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TURKEY-ALIGNED MILITIAS BOMBARD NORTHEAST SYRIA

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Smoke rises from the Northeast Syrian village of Didara after Turkish-backed Islamist militants bombarded it on Friday, January 8th, 2021, sending local residents fleeing for their lives (via @NPAEnglish on Twitter).

Islamist militia known as the “Syrian National Army” hammered villages around the Northeast Syrian town of Tel Tamr on Friday with rocket and artillery fire. The SNA is supported by the Turkish regime of Recep Tayyip Erdogan and is sometimes referred to as the Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army (TFSA). Amateur video posted to social media showed residents of Dirdara village fleeing from the shelling after one civilian was injured. The bombardment is a violation of the ceasefires negotiated by the United States and Russia, respectively, after the Turkish-aligned Islamists invaded Northeast Syria in October, 2019, occupying the key towns of Tel Abyad and Ras Al-Ain. The so-called “Operation Spring of Peace” displaced more than 300,000 Kurds, Arabs and other minorities.

As ceasefire violations have increased along the lines over the past 30 days, Russia has negotiated between the Syrian regime and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to create several joint outposts around Ras al-Ain, bringing the autonomous Kurdish-led government into cooperation with the regime that oppressed it for more than a half-century, to confront a common enemy. The strategic international M-4 highway had opened last month after an agreement between Moscow and Ankara, but was directly bombarded by the TFSA on Friday, highlighting the fickle nature of any agreement made with Turkey in Syria, as President Erdogan positions himself to continue his campaign of occupation in Kurdish territory. Elham Ahmad, co-chair of the Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AA-NES) appealed to Russia and the United States on Twitter last month regarding their responsibility to “bind Turkey to ceasefire agreements.”

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We ask the global Maranatha family to join us in prayer for the people of Northeast Syria today. We pray that the Turkish and Syrian regimes would be restrained in their violence toward civilians, and that Turkish-aligned Islamists would be compelled to withdraw from Kurdish territory. We pray for unity and solidarity among the people of Northeast Syria, across ethnicity and creed, and we pray that the continued military, economic and health crises would open new fields for gospel laborers to bring Good Tidings of great joy.

Maranatha.

Gabriel Caligiuri