Re the fighting in North East Syria:
This article is from late last year after which the threat of Daesh let to an end to this practice. Now that Daesh is being defeated the trouble has come back and is supported by US aircraft. Russia and Turkey are opposed to the Balkanization of Syria, as is Syria itself of course. I was pointed to this article by an article in Dettsche Wirtschafts Nachrichten:
I gathered two major points from the amnesty article.
- The practice is unnecessary for the military purpose of fighting Daesh.
- The majority of the victims are Sunni Arabs and Turkmen, obvious in that region.
One thing seems to point at the direction of ethnic cleansing to prepare for a Kurdish dominant region if we connect the recent events. Cleansing may be a too harsh word, neither is there sufficient number of similar incidents to make an accusation, but targeting primarily on non-Kurds does seem that way.
It would be good to know where those displaced people are settled now.
If the "accusation" is proven, it is surely balkanization of Syria. I am sure Turkey does not like it.
Let's remember what President Al Assad once said at the beginning of the crisis "the west is playing at a tectonic fault line in the region" , at the cost of Syrian lives.