Two killed, eight injured in Turkish drone attacks in Qamishlo

Two members of the Internal Security Forces were killed in a Turkish drone attack in Qamishlo on Sunday. The same place was bombed again when people rushed to help the victims.

Two people were killed and eight others injured in several drone attacks by the Turkish state in the North-East Syria on Sunday. The victims were members of the Internal Security Forces who were on their way from Qamishlo to Amûdê when their vehicle was hit by a drone.

When people rushed to help, the same place was bombed again, according to the Internal Security Forces’ statement on the attack. A total of eight civilians were injured, some of them seriously. They are in various hospitals, some of them in critical condition.

It is part of Turkey's psychological warfare to make it impossible for the people in North-East Syria to live peacefully and, above all, to have any perspective of doing so, with the help of an "unseen" war of attrition. An essential element in this is unmanned combat drones, which, on the one hand, target representatives of the Autonomous Administration of North-East Syria (AANES) structures and members of combat units, and on the other hand target the civilian population with the aim of driving them away. The USA and Russia, which control the airspace in northern and eastern Syria, ignore Turkish drone terror, as does the international community.

Turkey's drone war against AANES began in June 2020 with the murder of three representatives of the women's umbrella organisation Kongra Star in Kobanê. Since then, more than 200 further attacks have taken place. Since the beginning of this year alone, more than seventy people have been killed in over fifty drone attacks in North-East Syria, according to data from the independent media organisation Rojava Information Center (RIC). Fifteen of the victims were civilians, the others belonged to the Internal Security Forces and members of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which continue to fight against ISIS and resist the Turkish occupation attacks. Most recently, a commander of the Women's Defence Units (YPJ) and two fighters of the local Women's Military Council were killed in a drone strike in Manbij on Friday.