On 12 October 2019, female Kurdish politician, Hevrin Khalaf (35) was travelling from Raqqa to Tal Abyad in Northern Syria to promote peace between Kurdish and Arab tribes, and to encourage women to oppose patriarchal domination. Her car was intercepted by the radical jihadist Ahrar al-Sharqiya, a proxy group trained and deployed by the Turkish state. They captured Khalaf alive and brutally murdered and mutilated her.
Pro-government Turkish media hailed the execution of Khalaf and touted it as a “successful act”. Reuters and the Guardian have recently reported the presence of Syrian jihadists in Nagorny Karabakh. On 1 October, French President Emmanuel Macron said that Syrian jihadists had travelled from the Turkish city of Gaziantep to the Caucasus to fight alongside Azerbaijani soldiers in Nagorny Karabakh.
How can we understand the presence of these Turkish-backed Syrian mercenaries in Azerbaijan?
