Stories of Resistance of the Age-15

In Mosaka resistance... Olive trees participated in protection, fighters ventured to save their comrades

SHERVIN MUSTAFA TOLIN HASSEN/ AFRIN

Resistance of the Age in its first stage witnessed violent attacks and massacres committed against the people of Afrin, YPG and YPJ fighters and the rest of the military forces of Asayiş and Self-Defense Duty and others have made themselves shields to protect their land and their people, and despite the use of Turkish occupation sophisticated and fatal weapons, the determination of the fighters to withstand in the face of the machine of destruction, and by that extraordinary will to challenge the occupation and its mercenaries, who were threatening to enter Afrin within several days, but the resistance lasted 58 days in its first stage surprised the world who stood to watch the war aimed to exterminate the people hold the right to legitimate defense and refused to surrender.

In this historical resistance, women have proved that they are able to play the leading role in defense and combat as Avista Khabour, Barin Kobanî and many others who have been steadfast in resisting heroic campaigns in defending the land and the people. One outstanding story of Resistance of the Age stories is that told by the fighter in YPJ "Farashin Delsuz", who participated in the battles of Mosaka village in Rajo area.

Olive trees protected us on the way to Mosaka village

Farashin Delsuz, a resident of Afrin city, has joined the ranks of YPJ since its inception, during the beginning of the Turkish aggression and its mercenaries on the Afrin canton on 20 January 2018, Farashin was in a regiment of YPJ on the outskirts of Afrin city, and supervised the training of fighters. After the declaration of war and deploying all fighters on the fronts, she was supervising the points of the YPJ in the rear lines and providing them with what they need and coordinate between front and back fronts by forming groups and sending them to the fronts and points that need support, or replacing groups together to relax and fight.

On February 24, 2018, the instructions came to form two groups of YPJ, and to head under leadership of Farashin to Mosaka village in Rajo area. Indeed, she headed with a group of four fighters to Mosaka, and from the road trip to the village, she said: We were watching the people of the villages that were under Turkish shelling on the main road were moving towards the city. It was a very painful sight to see women, children, the elderly and the sadness covering their faces and the tears pouring down from their eyes, especially the mothers. They left behind everything they had done for life trying to survive their lives and protect their children, and the more we were passing next to the people we hear their voices wishing us victory."

Farashin added, "When we reached the border of the Rajo area, the car stopped and  we completed the road on foot between the olive fields because the reconnaissance planes are intensifying their movements over the area and shelling everything they see moving, especially the cars. We got out of the car and packed our belongings and weapons. And we dispersed among the trees and we walked on a single rank from one tree to another. After about half an hour we heard the sounds of the reconnaissance and the helicopters. We could not see them, but it seems that the sound is not far away. We sat under each tree and stuck to its trunk. I asked our fighters not to move from their place and to stick to the trunk of the tree, and after a while we heard a reconnaissance aircraft hovering over us, we froze in our place and we were holding our breaths, the plane was still hovering over the area about 20 minutes as if looking for prey, and after that a helicopter came and toured two rounds over the olive field and then opened fire randomly by the machine guns and branches and olive leaves began flying due to the bullets, and caused heavy dust when it hit the ground.

I felt the sound of the olive trees screaming of pain, and after several bursts the helicopter left and moved away, without hitting us any bullet, and I realized at that moment that the reconnaissance plane and helicopters could not see us, and opened fire machine guns was only revenge from olive trees because it obscures theirvision, I embraced the tree that I was sheltering and kissed it, and I asked my comrades to continue to move.

Arriving at Mosaka village and thwarting an attack there

Farashin said ,"We were walking up the olive field, which was planted on the edge of one of Rajo mountains. Our bags filled with ammunition which pushed us back and made it more difficult to walk to the top, when we reached the top of the mountain, we saw Mosaka village, the number of houses in the village there was 150 houses, and the view with the start of the sunset and located in a site surrounded by the back of the mountain and a small plain, and one of them a field of olive related to the houses of the village, but the emergence of smoke from some of its homes and surroundings by the bombing of the Turkish occupation and mercenaries was disconcerting, I asked my comrades we were unable to reach the village without being seen by the enemy from that side. There, I opened the wireless device and searched for the signal of our comrades and told them that we were close to them. They asked us to stay in our place among the trees until they sent a fighter to enter the village from a safe road, and after a few minutes we saw one of the fighters running back down the trees and looked down looking under the trees, he waved his hand and sat under a tree and signed to follow him.

Then, we moved quickly to follow the road that he walked until we reached the first house in the village and met behind it, the fighter welcomed us, and then headed to another house where a group of fighters were; fighters of the resistance Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood in Aleppo, they welcomed us with smiles, they gave us food and water and explained to us the situation of the fronts in this village. After a short break, one of the fighters asked us to accompany him to show us the positions we would be stationed in. It was night and we took our positions on one side of the village near the olive fields. The artillery shelling began with mortar shells rained down on the village and its outskirts. We were watching the outskirts of the village. Perhaps we were looking at the occupation army and the mercenaries until we started fighting, but no one saw us. We saw only the shells after their fall, the fires and the destruction that followed. We stayed in the village for 6 days. Because we do not see any of the mercenaries, our fighters told us that the occupation army and its mercenaries tried once to storm the village and regretted, so after the escape they no longer dare to approach the village and resort to bombardment it with heavy and long-term weapons.

On the morning of the seventh day and after several shells fell on the village, we heard the sound of the planes. Our comrades told us to move away from the houses and hide in the trees because the planes may bomb the houses. We quickly hid under some trees near the village. So the air raids started on the village and began to bomb the houses. There was heavy smoke from the village and the flames rose from some houses. At that time, we could do nothing but protect ourselves. We had only light and medium weapons. The bombing lasted for more than an hour and caused great damage to houses and trees, we felt that the sky was raining missiles, and we could only lie on the ground and hide under the trees. Afterwards, the heavy bombardment wrapped the village, but we did not move from our place. We watched the air carefully. After a while of waiting our comrades informed us that the occupation army and its mercenaries are heading towards the village from several sides, and asked us to go back and hide between houses.

So we rushed with the rest of the fighters to take our positions on the outskirts of the village between the houses that were turned to the ruins of the bombing of the aircraft and artillery, we formed with the rest of our comrades fighters small groups guarding the village from 3 sides, and while we were watching the outskirts of the village we saw some movements of the enemy from the hill overlooking the village, the enemy came slowly and cautiously and fired from time to time at the village. They waited for the response to see if there was anyone in the village or not. We did not respond to them. They thought that after the intensive shelling, no one remained in the village. Then we hid well and equipped the weapons to start the confrontation, and when they became on the outskirts of the village on the hill side and the olive fields and we were sure that they were in the range of our fire and are moving safely, we opened fire of machine guns at them together, all of a sudden, the sound of bullets broke the silence, we killed dozens of them and dispersed the rest while some were fleeing to the valleys and trees and other lost their way and fled towards the hill and these were falling in the range of the goals of our comrades from the other side easily, we made them run back and leave their bodies and wounded behind them. The screams of the wounded came to us clearly as they called out to their comrades who were fleeing.

Falling into siege and salvation

After YPG and YPJ thwarted the attack, dozens of the occupation army and its mercenaries were killed and wounded, the silence once again fell on the village, and by nightfall, the occupation army and the mercenaries launched a large-scale attack on the village supported by helicopter gunships. They began shelling the village again with missiles. The helicopter fired its machine guns at the village. As a result of intensive shelling on the outskirts of the village, we changed our places and moved to other houses inside the village. After an hour of shelling and clashes, mercenaries entered the village from the hill and olive fields. And continued to put pressure on us trying to force us to go out of the village towards the plain on the other side, and clashes continued with light weapons and grenades in this manner several hours, and despite the large number of enemy they could not progress more in the village, during those clashes, one of our comrades was martyred and was administrator In Self-Defense Duty and played a heroic role in addressing and protecting the rest of his comrades.

As time went on, the pressure was getting stronger, and by dawn the area was thick with a thick fog. We could no longer see for more than a few meters, and in the meantime I decided to take advantage of this atmosphere and informed my commanders fighters that we could take an adventure, we decided to infiltrate behind the enemy lines by the fields of trees and try to open a road from that side. Indeed, when the mercenaries moved and opened fire, we started to open fire at them and killed all the people who were there. We moved towards them and took what was in their possession of ammunition, grenades, we told our comrades that the road was safe and gave them the coordinates to move towards us. Within minutes, all our comrades in the village had reached the point.

So we were divided  into small groups and entered the olive fields and headed towards Rajo, which was still in the hands of our fighters, and in this form we were able to get rid of the siege, olive trees had the largest role in our salvation this time as well.

The fog has cleared and the flight followed us

We were tired, and after about an hour walking through the trees, the sun rose and the heat started to dissipate the fog and reveal the vision. As we continued to walk, we heard the sounds of the reconnaissance, and we managed to deploy between the trees and hide under them. It seems that the enemy realized that we were able to break the siege and got out of the village and began to search for us, and we saw several planes combing the area and began to hover over us, and after several rounds suddenly began to bombard us, it seems to have seen one of us, and we distributed between the trees until the flight broke but we were bombed and we stayed on this case without moving for more than an hour and after more than an hour it seems that the aircraft thought they killed everyone and moved away and I no longer hear their voices, and after we made sure that they no longer exist in the atmosphere I called my comrades and rushed to our comrades, and we found 2 of our combatants of YPJ have martyred  and also 3 of YPG and others were injured and some were still under the impact of the shock but they put themselves together and began to heal the wounds of the injured and transfer the bodies of martyrs under the trees.

Reaching Rajo and rescuing the injured and those who remained alive

The distance between us and Rajo city is not far away. I told the rest of my comrades that I would go to Rajo to tell our comrades to send support to transport the wounded and the martyrs. After about half an hour of running, we had points for our comrades on nearby hills from Rajo, and after they made sure that we were fighters and knew that we were comrades, they sent one of the fighters in front of us and he ran towards us and asked us to stop in our place, we sat down and waited for him to reach us, and told them what happened with us, our comrades were equipped with a group of fighters and already that group managed in less than an hour and a half to reach the place and bring the wounded and the bodies of the martyrs and the remaining of our comrades.

Then Farashin participated with the rest of her comrades in several battles within the Resistance of the Age until reaching Afrin city and announcing the end of the first stage of the resistance, and starting the second stage, so she took two places in the second stage also, which continues, she concluded "We will not forget the favor of the olive trees on us. We will not forget the blood of our martyrs and their sacrifices, nor the torments of our people in Afrin. We promised them once again and renew the pledge to them once again that we are continuing to resist and struggle until the liberation of Afrin and every olive tree."

A.H

ANHA