Christians in danger of extinction… Turkey and ISIS are two sides of the same coin
Publication Date: 4/10/2021
Source: Middle East in 24
The Christians of Wadi al-Khabour, whose name derives from a river in northern Syria, believed that their suffering ended with the crushing of the extremist “ISIS” organization, but it seems that they were wrong, for 3 years after its fall, they are bombarded again, to the extent that 32 Christian villages extend on both sides The river is deserted, with only a few middle-aged men left with old Kalashnikovs, their houses clearly showing the effects of shelling, from a different attacker this time, NATO member Turkey, so their churches are closed. The priests are gone, the streets are empty.
Most of the above is from a field investigation published by the British newspaper “The Times” today, Monday, and read by “Al-Arabiya.net” on its website, its summary is that Turkey is waging a war in northeastern Syria “almost incomprehensible to the entire outside world, but it somehow won the support of Donald Trump when he was president of the United States,” according to the newspaper’s reporter, Richard Spencer, who spoke to a Syrian who was standing with his nephew at the entrance to the villages of “Tal Tawil” almost adjacent to the village of “Um and Ghafa” on the bank of the river. The two villages were now empty of women and children, “we moved them away,” he said.
The reason is that “Tal Tawil” was subjected to repeated shelling last month, near its church, by Turkish forces approximately 3 kilometers away. Five shells fell on it, including one that hit a neighbor’s house, his nickname Abu Carlos. “He was sleeping with his wife and children when it fell directly above them. , but they came out unharmed from any harm.” Nevertheless, Abu Carlos and his family were the last to leave the villages in which only the men of seven families remained to defend them, out of a population of about 1,300 a decade ago. Below, the suffering of the Christian population in a village near “Tal Tawil” in the countryside of Al-Hasakah Governorate, which is “Tal Tamer”, of which approximately 95% of the population has been displaced.
The newspaper’s investigation also stated that the Christian sects in Syria and Iraq had escaped comprehensive sectarian massacres committed by the Syrian regime, ISIS and other forces in the two countries, but they still feel the same threat. The language of Jesus Christ, and they follow rituals independent of the Orthodox and Catholic churches, and 20,000 of them had already become refugees in this region at the time of the Ottoman massacres of Christians in World War I, then the threat now came from Turkey.
What happened in 2015 made history repeat itself, when an American bombardment thwarted ISIS attempts to invade the Kurdish city of Kobani, which is located on the border with Turkey. Their way, and seized 9 of them in night raids, ended with the detention of 230 of its residents, and receiving hundreds of thousands of dollars in ransom for the release of each of them.
The Christian sects felt the danger of extinction, even in times of peace, as some Western countries were giving priority to their children in granting visas, which increased with the beginning of the Syrian and Iraqi conflicts, until the Assyrians had large communities in Canada, Sweden, Australia and the United States, then the invasion of “ISIS” led “The areas of Christian living in Iraq, and after Turkey in 2019 to the north of Syria, led to an increase in the exodus from those areas, so these sects became threatened with extinction from a neighboring country this time, which is Turkey, whose forces moved two years ago to northeastern Syria after the former US President Donald announced Trump, without prior warning, that he will withdraw American forces from it, in fulfillment of a pledge he made during his election campaign.
The United States was supporting the “Syrian Democratic Forces” or “Qasd” allied with local Arab and Kurdish groups dominated by the Kurdish “People’s Protection Units”, known by the letters YPG for short, a Syrian branch of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, which fought a long guerrilla war, and did not succeed in obtaining power According to what Al-Arabiya.net read in his biography, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan considered the Americans’ departure as a green light for the establishment of a Syrian buffer zone, so his forces attacked it.
The Turkish onslaught was followed by a small bloody war. After agreeing to a cease-fire, Trump agreed to keep 1,000 American soldiers instead of a complete withdrawal, while the presence of the Turks continued, who resumed from time to time the bombing of the “SDF” to remind them of their presence, and in the midst of this fray, Christian communities tried to stay away from the war. It was possible, but it could not, so it formed small militias to fight alongside the “SDF” and the Kurds, and thus became within the Turkish line of fire. Therefore, “ISIS” and Turkey, the Christian sects are two sides of the same coin.
Link: https://middleeast.in-24.com/world/279947.html
