The PKK terrorist group's Syrian branch, the U.S.-backed YPG, abducted 28 people in Syria's northern province of occupied Raqqa to join its armed group by force under the guise of "mandatory military service," according to sources.
Terrorists from the YPG/PKK stormed Mansura in the western countryside of Raqqa on Friday, according to sources who asked not to be named due to restrictions on speaking to the media.
The terrorist group abducted the young people who were picnicking with their families on the banks of the river at a resort, said sources.
They were taken to so-called training camps in the Tabqa district in Raqqa.
The YPG/PKK will continue to forcibly take young people from the city center of Raqqa and in rural areas to add to its armed staff, local sources emphasized.
The YPG commits rights violations under the guise of fighting the Daesh terrorist group without anyone holding them accountable.
A United Nations report this year stated that the PKK terrorist organization’s Syrian wing, the YPG, has been recruiting children to fight among its ranks, adding that the organization has enlisted at least 400 children in the past two years.
The YPG used 318 children in its ranks to fight, while its women's branch, the YPJ, used 99, the report added.
YPG terrorists detained at least 2,700 people between the ages of 21 and 34 at checkpoints and during raids on local households in March.
Local people living in areas held by the YPG have long suffered from its atrocities, as the terrorist group has a notorious record of human rights abuses in Syria, ranging from kidnappings, recruitment of child soldiers, torture, ethnic cleansing and forced displacement.
The U.S. has primarily partnered with the YPG in northeastern Syria in the anti-Daesh fight. On the other hand, Turkey strongly opposed the terrorist group’s presence in northern Syria, which has been a major sticking point in strained Turkey-U.S. relations. Ankara has long objected to the U.S.' support for the YPG, a group that poses a threat to Turkey and terrorizes local people, destroying their homes and forcing them to flee.
Under the pretext of fighting Daesh, the U.S. has provided military training and given truckloads of military support to the YPG, despite its NATO ally’s security concerns. While underlining that a country cannot support one terrorist group to fight another, Turkey has conducted its own counterterrorism operations, over the course of which it has managed to remove a significant number of terrorists from the region.
Turkey aims to prevent the YPG from establishing a de facto autonomous region in northern Syria, which would border Turkey and connect the so-called northwestern Afrin canton to the so-called Kobani (Ain al-Arab) and Jazeera cantons in the northeast. Ankara describes this as a "terror corridor" posing a grave security threat to its national security, underlining its possible impact on the PKK’s activity within Turkish borders.
In its more than 40-year terrorism campaign against Turkey, the PKK – listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and the European Union – has been responsible for the deaths of 40,000 people, including women, children and infants.