QAMISHLO, Western Kurdistan -- A spokesperson for the People’s Defence Units, known by Kurdish initials (YPG) in Syria's Kurdistan Region, says they have so far stopped several "military interventions" tried by neighbouring Turkey on the borders and have arrested many people who have tried to smuggle weapons into the Kurdish areas.
Founded just after anti-Assad protests took to the streets of Damascus, YPG is now the only popular armed force active in Western Kurdistan, claiming to protect the recently liberated Kurdish cities and towns.
After a short wait in the town of Dirk, a pickup truck belonging to the YPG came to take me to a scheduled interview the armed group had promised earlier in the week.
There were ten members of the group in the back of the pickup. Their faces were covered and they refused to reveal their names and identity. The car then arrived at the outskirts of the town, just several kilometres from the Judi Mountain situated between the borders of Turkey, Iraq and Syria.
The leader of the group said he was 21 years old and a native of Dirk. He could be identified as the leader of the armed group because he was giving orders to the rest and was the only one wearing a red patch that displayed the logo of the YPG.
He said they established the group when the Syrian revolution broke out. And, when the revolution turned a full-scale fight between Assad’s forces and the Free Syria Army (FSA), the YPG also began arming itself "to defend the Kurdish areas from the conflict and military interventions by neighbouring countries."
“When the Syrian revolution began to take shape, we wanted to protect our people in Kurdistan,” the leader said. “Then on, neighbourhood by neighbourhood we organized ourselves and began to set up our Units all over the Kurdish areas.” He said that members of his group are youths from Dirk and as locals they have their daily family duties and live with their parents, “but also, we give the rest of our time to the protection of our communities from instability and violence that can be seen in the non-Kurdish parts of Syria.”
The young leader said that the main priority of his group is to protect the border areas of Kurdistan, and claimed that they have stopped military interventions tried by Turkish army personnel on the border, and have stopped many others who have tried to enter the Kurdish region to either spy for Syrian forces or smuggle weapons to the opposition.
"Border areas is our main priority because the Turkish army sometimes makes a move toward our areas, and we have arrested their military personnel who have crossed the border,” he said. “But we have also arrested people who have tried to bring weapons into our areas for the opposition as well as government's spies."
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