Second largest in the NATO, the Turkish army continues to demolish the city of Şırnak after failing to advance in the face of the resistance from a group of young people. General Staff Hulusi Akar visited the city for “morale” and admitted they had been demolishing houses “for the reputation of TAF” (Turkish Armed Forces).

State forces failing to advance in the city center of Şırnak, where genocidal attacks started on March 14, continue demolishing the city using heavy weapons. As several districts have been reduced to rubble in the genocide plan in Kurdistan with the alliance between the AKP and Ergenekon, Şırnak is significant for being the first city that faced the attacks.

The army base has been used as a headquarters by the state throughout history and there have been a division and dozens of brigades stationed in the city of 60,000 people. 10,000 JÖH and PÖH troops have arrived as reinforcements. The attacks involved more than a thousand village guards while hundreds of armored vehicles, tanks and artilleries have been transferred to the city.

State forces have failed to break the resistance of a group of young people in the city under heavy bombing for the last 56 days, and they are now tearing down all residential buildings in the city one by one with the orders from President Erdoğan. Tanks and artilleries stationed around the city rain bombs on Şırnak as the state is trying to take revenge for the resistance from the people through the policy of destruction.

The Turkish army boasts being the second largest army in NATO, and have resorted to a show of strength after failing to break the historic resistance of a group of young people with their personal weapons. The state had sent in journalists from the pool media before, and now they have sent in the General Staff Hulusi Akar for show. Akar was only able to visit the Çakırsöğüt Gendarmerie Brigade, 1.5 kilometers from the 23rd Gendarmerie Border Division Command he arrived in, by helicopter and repeated the 35 year old state rhetoric of “We will root them out” in the speech he gave there.

Akar, ignoring that their “20-25 days” estimate before the operations turned into two months, argued that “the operation had continued with superior effort and success”. Akar ordered military forces to continue burning down the settlements of Kurds to regain the dignity of the Turkish army, which has been called a “paper tiger” by the former General Staff İlker Başbuğ.

The ongoing resistance of a group of young people for 56 days in Şırnak’s Bahçelievler, Yenimahalle, Cumhuriyet, İsmetpaşa, Gazipaşa, Aydınlıkevler neighborhoods and several other positions continues to undermine the “dignity” of Akar’s TAF.