Tell Abyad

After the Syrian civil war started in 2011, Tell Abyad was captured by the Free Syrian Army in September 2012,[5] On June 30, 2014, Tell Abyad was captured by the al-Nusra Front and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), who raised their flag at the border crossing with Turkey.[6] After ISIL defeated the Kurdish forces, the YPG and Kurdish Front, ISIL fighters announced from the minarets of the local mosques that all Kurds had to leave Tell Abyad or else be killed. Thousands of civilians, including Turkmen and Arab families, fled on 21 July.[7][8] ISIL fighters systematically looted and destroyed the property of Kurds and resettled displaced Arab Sunni families from the Qalamoun area (Rif Damascus), Deir ez-Zor, and Raqqa in abandoned Kurdish homes.[8] According to Liz Sly of the Washington Post, ISIL also collected a tax from the Christians, a so called Jizya of about $100 every six months.[9] While ISIL controlled the border towards Turkey in Tell Abyad, it was a major source for supplies coming in from Turkey.[10]

In the June 2015 Tell Abyad Campaign, the town was besieged and in June 2015 taken over by forces of the Euphrates Volcano, the YPG and their allies within the Free Syrian Army.[11][12]

After the capture of the Tell Abyad district, Kurdish YPG fighters have been accused by Syrian rebels of deliberately displacing thousands of Arabs and Turkmens from the areas they captured from ISIL forces in northern Syria[13][14] — a charge strongly denied by the Kurds.[15] The accusation was not backed by any evidence of ethnic or sectarian killings.[15] The head of Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said the people who had fled into Turkey were escaping fighting and there was no systematic effort to force people out.[16] A report published by KurdWatch also accused the PYD of displacements[17] while Liz Sly of the Washington Post reported:

"The Kurds formally renamed Tal Abyad with a Kurdish name, "Gire Spi", and proclaim its new identity in signs throughout the town — written in the Latin script used by Turkish Kurds but not readily understood by Syrian Kurds or Arabs. They have also unilaterally detached it from the existing Syrian province of Raqqa and made it a part of their newly formed autonomous enclave, carved from areas traditionally inhabited by Kurds but steadily encroaching also on territories that were historically Arab."[9]

According to KurdWatch, repressive measures have been taken out in first line against persons with ties to the Islamic State or other political opponents.[18]

However, many of the tens of thousands of Arab residents — namely those tribes that allegedly took part in the expulsion of the local Kurdish population in 2013[19] — who fled the advancing Kurdish force have not returned, for fear of retribution from the YPG.[9] There were reports that Kurds were forcibly removing the local Arab population,[20] but the accusations were rejected by local Kurdish officials[21] as well as the United Nations.[22]

The Tell Abyad canton was established on 21 October 2015[23] and included into the de facto autonomous Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), declared by a council including representatives of local Arab, Kurdish, Turkmen and Armenian communities.[23] The entity was neither formally recognized by the Syrian Government of Bashar al-Assad nor by any other country of the United Nations.[23] The 178-member higher council that governed Tell Abyad, elected mixed-gender co-mayors, as mandated under Rojava rules. The elected co-mayors were ethnic Arab Mansour Seloum (later elected co-chairperson for the executive committee to organize a new constitution for Rojava, and replaced by ethnic Arab Hamdan al-Abad) and ethnic Kurd Layla Mohammed. The latter was 27 years old and the first female mayor of Tell Abyad ever.[24] Schools in which Arabs and Kurds each could learn in their own language were set up during their administration.[24]

On 27 February 2016, Tell Abyad came under attack from ISIL militants. YPG militias and Asayish police forces repelled the attack and eliminated all of the ISIL militants, but more than 40 security forces and around 20 civilians were left dead. A YPG spokesman claimed that ISIL militants had crossed from Turkey to attack the town. Turkey quickly denied this claim. According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, there was not any infiltration from the Turkish border but dormant IS sleeper cells and others entered the town on the eve of the offensive dressed in YPG uniforms.[25] There have been multiple other instances of ISIL terror attacks in Tell Abyad, for example on 29 June and 8 July 2016 two bombings that each claimed ten civilian lives.[26][27]

On 15 September 2016, the flag of the United States was raised over several public institutional buildings in Tell Abyad.[28] The United States Department of Defense confirmed that U.S. Special Operation Forces were flying U.S. flags in the town of Tell Abyad to deter Turkish harassment shelling or attacks against Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) there.[29] Notwithstanding, the Turkish military shelled the area on 22 September.[30] Tell Abyad was also a hub for Combined Joint Task Force – Operation Inherent Resolve training of new SDF recruits in the fight against ISIL in Syria.[31] On 27 November 2018, as a part of a deconfliction initiative with Turkish forces in the area, the US set up an observation post in Tal Abyad.[32]

In October 2017, it was reported that Tell Abyad was to be included into the Euphrates Region, consisting of the Kobane Canton and the Tell Abyad Canton.[33] Tell Abyad stayed a part of the canton until the Turkish offensive into north-eastern Syria.[34] The SDF announced the creation of the Military Council of Tell Abyad in June 2019.[35]

Bombardment of Tell Abyad during the 2019 Turkish offensive.

As part of the Turkish offensive into north-eastern Syria, Turkey launched airstrikes and fired artillery at SDF position inside the town. Social media images posted displayed Syrians fleeing the town. Two civilians were killed and others were wounded as part of the offensive according to The New York Times.[36]

On 13 October 2019, as part of the 2019 Turkish offensive into north-eastern Syria, Turkish Armed Forces and the Syrian National Army captured Tell Abyad, and many villages in the district from the SDF.[37] On October 28, a local council was formed.[38]

Following the capture of Tell Abyad, Turkey imposed direct rule over the town[39] and the Governor of Sanlıurfa has appointed a Turkish led administration to Tell Abyad.[40] The Governorate also stated it would provide a Syrian police trained by the Turkish authorities to the area.[41] The UN High Commissioner on Human Rights Michelle Bachelet, reported that in Tell Abyad the forces supported by Turkey would incur in widespread human rights violations and urged Turkey to initiate an investigation of the matter.[42]

On April 30, 2023, During the diffusion of explosives planted by PKK, two Turkish and one Syrian policemen lost their lives, and 11 policemen, 7 of them Turkish, were injured.[43]