The state and the AKP are trying to convince the public that they have won a victory in Nusaybin where they have been suffering damage upon damage for months. Hundreds of police and soldiers died in the district and were secretly  transported to the airport to be sent over to their home towns. Over 500 security personnel were wounded in the district. Nusaybin dealt two heavy blows to the operation coordination and was central to the removal of Davutoğlu from office with its glorious resistance. Nusaybin was attacked by fighter jets, tanks and artilleries just like in the world wars, but still wasn’t defeated, making Erdoğan lose sleep.

The ancient city of serhildans and martyrs Nusaybin made the Turkish state forces experience a similar defeat to those of the American army facing Vietnamese resistance and ISIS gangs facing YPG in Kobanê in the 74-day long self government resistance. The Nusaybin residents claimed self-government victory against the colonialism.

Nusaybin was built 4 thousand years ago on the skirts of Gırnavas, the natural medicine center of the era, by Subarus known as the ancestors of Hurris-Mitannis. Prophet Mohammed’s Iranian companion Salman Farisi, who is known for giving the Prophet the idea of ditches in the War of Ditches, lived in Nusaybin for a long time.

THE CITY OF UPRISINGS AND MARTYRS

The city of Subarus, Hurri-Mitannis and Meds, Nusaybin has never bowed down to oppression and has been a pioneer in the struggle for freedom of Kurdistan. Nusaybin was one of the first places that serhildans started in the 90’s when the freedom movement was popularized. Nusaybin has stood in serhildan against all oppression and cruelty, wherever they showed their face in Kurdistan. The serhildan that developed against the Turkish state massacre of the ’92 Cizre Newroz in Nusaybin where dozens were killed is still fresh in the memory of the people.

Nusaybin has given countless martyrs to the struggle in Northern Kurdistan and is known as the city of martyrs as well as the city of serhildans.

Nusaybin faced the Rojava Revolution with great enthusiasm as well, and took up serhildans again as what it knows best against the attacks on the people of Rojava. On top of that, dozens of Nusaybin’s children took their place in the Rojava Revolution and fell martyr.

THE DECLARATION OF SELF-ADMINISTRATION

Nusaybin protected the Rojava revolution as their own and declared self-administration in the summer of 2014. State forces tried to suppress the self government declaration many times with heavy attacks, “curfews” were declared several times. State forces retreated each time in the face of Nusaybin’s resistance and insistence on self government and the self-administration developed with each day in all areas, as well as the defense area, and entered a new phase with the formation of YPS and YPS-JIN.

A GREAT WAVE OF ATTACKS

State forces, failing to achieve results with their attacks in the summer of 2015, abandoned operational attacks, set a top-tier strategy of war in motion and launched an invasion operation in March.

State forces started to position dozens of tanks and Howitzers, hundreds of armored vehicles and heavy weaons and tens of thousands of army and police forces around the perimeter of Nusaybin from the first days of March. While the state forces prepared a war force only seen in interstate wars, the few YPS fighters were preparing for resistance with their personal weapons and improvised explosives.

AN EPIC OF RESISTANCE

When March 14th came, Nusaybin was added to the long list of asymmetrical wars, including those seen recently in Silvan, Sur, Cizre and Silopi as well as the handful of Spartans against the thousands in the Persian army hundreds of years ago.

REMINISCENT OF VIETNAM AND KOBANÊ

Due to the amount of soldiers and vehicles deployed at Nusaybin, state officials were thinking that the district would fall quickly and saying that they would level the district. However, their calculations were wrong and Nusaybin was giving state forces ‘Nusaybin Syndrome’ just like how the people of Vietnam gave the US army ‘Vietnam Syndrome’ in the 60s. Nusaybin Syndorme also reminded the public ‘Kobanê Syndrome’ where state forces thought that the town would fall within a week but suffered thousands of casualties.

“NUSAYBİN SYNDROME” BEGINS

“Nusaybin Syndrome” began among state forces during the second week of operations when they suffered heavy casualties in Devrim, 8 Mart, Yeşilkent, Barış, Selahattin Eyyubi and Yeni Turan neighborhoods where YPS members had put up barricades and dug ditches. The letters of special forces units published in the columns of some Turkish journalists showed the despair and panic of these state forces, who thought they did not have enough support and expressed that they were in very bad conditions.

THE COMMAND DISABLED

By the first week of April, several sergeants, special operations unit directors, lieutenants and other ranking officers had been killed in Nusaybin. News reports showed that the command units coordinating the state forces in Nusaybin were disabled and high ranking officers such as Ahmet Kahraman, who had coordinated the attacks on Amed’s Sur district, were killed.

THE MILITARY IS NOW IN CHARGE

On April 7, President Erdoğan stated that entire buildings could be demolished if needed, and the military got in charge of the operations on April 9. Then, state forces withdrew from the neighborhood and began to shell the area in order to destroy more than 200 buildings. Former Serbian President Radovan Karadzic had been prosecuted for shelling cities and civilian settlements, and the Turkish state forces used the same method in Nusaybin.

CHIEF OF STAFF ARRIVES IN MARDİN

State forces’ shelling of Nusaybin did not end their casualties, and the Turkish Chief of Staff Hulusi Akar and Land Forces Commander Salih Zeki Çolak arrived in Mardin to prevent further losses.

TIME TO USE WARPLANES

Despite their military and tactical advantages, state forces in Nusaybin could not reduce their losses and began to use planes on May 13 in order to bombard Nusaybin. The Turkish General Staff denies the use of warplanes but local sources and video footage refute the Turkish military’s claim.

NUSAYBİN OVERTHROWS THE GOVERNMENT

The failure and losses of state forces in Nusaybin finally leads to the overthrow of the 64th government led by former AKP president and Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoğlu. Erdoğan decides to relieve Davutoğlu from his duty due to the defeat in Nusaybin.

YPS STATEMENT

On the 72nd day of their resistance, YPS forces that had fought Turkish tanks, warplanes and special forces announce that they withdrew from the district under the cruel attacks of the state because of a necessity for changing their positions.

DEATH TOLL HIDDEN

Hundreds of state forces died and more than 500 got injured during the curfew and genocidal attacks in Nusaybin. No matter how hard state forces tried to hide their losses, information from hospitals and airports showed that hundreds of dead soldiers and police officers were taken to their hometowns from Nusaybin. State officials claim that 68 soldiers and police officers died and 384 got injured, and 438 YPS fighters died. But the same officials are not able to say where the bodies of 438 YPS fighters supposedly killed in Nusaybin were, and Nusaybin Co-Mayor Cengiz Kök exposed this lie when he sad that a total of 24 YPS members died in Nusaybin.

PEOPLE OF NUSAYBİN AND SELF-ADMINISTRATION ARE THE WINNERS

Both the people that were trapped in Nusaybin over the past 74 days and those that had left the district emphasized that they were fully supporting the self-administration resistance and would return to the district and continue building their autonomy after the clashes. Despite the full scale attacks of state forces, the people of Nusaybin and the self-administration in the district became the winners of the two and a half month long conflict.