Stories of resistance of Age-9

A group of fighters dealt the mercenaries a painful blow after 3 attempts

GHANDI ALO- TOLIN HASSEN/AFRIN

In this story, the fighter in YPG ranks Tolhildan Agîd tells us what happened with them in their attempt to carry out special operations against the Turkish occupation army and its mercenaries in Khalil village in Mobata district of Afrin canton, and how the occupation army and mercenaries were inflicted heavy losses in addition to the elimination of hundreds of mercenaries and elements of the Turkish occupation army.

Trying to carry out a special operation and being survived of an ambush prepared by the mercenaries

The fighter Tolhildan Agîd, the son of Afrin canton tells us details about the events of the resistance in the first stage in which he participated with the rest of his comrades in the villages of Mobata and Rajo districts and how many fighters repelled the large numbers of the Turkish occupation army and its mercenaries who were supported by warplanes and heavy weapons. That inflicted the occupation army and mercenaries heavy losses.

Tolhildan says, "When Turkish army and mercenaries occupied Khalil village in Mobata and al-Ezaa hill related to the village, we decided to carry out a special operation in the center of the village against the enemy. We formed a small group of five fighters. I was among them. We packed our belongings and the necessary ammunition and weapons and headed towards the village at night.

We were walking behind each other among the trees and behind the rocks. Before we reached the village, the commander of the group asked us to sit in our places and not to make any movement or sound. We sat behind some rocks and under the trees. Our commander monitored the village and listened to the mercenaries’ movements. After less than a minute of silence and breathlessness, we heard the sound of a weapon, and the commander turned towards us and said, "Retreat slowly and behind the rocks," and after we retreated about 100 meters back, the mercenaries opened fire indiscriminately at us.

We knew that the mercenaries had ambushed us in the vicinity of the village and when they felt that we were retreating, they opened fire on us. That night, we returned to our positions. We were unable to carry out the operation, but the group returned safely.

While two fighters were observing the situation, a surprise happened..

The next day, we decided to go back to carry out the operation. We added four fighters to our group and we became 9. We also headed to the mountain roads and headed towards the village. When we reached the outskirts of the village, the group's commander asked us to divide ourselves into two groups and attack the village from behind, and 3 from the front side to confuse the mercenaries quickly, and before heading to the village, the commander ordered the fighters to progress and monitor the situation for fear that the mercenaries may had prepared ambushes on the outskirts of the village.

And then, two fighters headed towards the village and reached the first houses on the edge of the village, and the commander was watching at them with a night scope. While we were waiting, we suddenly heard the sound of explosions and gunfire inside the village. The commander said that the mercenaries had revealed our comrades. We were worried about the life of our comrades. I said to the commander, "Let us attack the village so that we can save and support the fighters," and he responded, "we cannot move after they sensed our presence and mobilized in the village, we will wait a little and then decide what to do."

After a moment, he said, "I see two people coming out of the village and heading toward us who seem to be our comrades.” We were happy to see this and we began to look around the village to see them."

The sounds of bullets were still heard in the village and its surroundings. A few minutes later, we heard the sounds of a rush coming towards us. One of them said, "Heval, are you here?" The commander replied, "Come here, we are here," we received them and they were running from these rugged mountainous lands. We wanted to ask them about what happened with them, but the group's commander boycotted us and said, “Let's go back quickly before the mercenaries launch attacks on the village.” So we backed down again and did not carry out the operation again.

After we arrived at a safe area, the fighters told us what happened with them and they said, "When we arrived at the village and while we were observing the movements of the occupation army and the mercenaries and their points inside the village, we were surprised to see mercenaries out of some shrubs inside the village. For a moment we looked at the eyes of each other and the signs of surprise and horror visible on the faces of the mercenaries. We tried to direct our weapons towards them but they jumped among the bushes and threw one grenade on us and we sat on the ground directly and the bomb exploded but we were safe. Then, we threw a grenade at them as they tried to get up to see what happened to us. The bomb killed them, so the mercenaries and the occupation army fled and we hurried out of the village before anyone would see us."

The third attempt and killing dozens of mercenaries

On the third day, we decided to go back to the village and strike the Turkish occupation army and its mercenaries. The fighters told us that Khalil village has about 300 soldiers and their mercenaries with tanks and armored vehicles, so we took our measures and set up a plan to enter the village and we headed towards the village again after midnight and the weather was cold. When we arrived at the front of the village, the fog had covered the village and we decided to take advantage of the weather to carry out the mission. We divided ourselves into groups, 6 fighters entered the village on one side and 3 on the other side and attack the mercenaries until meeting at a point we have identified. After meeting, we would withdraw from the village quickly.

So the two groups headed to the village and entered the village under the cover of darkness and fog, and the distance of the vision in front of us did not exceed 20 meters only so we decided to move on a horizontal line and not to move away from each other more than 15 m to not be lost. As we approached one of the mercenaries’ points, we saw some of them sleeping and others wrapped themselves in blankets they had stolen from the houses and sat behind the walls and houses.

The mercenaries were not moving because of the  cold and the intensity of the fog, each of us determined a group of mercenaries to attack it, and we turned ourselves around that point and began to shoot at those mercenaries and the sound of the bullets that we launched broke the silence that was dominating the village, and then, we heard the voices of the occupation army and mercenaries who have been calling some of them and shooting randomly, on the other side of the village, we heard the bullets as well. Our comrades attacked the mercenaries there too. As our group knew everything about the geography of the village and all its entrances, we took advantage of this point to move together in an organized way to not let the mercenaries to penetrate our ranks.

We were moving from one house to another killing all the mercenaries and the occupation army. We heard the sounds of armored vehicles and tanks of the Turkish army moving from their places to wander around the village searching for us. In less than half an hour, our comrades in the other group informed us that they were close to the point we had set which was one of the houses and we were also close to them and informed them that we would get there in a moment and we approached the house. There was a group of mercenaries who were moving right and left firing randomly. We threw several grenades in front of the house so that the mercenaries rushed to enter the house and we threw the bombs at the windows and some of the openings that the mercenaries opened in the walls into the house. We heard the cries of the mercenaries. Two of our comrades entered the house afterwards and shot everyone who was in the home.

We met the other group of our comrades and they told us that they were all fine. From there, we started to withdraw from the village towards an olive grove on the outskirts of the village after we had killed dozens of the occupation army and its mercenaries and we managed to get out of the village and we entered among the olive trees and walked quickly to move away from the village as much as possible.

The Turkish occupation army began shelling the village’s outskirts with tanks, rockets and missiles. It seems that they realized that we had left the village. We took the steps to get away from their shell, but one of the tank shells landed on a large rock and turned it into shrapnel and 3 of our comrades got wounded. They were bleeding heavily and some of our comrades tried to heal their wounds to stop the bleeding, but the wounds were deep and difficult. Those moments were very harsh and we felt pain whenever we heard their screams.

And after we reached a point far from the village, we no longer heard the voices of our wounded comrades. We put them next to the rocks and when they were examined, we found them martyred. It was a very difficult moment and then we pledged to revenge and to continue the resistance and escalate it more.

Resistance of Dumelia village and inflicting the occupation and mercenaries losses in number and weapons

The fighter Tolhildan added, "After the operation that we carried out in Khalil village and a painful blow we dealt the occupation army and mercenaries, we went to the village of Dumelia in Rajo area to support our comrades who were there. While we were there, the mercenaries tried to attack the village on land. They were supported by artillery, and we were on the outskirts of the village. We carried out a strong battle against the attacks of the mercenaries and the occupation army, and we were about only 20 fighters in the village while the number of the occupation army and its mercenary attackers were hundreds."

We repelled the attack and inflicted the mercenaries heavy losses in number and weapons as we destroyed the tank of the Turkish occupation by a guided missile, forcing the enemy to retreat and escape the battlefield, but the Turkish occupation aircraft began intensifying the raids on the village brutally and it targeted the village with missiles that destroyed everything and after some of our comrades were martyred and others were injured by the bombing, the command told us to withdraw from the village, and we carried the martyrs and the wounded and withdrew from the village.

The fighter Tolhildan concluded by saying, "We participated in many battles until we reached the villages of Sherawa district and there the first stage of Resistance of the Age ended and the next stage started, and therefore we joined the second stage which continues to hit the occupation army and its mercenaries almost daily in different areas of Afrin canton. We will keep the covenant that we pledged to our martyrs and our people to continue the resistance until liberating Afrin canton and expelling the occupiers and mercenaries from it."

A.H

ANHA