Stories of Resistance of Age-3

We liberated Haj Bilal 4 times.. We were fighting with our light weapons, but they were fighting us with warplanes

SHERVIN MUSTAFA-TOLIN HASSEN / AL-SHAHBA

Afrin canton that is located north-west of Syria witnessed a historic resistance and was named the Resistance of the Age because this resistance was exceptional and unique in the modern age. It was the resistance of the people who had limited potentials and were sieged in a narrow geographic area in the face of the most sophisticated weapons. It was the battles of repelling with the light weapons by the fighters who had a strong will in the face of the warplanes and all the heavy weapons on the ground. 

This historic resistance witnessed heroic stories by the fighters who challenged the machine of killing and destroying and the second powerful force in NATO armies. The fighter Avend Andok in YPG recounted to ANHA agency one story of the 1st stage of the Resistance of the Age.

humans! We were fighting the warplanes not the

The Turkish occupation army and its mercenaries launched the attacks on Afrin canton in January 20, 2018 using dozens of warplanes, helicopters and drones bombarding the civilians, Afrin villages and the fighters’ sites. The occupation aimed at frightening Afrin residents and the fighters and motivating them to give up by its bombardment with all the devastating weapons. Turkey thought that it will occupy Afrin within less than a week this way because it was aware that Afrin fighters did not have sophisticated weapons that could face its warplanes and modern weapons, but it was shocked of the historic resistance in which all the people who supported their fighters participated.

The fighter Avend Andok was one of those who participated in that resistance. He has been in Aleppo city since many years and participated in the resistance of Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood against the Turkish occupation army and its mercenaries till it was liberated. After the attack was launched against Afrin, he was asked to head towards Afrin canton and he reached Afrin on January 24 i.e. after4 days of the aggression on Afrin.

Andok says that he reached Afrin within a group of snipers of Afrin fighters who participated in the Aleppo resistance and he added, "When we reached Afrin, the command sent us to the fighting fronts and I was demanded to head towards Janders area. I prepared my weapon which was my companion since the resistance of Sheikh Maqsoud and I killed many mercenaries who attacked the neighborhood. I headed towards Janders which was witnessing battles at the bordering villages. When I reached Janders city, the fighters received me, welcomed me and praised the resistance which we made in Aleppo.

They told me that I had to go with a group of fighters to Haj Bilal village near the borders to support our fighters there and we headed towards the village among the olive fields on feet. I did not know the nature of the battles which were carried out in Afrin. I was enthusiastic to reach the front, face the enemy army and its mercenaries and confront them, but my companions told me that the battle of Afrin would be different from the battles we had witnessed before because we were fighting the warplanes and the sophisticated weapons not the humans!

While we were heading towards the village among the trees, we heard the sounds of the warplanes and saw a drone like a small bird in the sky. The commander of the group asked us to scatter among the trees and hide ourselves under them because these warplanes were shelling everything. Then, we continued walking toward the village. When we reached the village’s borders we heard the sounds of the shelling came from the village and the commander communicated with our companion who were in the village and told them that we reached the village’s borders. They sent a fighter to guide us to a safe road to enter the village, and most of the villages’ homes were destroyed and shelled by the occupation army and the smoke was still rising from some homes.   

After we reached the village, the fighters in the village told us about the states of the fronts in the village and confirmed that the enemy tried many times to raid the village from the border side because this village was adjacent to the borders, but they could not raid the village and resorted to using the artilleries and mortars behind the borders. They also depended on the warplanes in their advance. Our companions asked us to be careful and to hide ourselves among the trees instead of the homes if the warplanes launched raids and we were distributed to the points located in the village.

Andok pointed out that he took a position near the borders and said, "The borders’ strip and the cement wall which was built by the Turkish occupation alongside the borders were clear. I decided to station in this point to snipe the Turkish army and its mercenaries if they tried to pass the borders toward Afrin lands. I monitored the borders by the sniper scope, but I did not see anyone moving inside Afrin borders. There was a far move inside the borders. By the evening, the shelling renewed with the mortars, the artilleries and the tanks on the village and we took fortified positions inside the village to avoid the shrapnel of the shells.

Then, we heard the sounds of the warplanes and we rushed to scatter among the trees around it according to the instructions, and the warplane started shelling the village and some positions of us which had been previously determined via the reconnaissance planes, but our companions left those positions before the shelling. I hold my weapon and got angry because I could not do anything against the warplanes’ attacks. I hoped to face the Turkish army and its mercenaries in the village to enter into a real battle in order to use my weapon in the clashes.

Andok said, "The shelling continued on the village and its vicinity till the dawn and turned most houses of the village into rubble. Then, we monitored the movements of the vehicles of the occupation army and its mercenaries beside the border. The occupation begins to remove some cement walls and open the way in front of the soldiers and mercenaries to enter Afrin territories. At that time, we returned to the village again, and we distributed ourselves among the rubbles and the homes. I entered a home whose sides were destroyed and stationed my gun in a hole in the wall that had been previously opened by our fighters, and when the enemy soldiers started entering Afrin territories using armored vehicles and tanks with a number of soldiers and mercenaries who were walking behind those vehicles, our fighters fired at them with the RBG’s shells. 

I was monitoring the enemies behind the armored vehicles and I was shooting them leaving them either killed or wounded. After that, the warplanes returned to shell the village again and the soldiers and the mercenaries were trying to encircle the village by the support of the warplanes so we were forced to withdraw from the village before the enemies would surround the village and we headed toward the surrounding hills in the village and stationed among the trees. We were monitoring the village which was burning and the smoke was rising from it. The mercenaries began to enter the village. It was painful, but we did not lose determination to return and liberate it again.

We liberated the village 4 times

The fighter Avend Andok added, "We stationed on the hills and among the olives trees near the village of Haj Bilal. The people of the villages behind us had a great role to raise our morale and support us. They put their life in danger to provide us with food and water despite the existence of the reconnaissance warplanes. We asked them to not endanger their life, but they insisted to stand beside us and they said to us, “You are sacrificing your life to protect us so how would we leave you alone.” These words charged my heart with confidence and enthusiasm and brought to my memory the resistance of Sheikh Maqsoud people who did not abandon their fighters till achieving the victory in spite of all the bad conditions they suffered from.

Andok added, "After a day of occupying the village, we decided to carry out a special operation against the Turkish occupation and its mercenaries stationed in the village. We formed a group of fighters and I was among them to be a mobile group to carry out the operation against the enemy, so we prepared ourselves and sneaked to into the village’s sides in the evening. We targeted the enemy’s positions and we clashed with them by the light weapons and the grenades. We raided the village and managed to disperse the occupation army and its mercenaries who had not been able to distinguish between us and their comrades. They shot bullets randomly in all sides till they clashed with each other and killed each other of fear. 

Because when we reached some points we saw blood, knowing that we were not engaged in clashes against them at those points. They were moving with their wounded and escaping toward the borders. After we combed the villages, we seized some weapons and ammunition of the escapees. We told our comrades that the hills became liberated and they sent another group to establish our points there again, but by the dawn, the warplanes returned to shell us, and we withdraw from the village again and after a heavy shelling the mercenaries, they occupied the village again.

Avend Andok affirmed that they followed this method in the battle, where they were entering the village in the evening and striking the enemy and the mercenaries and getting out by the dawn. He added, “I can say that by this method, we liberated the village 4 times and we killed and wounded dozens of the occupation soldiers and mercenaries in Haj Bilal village, but we could not stay there because of the heavy shelling of the warplanes."

He noted that they moved toward Senara and Anqala villages because of the heavy reconnaissance and warplanes’ raids against their positions and points among the hills and trees and martyring and wounding some of their comrades there.

Resistance of Anqala and Senara and Avend wounded

Andok added, "I was at Senara at that time and after 2 days of shelling which destroyed many homes, the Turkish army started to advance towards the 2 villages. They used in the shelling the artilleries and tanks and they did not dare to launch a ground attacks. We knew those mercenaries before. They were just looting the properties and they cannot dare to face YPG and YPJ so they were depending on the heavy weapons and the warplanes. They also cannot fight at night. We knew the date of their attacks which was between 8:00 and 17:00 after heavy shelling.

Artillery and aerial bombing intensified on Senara, we were positioned on the outskirts of the village, the occupation army and the mercenaries began to advance with their cars and armored vehicles to the village of Senara, while the air force supported them from the air and we were unable to move and respond, but we decided to confront them and started using anti-tank weapons," he said. We stationed the weapon behind a tree and directed I towards a tank of the occupation, which was moving slowly and walking behind a number of soldiers and mercenaries, and when we were sure that the tank was in the range of our weapon, we fired a shell that hit the tank from one side and burst into flames, while a number of soldiers and mercenaries were killed and wounded. Our comrades chanted saluting the resistance of the protection units. Then we moved from our place quickly so that the reconnaissance plane would not detect us and chase us, but the bombing of the air force increased the pressure on us. After the destruction of many houses and the continuation of artillery shelling, we decided to withdraw to the outskirts of Senara village and hide between the forest areas and the olive trees. As we were trying to get out of the village, one of the planes targeted us and a shell fell next to us. I felt as if my ears went deaf, and I fell to the ground and I could not see around me due to the density of dust and smoke raised by the shell explosion.

I tried to touch my body and I felt pain anywhere I put my hand on it. Then I examined my body and saw my clothes and my hands stained with blood. My body was filled with shrapnel, and suddenly I heard the voice of one of our fellow fighters calling out for help and says I got wounded, his screams felt like bullets piercing my head, it was a very painful feeling more than the pain of wounds to hear your companion calling you while you are unable to do anything.

"I called my injured companion and tried to encourage him and told him that I was also wounded and asked him not to exhaust himself and to keep his strength until our comrades came to our aid. After several hours of our stay on the ground and our wounds were bleeding and the pain increased, a group of our comrades from Anqala village reached us and helped us, and I was close to the loss of consciousness, and I heard the voice of my comrades and they say that some of our comrades were martyred by the bombing. "

Avend Andok and his injured companions were taken to Afrin hospital in Afrin city for treatment. Due to their bad health condition and bombing of the Turkish air force in Afrin, Andok and his comrades were also transferred to the Euphrates region for treatment and remained there until the end of the first phase of the resistance came to an end.

"After I recovered from my injury, I went back to participate in the second phase of the resistance of the age. I will keep the covenant I made to the martyrs and our people to continue the struggle until the liberation of Afrin from the hands of the occupiers and the mercenaries," he said.

A.H / J.O

ANHA