fell into the hands of the invaders who were playing with their bodies," the statement added.
Aldar Khalil, a member of TEV-DEM, the ruling coalition of Syrian Kurdistan, had denounced the action in a tweet on Friday.
“The immoral acts by the terrorists who paraded the body of the martyr Barin Kobani is not new because these [groups] are mercenaries and are a plague on Syria and the region and represent moral decadence,” Khalil said.
Ankara launched Operation Olive Branch on January 20, deploying Turkish troops and their proxies in Syria to clear the Kurdish-led SDF from Afrin.
Last updated at 1:30 p.m.