Kurds liberate Syrian border city from ISIS north Raqqa
Urfa, Turkey – Subsequent to fierce battles with militants of the Islamic State group (IS/ISIS), the joint forces of People’s Protection Units (YPG) and Burkan al-Furat, supported by the U.S.-led coalition’s warplanes, regained major parts of the strategic city of Tel Abyad (Gire Spi) in Raqqa province, northeastern Syria, YPG sources reported on Monday.
The joint forces attacked ISIS from the eastern and southern sides of the city.
Speaking to ARA News, YPG members said that the joint forces gained control of the city’s crossing on the Turkish border, where dozens of IS militants surrendered to the Turkish army following the clashes.
“The Turkish army arrested IS fleeing members and transferred the foreign ones to unknown places, while kept local insurgents inside a building near the crossing,” the source added.
After more than a year and a half of the IS black flag waving on Tel Abyad’s crossing, the joint forces raised the flag of Syria independence (a symbol taken by the Syrian opposition) on the border crossing of the city.
Shervan Darwish, official spokesman of Burkan al-Furat rebels, said the joint forces are currently clearing the town of Ain al-Arous (5 km south of Tel Abyad city) from IS terrorists.
The Kurdish fighters seized earlier on Sunday the Mashhour Tahtani area on the southeastern side of Tel Abyad, with the US-led coalition’s warplanes carrying out at least five strikes against IS overnight.
The strikes are reportedly paving the way for the advance of the Kurdish and rebel forces.
In the meantime, the Kurdish advance has prompted criticism from Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who accused the Kurdish forces of the YPG of establishing an autonomy in northeastern Syria.
Tel Abyad lies some 85 kilometers (50 miles) north of IS’s de facto capital Raqqa, and it serves as a primary conduit for incoming weapons and fighters, as well as for outgoing black market oil, so major IS supply line to Raqqa has been cut off by Kurds in Syria’s northeast on Monday.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4zAAQr-xmtk
Kurdish fighters seize large parts of ISIL stronghold of Tel Abyad
Kurdish fighters captured large parts of the strategic border town of Tal Abyad from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) on Monday, dealing a huge blow to the group which lost a key supply line for its nearby de facto capital of Raqqa, a spokesman for the main Kurdish fighting force said.
Redur Khalil said the group known as the YPG entered Tal Abyad from the east and was advancing toward the west amid fierce clashes with pockets of IS resistance.
“We expect to have full control over Tal Abyad within a few hours,” he told The Associated Press in a telephone interview.
An Associated Press photographer in Akçakale, the Turkish town on the opposite side of Tal Abyad, saw several YPG fighters waving their flag and flashing victory signs. Earlier, several dozen YPG gunmen were seen moving west toward the city.
Khalil suggested that IS fighters holed up in the town have fled toward Turkey. The report could not be independently confirmed. Earlier, he told the AP that hundreds of IS fighters were still believed to be in the town.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=skEAsxznxc8
ISIS Prepares for Kurdish Advance on Tal Abyad
A Siraj Press correspondent reported that the Islamic State (ISIS) destroyed two bridges on the outskirts of Tal Abyad city on Sunday in order to prevent the Kurdish People Protection Units (YPG) from entering the city.
The correspondent said ISIS blew up al-Jallab bridge east of Tal Abyad, and Shreaan bridge south of the city, after the Kurdish militias seized the village of Hammam at-Turkman and a number of other Turkmen villages in the region. The source claimed the YPG militias are positioned at the gates of Tal Abyad, one of ISIS’ most significant strongholds in northern Syria.
The reporter stressed that thousands of displaced people from the city of Tal Abyad and its surrounding villages have gathered on the Turkish border, while the reporter said a Turkish source confirmed the Turkish government is likely to open the border crossing in front of the displaced today, Sunday, or tomorrow.
Field sources confirmed to Siraj Press that the Kurdish militias have reached the outskirts of Tal Abyad this morning (Sunday) from the eastern side and are about one kilometer away from the heart of the city.
Activists said Apache helicopters of the international coalition have been combing the areas before the Kurdish forces advance toward the city, which led to the withdrawal of ISIS forces toward Raqqa. “The move raises suspicion, as ISIS has shown little resistance”, the activists said.
The progress of the Kurdish militias comes after seizing the entire town of Sulouk in the northern countryside of Raqqa, where militias said the progress came after fierce battles with ISIS fighters ended with the withdrawal of the remainder of them to their strongholds in Tal Abyad, leaving the militias to seize 12 villages in the east and west of the city.
Translated and edited by The Syrian Observer
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qE5b2yfm6sI
Kurdish fighters cut key supply line to Islamic State capital Raqqa
The Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) said their forces and affiliated Syrian rebel fighters approaching from east and west of Tal Abyad had connected and cut the road south to Raqqa on Monday.
“Tal Abyad is completely surrounded,” said YPG commander Hussein Khojer.
“There is nowhere Daesh can escape to,” he said, using the Arabic acronym for Isis.
Khojer said Kurdish fighters, backed by Syrian rebel groups, had advanced on Tal Abyad in a two-front offensive from east and west.
Sherfan Darwish, a spokesman for the Burkan al-Furat rebel group fighting alongside the YPG, said the anti-Isis alliance was now on the eastern and southern outskirts of Tal Abyad.
“There are ongoing clashes and the bodies of 19 IS fighters are on the outskirts of Tal Abyad,” he said.
The advance is a blow to the jihadist group, which is battling to hold onto Tal Abyad and preserve its main supply line between Raqqa and the Turkish border.
Syria: Jubilant scenes as YPG Kurdish fighters pincer Isis inside Tel Abyad
YPG spokesman Redur Xelil told Reuters that its Syrian militia surrounded the town, which sits close to the Turkish border, with the help of US-led air strikes. “Tel Abyad is almost besieged now after the control of the Raqqa-Tel Abyad road,” he said.
The Kurdish militia also liberated the border crossing point between the town and Turkey.
Kurdish forces sent reinforcements to the area south of Tel Abyad from its stronghold in Hasaka province, north east, and from Kobani, north west of Tel Abyad.
Pictures were posted on Kurdish Twitter accounts of YPG fighters coming from the two areas joining forces and hugging each other after liberating the village Ciseriye, 17km south of Tel Abyad.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jD3oXlck3-0
Syrian Kurdish YPG seizes Daesh-controlled Tal Abyad
In the past week the YPG has made major advances in the southern city, in a key location near the Turkish border and Daesh’s de facto capital of Raqqa. The Kurdish units have been sending reinforcements from strongholds in both the Hassakah province, south of Tal Abyad, and Kobani, northwest.
Seizing Tal Abyad links Kurdish-controlled territories in Syria, concerning Turkish authorities who are worried about Kurdish separatism in the country.
The YPG is affiliated with Turkey’s Kurdish Workers’ Party (PKK), which is listed as a terrorist organization in both Turkey and the US.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVQxwkogJkw
Islamic State conflict: Syrian Kurds ‘seize Tal Abyad’
For the Kurds, capturing Tal Abyad allows them to link up the other pockets they control along the Turkish border, from Iraq in the east to Kobane in the west.
“The whole city is under our control and there is no more fighting,” Huseyin Kocher, a Kurdish YPG commander in Tal Abyad told the BBC.
“Our people should know that we are going to clean all the remnants of IS in northern Syria.”
This is not the first time Syrian Kurdish forces dealt a blow to Islamic State. But if the Kurdish YPG manages to hold on to Tal Abyad, it will be the most serious one.
The border town, which lies 100 kilometres (62 miles) north of Raqqa, the self-declared capital of the Islamic State, is one of the most important border gates for the extremist group.
Syrian Kurdish forces have already shown they can be a match for IS during their resistance in the nearby border town of Kobane.
Syrian Kurdish YPG militia seize Tal Abyad from ISIS
The Syrian Kurdish YPG militia said on Monday that it and its allies had taken full control of the town of Tel Abyad on the Turkish border, defeating the self-proclaimed Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) fighters.
“It’s now under complete control,” YPG spokesman Redur Xelil said after a day of rapid advances in an offensive aided by U.S.-led air strikes. Tel Abyad had been important to ISIS as the nearest border town under its control to its de facto capital Raqqa.
The People’s Protection Units (YPG) militia had earlier said that it had encircled the ISIS-controlled town of Tel Abyad, the nearest border town to the militant’s de facto capital of Raqqa city.
Fighting between YPG militia and ISIS militants near the Turkish border has already forced 19,445 people to cross into Turkey from Syria since 3 June, according to a statement released by the Disaster and Emergency Management Presidency of Turkey (‘AFAD’ in Turkish) on Monday.
Hundreds of Europeans, U.S. citizens, Australians and South Americans are now fighting alongside Kurdish troops in Syria’s north.
Hundreds of Europeans, U.S. citizens, Australians and South Americans are now fighting alongside Kurdish troops in Syria’s north.
Can Leftist Kurdish Militia Kill Off Islamic State?
The intrepid Liz Sly of the Washington Post gets the story of the attempt of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) and their Arab allies, the Euphrates Volcano, to cut Daesh (ISIL, ISIS) off and kill it. Sly’s insightful report is buttressed by one from Ahmad al-Sakhani at the Dubai-based al-An TV.
Daesh holds Raqqah Province in Syria, up to the small town of Tel Abyad on the Syrian-Turkish border, through which it receives weapons, ammunition and volunteers smuggled through Turkey. On either side of Daesh territory in northern Raqqah Province are two cantons of the Kurdish belt known as Rojava. The two are Kobane and Jazira. Jazira is much bigger and abuts the Kurdistan Regional Government of Iraq. Altogether there are probably about 2.2 million Kurds in Syria (a country of 22 million), though it may be less since several hundred thousand were forced to flee to Turkey from Raqqah.
The YPG, the paramilitary of the far-left Democratic Union Party, and its Arab allies have taken 12 villages near to Tal Abyad away from Daesh in recent fighting. An important point: According to al-An TV, this advance has only been possible because of close coordination between the ground forces and the US Air Force, which is bombing Daesh targets once they are identified by the rebel fighters. In other words, this fight looks a little like the battle for Mt. Sinjar in Iraq, where Kurdish fighters got practical air support from the US and its coalition partners, which intensively bombed Daesh positions and equipment on their behalf. At Mt. Sinjar, YPG units played an important role, but the major push came from the Peshmerga of the Kurdistan Regional Government, Iraqi Kurdistan, who knew how to call in US air strikes.
Some 12,000 residents of the latter town have fled, expecting that a battle royale in the center of the town is in the offing between Daesh on the one hand and the YPG alongside the Free Syrian Army units calling themselves Euphrates Volcano on the other. Some 5,000 refugees are huddling along the border with Syria.
If the Kurds can take the northern Raqqa corridor along the Turkish border, including Tel Abyad, they can link two of their scattered cantons and can cut Daesh off from resupply routes in Turkey.
Abu Isa, the leader of the 2,000 Arab fighters of the Arab side of the Euphrates Volcano joint operations room, called on villagers to remain in their homes, promising them they would be safe. His demi-brigade seems to be well armed, having medium and light weaponry, suggesting that the US is provisioning them.
Al-An maintains that a lot of Daesh fighters have pulled back from the north to the capital city of Raqqah, and that the remaining fighters have warned local inhabitants to stay inside on threat of condign punishment.
There is a saying in the military that everyone wants to do strategy, but real men do logistics. That is, the supply train for the army is often more crucial than the big concept plan of battle. Liz Sly showed that she is the ‘real man’ of this somewhat sexist saying.
There has been a lot of back and forth between Daesh and the Kurds in the northeastern Jazira region, especially at the city of Hasaka. What is promising here is that the anti-Daesh forces appear to be getting good air support from the American-led coalition. It helps that Euphrates Volcano has not gone jihadi and is what is left of the Free Syrian Army.
YPG regains 18 villages north Syria following clashes with ISIS
Subsequent to fierce battles with the radical group of the Islamic State (IS/ISIS), the Kurdish forces of the People’s Protection Units (YPG) regained 18 villages and eight farms in the vicinity of the town of Suluk near Tel Abyad in Raqqa province, northeastern Syria, military sources reported on Friday.
The Kurdish forces were able to destroy two armored vehicles and a truck carrying ammunition during anti-IS military operations near Suluk.
The YPG’s Media Center issued Friday a statement, of which ARA News received a copy, saying: “Our units continue their military operations near the IS-held town of Suluk, during which they liberated several villages and farms over the past 24 hours.”
The villages regained by the Kurdish units include Tabkhan, Hawas, Daman, Mafar Asala Gharbi, Bir, Maalja, Mukhtar, Simalk, Khank, Gamish, Tel Saghir, Tel Qalaj, Zazoa, Abaid, Shareef, Zarafa and Arbid, in addition to eight surrounding farms.
Leadership of the YPG could not verify the number of dead and wounded in the ranks of the IS terrorist group during Friday’s battle.
YPG urges people’s support in anti-ISIS war
In an official statement, the General Command of the People’s Protection Units (YPG) confirmed Friday that the Islamic State’s (IS/ISIS) attacks on social components of Rojava (Kurdish majority areas in Syria) is a “red line”.
The YPG’s General Command issued Friday a statement, of which ARA News received a copy, saying that Daesh (IS) terrorists are trying to attack minority groups in northern Syria “to compensate their losses before the YPG forces”.
“Our (YPG) forces are ready to deter any attacks against the social components in Rojava. Our units and allied forces will defend people of Rojava, whether Christians, Arabs or Kurds, against terrorists of IS,” the YPG’s leadership added.
The leadership demanded all the social components in the region to “value the sacrifices made by heroes of the YPG in the fight against IS”, and to support the YPG in preventing IS from depriving people of their civil rights.
Why are Westerners flocking to join the Kurdish YPG? It’s not all because of Daesh
Attracted by the long struggle for statehood that’s become the cultural symbol of the Kurdish people, other recruits site an interest in the larger, Marxist-based philosophy the Kurds take from Abdullah Öcalan — the imprisoned leader of the militant organization Kurdish Workers Party (PKK). The user linked us to this YouTube video of a young German recruit fighting with the Kurdish militia YPG. He explains why he came to Syria, and it has nothing to do with Daesh.
“With the revolution in Rojava, we could see Ocalan’s ideology in practice for the first time,” he says. “To call this a Kurdish revolution doesn’t do it justice.” Watch the full video below.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NlJZ4OarRtM
Syrian Kurds claim capture of border town from Islamic State
Redur Xelil, the YPG spokesman, told Reuters that Tel Abyad was “under complete control”. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based group that monitors the war, said most of the town was under YPG control with only a handful of Islamic State fighters inside. Xelil said: “Most of them entered Turkey.”
The YPG has been the only significant partner to date in Syria for the U.S.-led alliance that is bombing Islamic State. The YPG now controls the border from Syria’s far northeastern corner to just east of the town of Jarabulus. That is Islamic State’s last remaining border crossing with Turkey, Xelil said.
The YPG-led forces also seized control of the road linking Tel Abyad to the Islamic State’s de facto capital of Raqqa city, about 50 miles (80 km) to the south, cutting off a supply route which Islamic State had used to send reinforcements.
Tel Abyad, on the border with Turkey, has been a main conduit for Islamic State to smuggle weapons and oil.
YPG and allies expel ISIS from Christian villages northeast Syria
The Kurdish forces of the People’s Protection Units (YPG) and allied Assyrian fighters liberated 14 Assyrian villages in Hasakah province, northeastern Syria, after fierce battles with militants of the Islamic State (IS/ISIS), Kurdish military sources reported on Wednesday.
The radical group had taken over the villages last February, which caused the displacement of hundreds of Assyrian Christian families from the countryside of Tel Temir in Hasakah province.
The sources confirmed that the YPG fighters in cooperation with the Haras al-Khabur force and the Syriac Military Council regained control of 14 Assyrian villages in the province of Hasakah, after fierce clashes with Daesh (IS).
On February 23, IS militants targeted the Khabur region, which includes 35 Assyrian towns and villages, and was able to control 14 villages, forcing thousands of Assyrians to flee for fear of massacres. However the Kurdish and Assyrian fighters forced the group to withdraw from the area after intensive attacks on its tactical units.
Head of the Assyrian Network for Human Rights, Osama Edward, emphasized the Kurdish forces’ advancement in the region.
“The joint forces’ (YPG and Assyrian armed factions) control over the Assyrian areas came after continuous attacks, as well as intensive raids by the U.S.-led coalition’s strikes near the strategic town of Tel Temir in the Khabur area,” he said.
Turkish troops capture ISIL militants trying to flee into Turkey
Turkish soldiers in the border town of Akçakale have held a group of militants from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) while they were trying to cross into Turkey from Syria.
The Doğan news agency reported that the troops searched and held a group of people who were trying to illegally cross into Turkey on Monday. Turkish officials reportedly determined that they were ISIL militants.
Thousands of Syrian refugees fleeing armed clashes between a Syrian Kurdish fighting force and ISIL in the Syrian border town of Tal Abyad have entered Turkey since the Turkish authorities permitted their entry on Sunday.
War with Isis: Meet the Kurdish women’s militia fighting for their families west of the Syrian town of Ras al-Ayn
An American citizen fighting in the ranks of the Kurdish forces of the People’s Protection Units (YPG) was reportedly killed Wednesday evening, during battles against the radical group of the Islamic State (IS/ISIS) in the countryside of Kobane, northern Syria.
YPG Media Office informed ARA News that the fighter Keith Broomfeild, an American national, fell on Wednesday evening in battles against IS terrorist group in Kobane countryside.
“Broomfeild, who entered Syria a few months ago, joined the ranks of the YPG forces and participated in many battles in several fronts against ISIS in Kobane countryside and Tel Abyad (Gire Spi) in Raqqa province, northeastern Syria,” a YPG fighter told ARA News.
The source did not mention further details on how and where the American fighter lost his life. “But we immediately informed the family of our comrade Keith Broomfeild about his martyrdom.”
Family of US YPG Fighter Killed in Syria Talk to Media
KOBANI – The family of Keith Broomfield, the Massachusetts man killed in fighting outside Kobani last week, has spoken about their loss.
Broomfield’s death was confirmed by the State Department on Tuesday, and he is believed to have been the first American killed fighting for the People’s Protection Units (YPG).
His body was delivered to Turkey on Thursday, having been given an emotional send off from Kobani, where hundreds of people applauded and waved flags.
“Somebody needs to stand up and oppose evil,” Broomfield’s older brother Andy said. “He believed in opposing evil.”
Keith Broomfield released a video through the YPG explaining his reasons for joining the fight against Islamic State (IS).
“It seems like the right thing to do. I just want to help the cause in any way I can.”
Broomfield’s father Tom said that “he [Keith] just felt he should be going” before adding that he’d realised it was a “crazy thing to do”.
Speaking earlier in the week, Tom Broomfield revealed that the family had feared he had died long before the confirmation on Tuesday. “I went to my kids and I just cried with them about it. It’s a tough thing, but we have peace about it.”
Broomfield’s sister Jennifer posted a message to Facebook.
“If we allow this war to continue we are ignoring that we are all sisters and brothers. My brother died to defend my sisters who are being sold, enslaved, raped and murdered.
“To defend my brothers who are shot, beheaded and dumped into piles off trucks. This can not continue. This needs to end. I don’t care what country we are from.”
The YPG released a statement in which they said, “We do renew our vow to realize wishes of all fallen martyrs.”
Kurdish female fighters initiate humanitarian support for women suppressed by ISIS
Qamishli, Syria – As Syrian Kurds nearing to capture the IS-held city of Tel Abyad in Raqqa province, northeastern Syria, Kurdish female fighters of the Women Protection Units (YPJ) announced the establishment of a private chamber to help the displaced women, who fled from the Islamic State militants (IS/ISIS), military sources reported on Monday.
The Kurdish YPJ fighters will also provide assistance to those who are trapped in the city and get them reach the “liberated areas” which are under the control of their forces.
Newroz Ahmed, the YPJ General Commander, said Monday in a statement: “We seek through this chamber to support all women affected by the violence of IS terrorists in Tel Abyad, whether Kurds or Arabs, and provide them with humanitarian support.”
“After liberating the city of Tel Abyad, our first priority will be providing humanitarian support to the affected civilians, especially women,” she said. “Therefore, we call on all women of Tel Abyad and Raqqa not to stay at the mercy of the border wire, but to head to the areas liberated by our forces.”
The Kurdish commander pointed out that it’s time for freedom from terrorists of Daesh (IS), adding: “We (YPJ) are determined to continue strengthening our forces, and escalate our struggle for the protection of the entire society.”
“We particularly protect the women from the injustice and terrorism of Daesh (IS) until liberating Tel Abyad permanently, this is the desire of our martyrs and the desire of all peoples of the region.”
The YPJ leading member added that the women of Raqqa (the IS de facto capital) who have lost their homes, recognize well the dirty practices of IS terrorists who oblige residents to disperse into different places and refugee camps in neighboring countries.
Ahmed appealed to civilians suppressed by IS not to leave Syria “because the day of freedom from terrorism is coming soon”.
The People’s Protection Units (YPG) and Women Protection Units (YPJ) regained Monday the district of Mashhoour Tahtani in eastern Tel Abyad after fierce battles with the Islamic State. Additionally, the joint forces (YPG and Burkan al-Furat rebels) cut off the road between the cities of Tel Abyad and Raqqa in an attempt to suspend the main supply line of the extremist group.
Member of YPG Military Council Sozdar Derik on Liberation of Mabruka
Turkey unhappy with Kurdish fighters’ victories against ISIL
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has expressed grave concern over the recent advances of Kurdish fighters in the Syrian province of Raqqa where Takfiri ISIL terrorists are operating.
“This is not a good sign…This could lead to the creation of a structure that threatens our borders. Everyone needs to take into account our sensitivities on this issue,” Erdogan said on Sunday in reaction to the advances by Kurdish fighters.
The so-called Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said on Sunday that Syrian Kurdish fighters of the People’s Protection Units (YPG) are just a few kilometers east of Tal Abyad, the administrative center of Raqqa district in Raqqa province. Tal Abyad is an ISIL stronghold.
The London based group also said the Takfiri group has pulled back from the Syrian town of Suluk, about 20 kilometers (12.5 miles) southeast of the town of Tal Abyad.
Turkey considers the YPG as the Syrian branch of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has been blacklisted by Turkey, the US, and the European Union.
Erdogan has repeatedly said the victories of Kurdish fighters could lead to the PKK dominance on northern Syria.
Meanwhile,Turkey has prevented thousands of Syrian refugees from entering the country as clashes flare up between Syrian Kurds and the ISIL Takfiri terrorists. Turkish forces on Saturday used water cannon and fired warning shots to disperse massing refugees at a border crossing in the town of Akcakale in southeastern Turkey.
On Thursday, Turkish officials announced they will restrict the flow of the Syrians into the Turkish territory. Turkish Deputy Prime Minister Numan Kurtulmus has said that his country would only consider new entries in case of a humanitarian tragedy in Syria.
Turkey has been one of the main supporters of armed militancy against the Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, with reports showing that Ankara actively trains and arms militants operating in Syria.
Also, Turkey has reportedly been supporting the militants in Syria by allowing them safe passage through Turkish territory. On Thursday, video footage emerged purportedly showing how members of Turkey’s National Intelligence Organization (MİT) were escorting ISIL members into Syria.
For more than four years, Syria has been grappling with a deadly crisis with Western powers and some of their regional allies – especially Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey – backing the militants operating in the Arab country. More than 222,000 people have been killed in the conflict so far, the observatory says.
Bookchin, Öcalan, and the Dialectics of Democracy
Reading Öcalan’s In Defense of the People, I sensed an exhilaration that reminded me of how I felt when I first read Ecology of Freedom back in 1985—delighted by the insight that people once lived in communal solidarity, and that the potential for it remains, and inspired by the prospect that we could have it again, if we chose to change our social arrangements. The concept of the “irreducible minimum” simply has taken new names, like socialism. Ecology of Freedom offers to readers what Murray used to call “a principle of hope,” and that must have meant something to the imprisoned Öcalan.
“The victory of capitalism was not simply fate,” Öcalan wrote in 2004. “There could have been a different development.” To regard capitalism and the nation-state as inevitable “leaves history to those in power.” Rather, “there is always only a certain probability for things to happen … there is always an option of freedom.[26]
The communal aspects of “natural society” persist in ethnic groups, class movements, and religious and philosophical groups that struggle for freedom. “Natural society has never ceased to exist,” he wrote. A dialectical conflict between freedom and domination has persisted throughout western history, “a constant battle between democratic elements who refer to communal structures and those whose instruments are power and war.” For “the communal society is in permanent conflict with the hierarchic one.”[27]
Finally, Öcalan embraced social ecology. “The issue of social ecology begins with civilization,” he wrote in 2004, because “the roots of civilization” are where we find also “the beginnings of the destruction of the natural environment.” Natural society was in a sense ecological society. The same forces that destroy society from within also cut the meaningful link to nature. Capitalism, he says, is anti-ecological, and we need a specifically ethical revolt against it, “a conscious ethic effort,” a “new social ethics that is in harmony with traditional values.” The liberation of women is fundamental. And he called for a “democratic-ecological society,” by which he meant “a moral-based system that involves sustainable dialectical relations with nature, … where common welfare is achieved by means of direct democracy.”[28]
How did it all apply to the Kurdish question? Once again, he emphasizes that achieving Kurdish freedom means achieving freedom for everyone. “Any solution will have to include options not only valid for the Kurdish people but for all people. That is, I am approaching these problems based on one humanism, one humanity, one nature and one universe.”[29] But now, instead of through the democratic republic, it is to be achieved through assembly democracy.
“Our first task,” he wrote, “is to push for democratization, for non-state structures, and communal organization.” Instead of focusing solely on changing the Turkish constitution, he advocated that Kurds create organizations at the local level: local town councils, municipal administrations, down to urban districts, townships, and villages. They should form new local political parties and economic cooperatives, civil society organizations, and those that address human rights, women’s rights, children’s rights, animal rights, and all other issues to be addressed.
“Regional associations of municipal administrations” are needed, so these local organizations and institutions would form a network. At the topmost level, they are to be represented in a “General Congress of the People,” which will address issues of “politics, self-defense, law, morality, economy, science, arts, and welfare by means of institutionalization, rules and control mechanisms.”
Gradually, as the democratic institutions spread, all of Turkey would undergo a democratization. They would network across existing national borders, to accelerate the advent of democratic civilization in the whole region and produce not only freedom for the Kurds but a geopolitical and cultural renewal. Ultimately a democratic confederal union would embrace the whole of the Middle East. He named this Kurdish version of libertarian municipalism “democratic confederalism.”
In March 2005, Öcalan issued a Declaration of Democratic Confederalism in Kurdistan. It called for “a grass-roots democracy … based on the democratic communal structure of natural society.” It “will establish village, towns and city assemblies and their delegates will be entrusted with the real decision-making, which in effect means that the people and the community will decide.” Öcalan’s democratic confederalism preserves his brilliant move of linking the liberation of Kurds to the liberation of humanity. It affirms individual rights and freedom of expression for everyone, regardless of religious, ethnic, and class differences. It “promotes an ecological model of society” and supports women’s liberation. He urged this program upon his people: “I am calling upon all sectors of society, in particular all women and the youth, to set up their own democratic organisations and to govern themselves.” When I visited Diyarbakir in the fall of 2011, I discovered that Kurds in southeastern Anatolia were indeed putting this program into practice.[30]
Democratic Autonomy in Rojava
In the past 33 years, the Kurdish freedom struggle, the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), and its leader, Abdullah Öcalan, have not only reacted to social changes but shaped them and proposed further steps in the direction of a liberated society.
Significantly, the PKK conceives the Kurdish question as an issue not of nation or ethnicity but of the liberation of society, of both sexes, and of all people. Öcalan’s book Sociology of Freedom is a kind of a road map for the liberation of Rojava and the entire Middle East, highlighting in detail steps toward freedom.
During our journeys through Rojava, we met many people who had close relationships to Öcalan and to others who have decisively participated in the PKK’s history. This ongoing contact has engendered a transformation in the region’s otherwise feudalistic social terrain. The women especially emphasized this connection—they have known about Kurdish women’s liberation ideology for more than twenty years and have been trying to implement it. Thanks to all the close interconnections within the Kurdish freedom movement, many people [from Rojava] joined the PKK and fought for it in North Kurdistan. So it is a mistake to see the PKK as strictly a North Kurdish phenomenon; this movement also belonged and belongs to tens of thousands of activists from Rojava.
Öcalan’s 1999 arrest, followed by the Assad regime’s intensified repression, gave rise to a period of reorganization in Rojava. After the regime’s 2004 massacre of Kurds in the city of Qamişlo and the subsequent uprising, this reorganization began to gain momentum, to the point of creating armed self-defense units. The leftist Party of Democratic Unity (PYD) had already been founded and quickly became a strong regional political force. Meanwhile new paradigms emerged from the Kurdish freedom movement and especially from Öcalan, inspired by the work of the libertarian theorist Murray Bookchin, whose model of democratic confederalism and democratic autonomy became a touchstone for the reorientation. Öcalan developed a critique of the history of actually existing socialist states and of national liberation movements, including the PKK itself. As an alternative to conceptions of revolution that strive for an armed uprising and seizure of power, he outlined a plan for a “democratic, ecological, gender-liberated society.” He introduced the concept of an “ethical and political society” that would be self-managed and would situate itself outside the lifeless, homogenous consumer society of capitalism.
Even before the rebellions in Syria began, the Kurds of Rojava had already created the first councils and committees and thereby began to institute a radical democratic organization of most of the region’s population. Starting on June 19, 2012, the cities of Kobanê, Afrîn, Dêrik, and many other places were one by one freed from regime control; the strength of the reorganization then revealed itself. Military bases were reconfigured, and the vastly outnumbered regime troops were offered the option of withdrawal. Only in Dêrik did the situation lead to a struggle, with a few casualties. But even here, as people in Dêrik told us, the new self-organization prevented violent attacks and acts of destruction and revenge.
The Fourth Revolutionary War 
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