The Kurdish National Council said that militias of the Democratic Union Party (PYD) have detained 62 members from the Kurdish National Council (KNC) in northern Syria over the past week and taken them to an unknown destination.
Khalid Ali, Director of the KNC Office in Arbil in Iraq’s Kurdistan Region, told reporters that the PYD militias set fire to many offices of parties affiliated with the KNC in northern Syria. The militias also scrawled offensive graffiti on the walls of these offices.
Ali added that the oppressive practices of the PYD militia, the Syrian branch of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in the predominantly Kurdish areas in Syria, echo those of the Assad regime against Syria’s Kurdish community. He noted that the PYD has a brutal track record of oppressing whoever opposes its policies.
The PYD militias have taken instructions from the Assad regime’s intelligence agencies since it was formed in 2003, Ali said. He added that the PYD has been involved in the killing of many Kurdish activists since the start of the Syrian revolution in 2011.
The PYD militias are a proxy for the Assad regime in the predominantly Kurdish areas, Ali went on. He stressed that the Syrian political opposition, especially the KNC, do not trust the PYD and see them as agents of the Assad regime. (Source: Syrian Coalition’s Media Department + Agencies)
