Assault on Ras Al-Ayn

Ra's al-'Ayn (Arabic: رأس العين‎, Kurdish: Serê Kaniyê,) is a Syrian city administratively belonging to Al-Hasakah Governorate. It has a population of 55,247, mostly consisting of Assyrian/Syriacs, Arabs, Kurds and Armenians. Together with its Turkish twin city Ceylanpınar (predominantly Kurdish population 44,258, also called Serê Kaniyê in Kurdish) it's divided by the Turkish-Syrian border since after WWI following the Sykes-Picot Agreement. The Baghdad Railway runs along the border.

Following an agreement between the Syrian Government and the local Kurdish forces in late Summer 2012, the region is mostly under self-organization by local councils and remained peaceful during the crisis. The border is guarded exclusively by the Turkish Army following an agreement from 1998.

FSA comes to town
According to Kurdish sources, on November 8 at 4 am, several hundred FSA fighters entered the town from across the Turkish border, from where they went into Arab dominated parts of the city. Clashes with the few remaining soldiers of the Syrian Arab Army took place. The injured FSA fighters were carried back across the border to hospitals in the Turkish twin city Ceylanpınar.

This can be seen on videos uploaded to youtube. The border crossing is labeled on wikimapia, where somebody took care of good orientation, as "occupied". Injured fighters coming back to Turkey under the watchful eyes of Turkish soldiers seen here dated Nov 12, captured "Shabiha" among celebrating FSA fighters brought across the border [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a0V3mWh4nEg#! at the same place] dated a day earlier, interviewed Islamist fighters with Al-Jazeera again [http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HerbOpN3O6Q#! at the crossing], Nov 9, etc. Just some examples from a large video collection.

The Kurdish Supreme Committee (KSC) issued a statement requesting the fighters to leave town, arguing to not want to give the Syrian Army a pretext to attack the city, and urging all parties to stay united and don't give way to sectarianism. One fighter of the KSC's armed wing, the Popular Protection Units (YPG), was killed in the crossfire.

In the following days the FSA took over police and other official buildings and minor clashes between them and the residents occured, for example youths were stopped trying to raise a Kurdish flag, while FSA fighters were seen raising Turkish flags.

Syrian Army responds
Also clashes with reinforced troops of the Syrian Arab Army took place and starting November 12, they targeted FSA-held positions from air, with considerable collateral damage. Kurdish sources report 8 dead and 57 wounded in the bombing of the districts Mehet and Tel Xelef on the 12th These reports mention that parts of the fighters belong to the Al-Nusra Front and that the usually closed border was cleaned from landmines before the FSA troops crossed it.

On the 14th, the Army went over to targeting surrounding villages where the FSA troops apparently fled to after they were chased out of the city center. Also on the 14th, the Kurdish sources report that 600 additional FSA fighters arrived near the Turkish side of the city, where they were transported to in civilian cars from Hatay Province coordinated by Turkish Intelligence (MIT).

Silence ... for the moment
If those fighters did reach Ras Al-Ayn is unclear (reports from other parts of the border region suggest that they could have been headed elsewhere), but it seems like some kind of ceasefire ensued for the moment, as on the 15th the KSC sent a delegation to take a look at the destruction and urge the by now 11500 refugees to return. According to Firat News Agency, in total at least ten civilians were killed and 70 wounded, with around 50 houses demolished.

Also a team of Russian vesti.ru TV reported from the town, published a day later. While their footage allegedly showing Yemeni and Saudi fighters inside the town seems to be mostly not filmed by them (for example they show excerpts of a video showing brutal door-to-door raids available on youtube since at least two days before ), they are seen at a road leading to Ras Al-Ayn and interviewing refugees and a Kurdish fighter outside of town. As a female refugee states:


 * All are shooting there, the ones that have a black flag, the others have a Kurdish. There are bombs. We are afraid for our children, we want peace, and we are waiting here now till Turkish border guards fetch us.

Also on the 16th, CNN broadcasted a report with their unavoidable war reporter Ivan Watson who obviously had crossed the Turkish border together with the Islamist fighters and shows the viewers around, meeting "random" citizens standing on Assad pictures. He reports the warning the local councils had given to his companions, that not only the Syrian Army but also they are not welcome in town.

More FSA against the YPG
On the 19th, the KSC had called for a demonstration against the besiege by the remaining Islamist forces under the motto "Return to the homeland". Kurdish sources report that in the morning the Islamist groups "El Şam, Ehfad El Resul and Cebet El", reinforced across the border by newly arrived fighters "belonging to Graba al Sham and Nasra", maybe the 600 men mentioned days before, started to erect road blocks and attacked the arriving civilian protesters. The head of the local people's council Abid Xelil, who tried to negotiate with them, and a youth were killed. Following this, heavy clashes started with forces of the YPG who had come from the whole region following the call of the KSC to defend the town.

Enter Turkish Army
These clashes between FSA and YPG lasted until late into the night and were accompanied by the Turkish Army firing short-range missiles across the border into the city, giving protection to the FSA by targeting YPG forces. In a press release, a German-Kurdish organization states (translated):


 * Turkey has taken a definitive position during the events. While Turkish territory was at no time under military threat, the Turkish Army actively intervened in the fight. It's also striking that the attacking forces were able to cross the Turkish border without problems and the landmines, which were placed at the border strip for 30 years, were removed by Turkey just in time.

A press release of the YPG on Nov 20 describes the outcome of the fights: With four YPG fighters dead, the attacking forces were beaten and 18 corpses handed over to them, among them group leaders, with seven fighters arrested and weapons and equipment confiscated. An unknown number of dead and injured fighters were brought across the Turkish border into Ceylanpınar together with the withdrawing forces. The YPG demanded from the FSA command to distance themselves from "these groups controlled by Turkey". The statement ends with a call to the youths of the region to join the YPG to defend against further assaults.

Later on Nov 20, official FSA commander Riad Al-Asaad indeed gave a statement to the website Welati declaring that the group Ghurba' al-Sham has no official links to the FSA and that "there are some groups trying to exploit the situation in order to blow up relations between Kurds and Arabs."

The Erdogan-friendly Turkish Daily Today's Zaman reports the events of the day relying on the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights in a generally similar fashion with regards to clashing parties and death toll of the Kurdish side, although with no mentioning of the death toll of the other side, where the "Syrian opposition forces" were coming from and of the Turkish Army playing an active role firing missiles across the border:


 * On Monday, gunfire clattered in the mixed Arab and Kurdish frontier town of Ras al-Ain, which was overrun by the mainly Sunni Muslim Arab opposition on Nov. 8 and bombed by Assad's forces in the days that followed. [...] With its own large Kurdish minority, Turkey is watching closely, worried that the emergence of an autonomous Kurdish region in Syria could further embolden militants of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) fighting for autonomy in southeastern Turkey.