Shehba Canton Executive Council Foreign Relations Committee Member Muhammed Xidro is one of the citizens of Shehba trying to give the people of Shehba a voice. His own village in Çobanbey (Rai) has been invaded. In the Free Shehba, he works for all of Shehba.

Xidro shared the information he gathered from the people who moved out and people who still live there with the ANF, and his account shows the invasionist and fascist face of the Turkish state once more. The reality of the year long invasion as told by Xidro is as follows:

THE “FSA” IS TURKISH INTELLIGENCE

It’s almost the anniversary of the Turkish state entering Jarablus. The Turkish state and ISIS had a deal. When the Turkish state entered Jarablus, ISIS changed their clothes and became the FSA. ISIS handed over the villages from Jarablus to Azaz one by one to the Turkish state, as part of their large scale deal.

After Azaz, it was time for Marj Dabiq. Turkey overplayed the Marj Dabiq battle. And ISIS made statements like “We will fight against the Turkish soldiers and Turkey in Dabiq”. Marj Dabiq of course is a historic site for the Turkish state, because it is where the Ottomans first entered these lands. But ISIS handed Dabiq over to Turkey on their own. They handed the area between Dabiq and Bab over to Turkey.

From Jarablus to Azaz, they all work for Turkish intelligence. The people there say they all speak Turkish. So it’s peculiar. They are very obviously Turkish intelligence agents. The ISIS members there also spoke Turkish, as well as those under the FSA.

SULTAN MURAD MADE IN TURKEY

The approach towards women is the same now as it was under ISIS. Now there are other things as well. Now, under the Turkish gangs, there are many abductions for money. They abduct people and ask for ransom. They engage in propaganda for Turkey, they say ‘Turkey came here and it’s a great power’. All this is done mostly by the gang named Sultan Murad. Sultan Murad is Turkish intelligence itself.

Sultan Murad is the largest gang there, and they are the hitmen of the Turkish state. And they want to make the other FSA groups work for them. They are pressuring the people and abducting women.

KURDISH VILLAGES PILLAGED

As soon as the Turkish state entered Shehba, they put great pressure on the Kurdish villages there. They tore the villages to the ground with tanks and artilleries. There are many villages that suffered through this. Düden, Karagöz, Çobanbey, Tilşail, Sosimbat, Şawa, Kibbesin and other Kurdish villages have been deliberately torn down. The people who come to us from those places said, ‘They don’t do too much to the Turkmen villages. They do it to the Arab villages that don’t stand with them, but it’s the worst for Kurdish villages.’ They are trying to change the demographics there. As we heard from the Düden village, it’s completely destroyed.

Then there are some houses in Kurdish villages that are not torn down, they remove the people from there and take their homes by force. They settle the gangs they brought from Homs and Hama in these houses. Then they force out the people on the border line, they confiscate some fields and some others they buy for very little money. They also settle the people they brought from Homs and Hama and the people loyal to Turkey and their gangs in there.

THEY WANT TO DO WHAT THEY DID IN ISKENDERUN

Kilis and Antep rule over Azaz, Jarablus and Bab. The Turkish state controls the places they invaded. It is a complete invasion. Like they took Iskenderun fully under their control, they want to turn the area from Azaz and Jarablus to Bab into a second Iskenderun. All the evacuations, forced displacement, confiscation of fields, abducting women and asking for ransom is done to push the people away from the area completely.

INTENSE TURKIFICATION

They build schools in Jarablus, Bab and Azaz. All under Turkey. The Turkish state disperses their ideology in these schools. There are Turkish flags everywhere: in the hospitals, in the schools.

PEOPLE ARE WAITING FOR THE SDF

The people living in the invaded areas of Shehba are affected by the free administration constructed in Free Shehba and the organization of the federation. When they see democracy there, and see that colors from all peoples reflect in there, they call on the SDF to come save them from the Turkish invasion. They say they are Syrian citizens, but Turkey invaded their lands. So it’s the people making the call. They are all waiting for the SDF, they are calling on the SDF to save them.”