A new Kurdish rebel group has formed in northern Aleppo, Syria: the Kurd Rebels Brigades (Kataeb Thuwar al Kurd in Arabic). A video of the group was released on LiveLeak on June 1st, and a Facebook page for the group became active on May 30th. However, there has been little coverage of the group, and little else is known about them in the public domain. So who are the Kurd Rebels Brigades? Al Bawaba spoke to one of their members to find out more.
“The main reason for creating such a brigade is to stand up against the Assad regime and the Democratic Union Party (PYD), which are enemies of both Arab and Kurdish people in Syria,” said a member of the brigade who wishes to remain anonymous to Al Bawaba.
According to the source, the PYD does not fight for the interests of Syrian Kurds. “It’s the matter of the PYD’s actions like not ending the enforcement of military conscription of Kurdish boys and girls to fight against ISIS (Daesh) in non-Kurdish regions of Raqqa, for example,” he said on why the brigades oppose the PYD.
The PYD has conscripted youth to fight since the outbreak of the civil war, prompting some opposition from local Kurds.
This sets the Kurd Rebels Brigades apart from the primary Kurdish armed group in Syria: the People’s Protection Units (YPG), which is supported by the PYD and cooperates with the U.S.-led international coalition to defeat Daesh in Syria.
And whereas the YPG has fought both forces loyal to the government of Bashar al-Assad and rebel groups (while also cooperating at times with the government and rebels), the source says the Kurd Rebels Brigades see themselves as wholeheartedly part of the Syrian revolution.
“Our project and goals are that of the Syrian revolution, so I don’t think we’ll have any issues with Free Syrian Army (FSA) groups,” he added.
The aforementioned LiveLeak video confirms the source’s statements on the brigade’s position. In the video, the speaker claims that the Kurd Rebels Brigade is fighting both the Syrian government and the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a Kurdish nationalist group in Turkey linked to the PYD.
“We are a movement of free Kurds, formed to defend our people in Syria, especially the Kurdish people,” the man in the video said. He later led the two dozen or so fighters in the video in a chant of “Allahu akbar.”
The video was also posted on the group’s YouTube channel, and includes statements in both Kurdish and Arabic.
Aleppo, Syria is presently divided between government and rebel forces. Dozens have been killed in recent fighting in the city.
--Adam Lucente
