Syrian Kurds: US-led coalition needs ‘to have a clear stance’

BEIRUT: The Kurdish-led authorities in northeastern Syria on Friday called on the US-led coalition to make clear where it stands regarding Turkish drone strikes that have killed and wounded dozens of Syrian Kurdish fighters over the past months.
The appeal by the local authorities — known as the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria — came a day after a Turkish drone hit a car, killing four members of the Kurdish-led and US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces and wounding two.
Ankara says the main Syrian Kurdish militia is allied with Turkiye’s outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party, which has led an insurgency against Turkiye since 1984 that has killed tens of thousands of people.
Ankara has declared the PKK a terrorist group.
Syrian Kurdish forces were a major US ally in the war against Daesh, which was defeated in Syria in March 2019.
Thursday’s drone attack was the latest in a monthslong escalation between Turkiye and Kurdish fighters in Syria.
The Syrian Democratic Forces said its six members were in a car, heading to their homes for a break when they were attacked on a road near the town of Qamishili on Thursday night.
Friday’s statement said the US-led coalition needs “to have a clear stance ... regarding the targeting of our people and fighters.”
Prosecutors in Berlin said German police had arrested a Syrian national on charges of crimes against humanity and war crimes including enslavement for allegedly taking part in a brutal crackdown on regime opponents.
The federal prosecutor’s office said in a statement that the suspect, identified only as Ahmad H. in line with German legal practice, had been detained on July 26 in the northern city of Bremen. He was remanded in custody on Thursday.
He is accused of acting between 2012 and 2015 during Syria’s civil war as a local leader of pro-regime militiamen in Damascus tasked with helping to crush dissent.
The militia operated checkpoints where “people were arrested arbitrarily so that they or their family members could be extorted for money, committed to forced labor or tortured,” prosecutors said.
The fighters also plundered the homes of regime opponents, sold the spoils and kept the profits, they added.
Ahmad H., who security sources said is 46, is accused of taking part “personally in the abuse of civilians.”
They say that in one incident in 2013, he ordered militiamen to “brutally torment a detained man for hours using plastic pipes.”
In autumn 2014, Ahmad H. and other militiamen and members of the military secret service allegedly attacked a civilian at a checkpoint, grabbing him by the hair and beating his head on the pavement.
Between December 2012 and early 2015, he is accused of twice arresting groups of 25 to 30 people and forcing them to carry sandbags to the nearby front, where they faced crossfire and were deprived of food and water while being beaten.
It was unclear when Ahmad H. came to Germany or what witnesses might have reported him to authorities and given evidence against him.
In a statement the Washington DC-based Syrian Justice & Accountability Center, which tracks cases of human rights abuses in Syria, said that the arrest came after its investigation “uncovered potentially incriminating evidence,” including video evidence.