Ömer Özkizilcik

PKK attacks are neither effective nor numerous enough to be labelled as guerrilla warfare & is unlikely to have the results the terrorists are hoping. As PKK attacks attempt to make life difficult, it is the local Kurds & the forcefully displaced people in Afrin who suffer

The attacks by the YPG/PKK in Afrin region are a serious source of concern for the local people. Ola Elderi, an Afrin resident told me: “We are tired of the attacks by the PKK. We want peace.”

While the mountains in Afrin provide natural protection, the PKK-pocket in Tel Rifaat is under the protection of the Assad regime and Russia. These dynamics prevent the security apparatus in Afrin from rooting out future terrorist attacks.

Police in Afrin is becoming more capable of providing security, regularly opening cadres for new recruits, with the number of applications sometimes 10 times higher than vacancies. Applicants mainly come from local Afrin residents and people displaced from Ghouta & Homs by Assad

Terrorists have targeted several civilians in Afrin & Aleppo resulting in their deaths. On December 16 alone PKK killed at least 9 people, including civilians in a car bomb at the Afrin market contrasting with their claims to only target "militants".

The ‘Wrath of Olives’ channel, in particular, uses radical visual propaganda method in which the terrorists explicitly show killed and tortured people, reminiscent of the barbaric propaganda methods of ISIS.

The language used by the PKK propaganda outlets and their visual materials is also worth analysing. While the ‘press releases’ systematically label the FSA as mercenaries, it speaks of an occupation by Turkey criticising Turkey for displacing civilians.

The PKK also claims to have killed 64 FSA fighters, two Free Syrian Police officers, and to have injured 34 FSA fighters and three Turkish soldiers. However, the numbers given by the PKK have to be taken with a grain of salt.

While majority (16) of the attacks were allegedly conducted with IEDs, at least 3 attacks resulted in the torture and the execution of FSA fighters. In another attack, the PKK propaganda channel admits to having tortured & executed an alleged agent who was living as a civilian

According to the PKK propaganda channels ‘Wrath of Olives’ and ‘Afrin Liberation Forces’, the militants have conducted 34 attacks in Afrin and northern Aleppo since November 2018 which is an average of two attacks every five days.

The PKK, considered as a terrorist organisation by the US, EU and Turkey, is promoting its terrorist attacks under two different propaganda channels, one called ‘Wraths of Olives’, the other ‘Afrin Liberation Forces’.