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Kurds in Syrian Kurdistan hold mass
funeral for suicide bomb victims
13.3.2014 |
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An earlier photo February 22, 2012. Anti Syrian
president Bashar al-Assad mourners surround the
hearse carrying the coffin of Kurdish opposition
Naser Aldin Berhak during his funeral in Qamishli
city, Syrian Kurdistan region (Rojava). Photo:
Reuters
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March 13, 2014
QAMISHLO, Syrian Kurdistan,— Thousands of
people attended a funeral in the northern Kurdish
city of Qamishlo in Syrian Kurdistan (Rojava) on
Wednesday for nine victims of a triple suicide
bombing, a monitoring group said.
Four women were among those killed in Tuesday's
bombing of Hadaya hotel in the heart
of Qamishli, said the Syrian Observatory for Human
Rights, updating the death toll to nine.
The attack was carried out by members of the Islamic
State of Iraq and Sham, Syria's most hardline
jihadist group, whose fighters have been pitted
against Kurds in several areas of northeast Syria.
ISIS's jihadists are also fighting against other
rebel groups, including Al-Qaeda affiliate Al-Nusra
Front.
The Britain-based Observatory said thousands turned
out for the funeral in Syria's main Kurdish city.
Amateur video distributed by activists showed huge
crowds of mourners waving the Kurdish flag and
chanting as they walked in a funeral procession.
The funeral coincided with the anniversary of
Kurdish anti-regime
protests which
broke out in Qamishlo in 2004, resulting in scores
of people killed and hundreds imprisoned.
After Syria's revolt broke out in 2011, the
regime reached a fragile accommodation with the
Kurds, largely withdrawing its troops from Kurdish
areas to focus on fighting rebels elsewhere.
The Kurdish minority, which was long faced
discrimination by the government, has used the
crisis to build autonomous institutions, including
security forces and local councils.
Syrian Kurds
declared their
own autonomous Kurdish region (Western Kurdistan,
Rojava) in November 2013.
Following
Jazeera (Cizîre) and
Kobanę
(Ayn al-Arab) cantons,
Efrin (Afrin)
has officially proclaimed the establishment of its
government of Democratic Autonomywww.Ekurd.net
in January 2014.
Elsewhere on Wednesday, fighting raged in the
Qalamoun area near Lebanon, almost a month into a
major drive by government forces backed by Lebanon's
Shiite movement Hezbollah to drive rebels out of its
biggest town, Yabrud.
According to the Observatory, the latest fighting
was focused on the edges of Yabrud, which has come
under sustained aerial bombing for weeks.
On Wednesday, seven rebels were killed and an
unknown number of regime loyalists, said the group.
In nearby Wadi Barada, another 10 troops and four
rebels died in clashes, it added.
A total of more than 140,000 people have been killed
in Syria's three-year-old war, according to the
Observatory, and millions more have fled their
homes.
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AFP | Ekurd.net
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