Kurdish-led forces apologize for mistreating hospital staff in Syria’s Deir al-Zor after ISIS attack
The SDF on Sunday apologized for the mistreatment of hospital staff in the eastern city of Deir al-Zor by its fighters.
ERBIL (Kurdistan 24) – The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) on Sunday apologized for the mistreatment of hospital staff in the eastern city of Deir al-Zor nine days earlier by its fighters and offered compensation for victims.
“At exactly 9 p.m. on Friday, March 5, our forces were subjected to a terrorist attack by elements affiliated with ISIS in the town of Ash-Shahil, east of Deir al-Zor,” the SDF Press Centre said.
“At the same time one of our support patrols to transport the wounded and martyrs was ambushed near the Ash-Shahil Hospital, according to field information, which indicated the possibility of the attacking elements being killed and wounded inside the hospital,” the statement added.
After the attack, one of the patrols headed to the hospital and came under fire from the direction of the hospital. After the incident, SDF fighters mistreated the hospital staff.
The Islamic State later claimed responsibility for the attack.
What the #SDF has just done to the staff of Ash-Shahil Hospital is a very reckless act.
— Omar Abu Layla (@OALD24) March 5, 2021
Why to beat a hospital staff, that treat civilians, destroy all the hospital equipment and burn many houses in the area??? pic.twitter.com/BFWV1V69mF
Omar Abu Layla, the executive director of the Deir ez Zor 24 news outlet, blamed the SDF for attacking the hospital staff.
“What the SDF has just done to the staff of Ash-Shahil Hospital is a very reckless act,” he said. “Why to beat a hospital staff, that treat civilians, destroy all the hospital equipment and burn many houses in the area???”
“If there is a security chaos and the cells are moving as they like, this doesn’t mean that the solution is to attack and beat the civilian people of the region and the medical staff, that help people and save their lives,” he added.
In a statement released by the SDF, the group expressed their regret “at the ill-treatment of the medical staff by our forces, as well as the material damage and we confirm opening investigation against the officers responsible, to hold them accountable.”
“We also confirm that we will provide the necessary compensation for the damage caused to the hospital,” it concluded.
Nicholas Heras, Senior Analyst at the Washington-based Newlines Institute for Strategy and Policy, told Kurdistan 24 that the security situation in Deir al-Zor is becoming more complicated by the month.
“The ISIS’s insurgency against the SDF there is putting enormous stress on the local security apparatus in the SDF-controlled areas of the province. SDF leaders are under an international microscope concerning the conduct of the SDF in Deir al-Zor,” he said.
He added there is a “clear narrative being formed that the success or failure of the SDF to win the acceptance of the local Deiri population is the ultimate test of the sustainability of the SDF project.”
Although the SDF and US-led anti-Islamic State Coalition announced the territorial defeat of the Islamic State in Syria in March 2019, sleeper cell attacks persist, especially in liberated territories, in what appears to be a deliberate campaign to destabilize the area.
Deir al-Zor has consistently been one of the most unstable regions in areas now under SDF control. Among the main targets of Islamic State remnants have been ethnic Arab civilians from the province it accuses of working with SDF-affiliated civilian and military institutions in the province.
“This incident is horrible, and the SDF command knows that in order to retain its credibility with the U.S.-led Coalition, it must demonstrate that it understands that the support, outward or tacit, of the local civilian population is the goal of counter-insurgency,” he added.
He underlined that the SDF is in the midst of a brutal and multi-sided war of perception in Deir al-Zor “between itself, ISIS, the regime, and a local population that the SDF is not guaranteed to win.”
Editing by John J. Catherine