YPG/PKK’s teenage members reveal forced recruitment

By Lale Koklu, Izzet Mazi

HATAY/KILIS, Turkey (AA) - The teenage members of the YPG/PKK terrorist organization, who were interrogated by Turkish authorities, revealed their forced recruitment by the terror group in northwestern Syria.

The teenagers also revealed the terror group’s organizational structure, process of arming the children and the planting of booby traps in Afrin region.

In his statement at the Criminal Court of Peace in southern Turkish province of Kilis, YPG/PKK member A.K., 17, said he visited his relatives in Afrin last year when the YPG/PKK were recruiting children from every house under the campaign of the “military recruitment”.

A.K. noted he also joined the terror group at that time. “I was given arms training during my initial period with the organization. I was on a hill of Bulbul town [north of Afrin city center] with four of my friends during the Operation Olive Branch. We were protecting that hill."

According to his statement, A.K. was injured in a Turkish airstrike on the hill, then transported to Turkey’s Kilis city by Turkish soldiers and was treated there.

Operation Olive Branch was launched on Jan. 20 to clear YPG/PKK and Daesh terrorist groups from Afrin in northwestern Syria amid growing threats from the region. According to the Turkish military, the Afrin region has been taken under “complete” control last week.

Separately, an indictment against A.S.T, another 17-year-old member of the YPG/PKK who was arrested by Turkish forces after he got injured in Afrin, said he was a student of 8th grade and joined the organization for $100 in a bid to provide financial support to his poor family.

He received political and arms training -- including assassination, sabotage and bomb trainings -- at the YPG/PKK camps in northwestern Syria.

Another terrorist E.A, who was brought to Hatay province of southern Turkey after being arrested in Afrin, confessed that he is one of the two terrorists who had planted explosives on a road in Afrin to prevent civilians from fleeing the city during the Operation Olive Branch.

- Life threats

A civilian vehicle had been hit by the explosives killing four civilians, including an infant and two other children.

The moments of the explosives plantation and the vehicle exploded by them were captured by Turkish military drones earlier this month.

Three more terrorists, who were arrested by the Turkish Armed Forces and the Free Syrian Army fighters in rural areas in Afrin and were later remanded in custody by a Turkish court, said the YPG/PKK terror group had given them death threats.

YPG/PKK threatened people to kill them and their families if denied to join the terror group, they said.

M.M., another terrorist who was arrested in Afrin and brought to Kilis, confessed that the terrorist organization had distributed 2-3 weapons to every house after seizing the villages. He also added that there were at least two or three members of the armed organization in each house in the area.

He said YPG/PKK terrorists were collecting information of the people, mainly of the young people, by establishing identity control points on road to forcibly recruit them.

After liberating the area from the terror group, Turkish military have also been continuing efforts to search and destroy hand-made explosives and mines planted by the YPG/PKK terrorists.

The Operation Olive Branch is being carried out under the framework of Turkey's rights based on international law, UN Security Council resolutions, its self-defense rights under the UN charter, and respect for Syria's territorial integrity, it said.

The military also said only terror targets are being destroyed and "utmost care" is being taken to not harm civilians.