58 people killed in Syria's Kurdish-controlled northeast in April: SOHR

ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – Just under 60 people were killed in acts of violence in April in northeastern Syrian regions governed by the Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) reported on Friday.

SOHR noted that 26 of these 58 were civilians, including women and a child. Fifteen of these 26 were killed in attacks by ISIS. Another five, four of them women, were murdered. Three civilians, including a woman and child, “were killed in indiscriminate gunfire during tribal infightings,” while two men were killed in a “ground bombardment by Turkish forces,” while one man was killed in a prison run by SDF intelligence.

Another 25 individuals killed throughout the month included combatants. Eighteen Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Fighters (SDF) fighters were killed by ISIS cell attacks, while another six, including three women, were killed by Turkish drone strikes. Turkish ground fire killed a single fighter. The remaining seven casualties consisted of gunmen “killed in tribal and family infightings.”

SOHR also noted that April witnessed “the largest number of attacks by ISIS cells since early 2022, especially after an ISIS spokesperson had announced, on April 17, a new military campaign dubbed the ‘Revenge War for the Two Sheikhs’” referring to slain former ISIS leader Abi Ibrahim Al-Hashemi Al-Qurashi and his spokesperson Al-Muhajir Abi Hamza Al-Qurashi killed in a US operation in February.

According to SOHR estimates, ISIS carried out at least 11 “operations” throughout the month, leaving at least 33 dead, 15 of whom were civilians and the other 18 SDF fighters and members of the affiliated Internal Security Forces (Asayish in Kurdish).

During the same period, Turkey also stepped up its air and ground attacks against SDF-held areas in April, carrying out 11 drone strikes that killed six fighters and injured 19 more.

“Turkish forces carried out heavy bombardment almost daily, targeting positions in areas under the control of the Autonomous Administration in Al-Raqqah, Aleppo and Al-Hasakah,” the report noted. “These rounds of bombardment were concentrated on Tel Tamr and Abu Rasin countryside, leaving casualties and material damage and forcing several residents to displace to safer areas.”