After months of negotiations with the U.S. on joint implementation of a “safe zone” in Northeast Syria, on 9 October key NATO member Turkey commenced unilateral incursions into the area. Its so-called “Peace Spring” operation began with the Turkish army conducting intense airstrikes and cross-border shelling on strategic military and civilian targets. This was then followed by the withdrawal of U.S. troops as Turkey’s Syrian partner factions pushed across the international border. They did so to wrest control of border-lying territories from the Syrian Democratic Forces (S.D.F) - a Kurdish-led, multi-ethnic ally of the U.S. in Syria since 2015. Turkey and its allies accuse the S.D.F of complicity in the severe destruction caused by the US’s campaign to remove the Islamic State extremists from Raqqa city.
The Turkish military and Syrian groups it has trained, equipped and coordinated - the latter operating under the umbrella of the Syrian opposition’s “National Army” - are reported to have committed a series of human rights violations since the operation began. Ranging from summary executions, unlawful attacks, impeding humanitarian access and looting, a recent Amnesty International report considers both Turkish forces and their partners to have “displayed a shameful disregard for civilian life,” finding “damning evidence of war crimes.”
Familiar violations reinforce evidence of Turkish-backed demographic change
