Decade on the massacre of Tal Hasil-Tal Arran; murderers without accountability

“God is great,” the takbeers are heard from the mosque of the village of Tal Hasil, followed by another call from the mosque itself, “The infidel Kurds are your women and children, and your money is lawful for us.” This is how the massacre began in the village and in the adjacent town of Tal Arran, with the participation of mercenary groups affiliated with the Kurdistan Democratic Party.

25 July, 2023 22:02

QAMISHLO

The Kurds in the 4 parts of Kurdistan were subjected to many massacres and extermination schemes after the signing of the Treaty of Lausanne between the victorious powers in World War I and the Turkish Republic on July 24, 1923.

One of those massacres is the massacre committed by the forces seeking to complete the Treaty of Lausanne against the Kurds in the village of Tal Hasil and the town of Tell Arran, which belong to the As-Safira region, southeast of Aleppo, and are bordered to the west by the Nayrab military airport and to the east by the Kuweires military airport.

What happened before the massacre?

Turkish intelligence meets with leaders of mercenary groups on June 24, 2013 in the city of Diluk (Gaziantep). At that meeting, the decision of the massacre was taken, according to what the citizen Juma Kalo from the village of Tal Hasil recalled, currently residing in Fafin district in al-Shahba canton, and he is one of the survivors of the massacre committed by the mercenary groups.

The mercenary groups that committed the massacre

The massacre was committed by about 30 mercenary groups, led by Jabhat al-Nusra, with the support of ISIS mercenaries and factions affiliated with the so-called Aleppo Military Council.

The Kurdistan Democratic Party and its role in the massacre

Juma Kalo says that he saw with his own eyes, mercenary groups flying the flag of the Kurdistan Democratic Party participated in the massacre.

When asked about those groups, he added, "The Yusef al-Azma Brigade, the Salah al-Din Battalion, the descendants of Salah al-Din, Komala, the Kurdish Islamic Front, the Azadi Battalion, and what is known as the Kurdish Brigade in Ahrar al-Sham."

Massacre

The date is July 27, 2013, which coincided with the 19th of Ramadan that year. The timing is afternoon prayer. While the people of the Kurdish village of Tal Hasil in southeast Aleppo were performing prayers and waiting for Eid al-Fitr, the massacre began.

The mercenary groups besieged the worshipers while performing the prayer in the mosque of the village of Tal Hasil and kidnapped the worshipers. They climbed the mosque's pulpit and shouted the takbeers and shouts of "The infidel Kurds, your women and children, and your money is lawful for us," confirms Juma Kalo.

They besieged the headquarters of the Kurds Front, which was empty at the time, and opened fire on it. They closed the road linking Tal Hasil and the town of Arran, killing a number of civilians and kidnapping civilians who were shopping in Tal Hasil and intending to return to their village, Tal Hasil.

Meanwhile, the people begin to defend themselves, clash with mercenary groups, and kill them. When the mercenary groups realized that there was great resistance, they made calls through loudspeakers in the Tal Hasil mosque and asked for an armistice, "because Ramadan is the month of fasting."

In this context, Kalo says, "The mercenary groups did not intend to stop the attack, but rather tried to buy time to bring in military reinforcements, as about 10,000 mercenaries arrived."

With the arrival of reinforcements, the mercenary groups resume their attack with all brutality, and the attack intensifies and continues.

On the second day, a large part of the people were forced to leave Tal Hasil and Tal Arran, after the mercenary groups killed more than 30 citizens, including children and women, and kidnapped thousands and gradually released them within 9 months, but the fate of 5 of the kidnapped is still unknown until the moment of writing these lines, but Juma Kalo is likely to have been killed by the mercenary groups.

Juma Kalo, who left Tal Hasil on July 28, 2013, says that the massacre was committed over two consecutive days, but other residents of Tal Arran and Tal Hasil were unable to leave them until August 1, 2013. They confirmed that the massacre continued until August 1, and mercenary groups killed about 50 citizens on July 30 of the same year and about 20 on August 1, who were traveling in a bus that targeted it with Dushka weapons.

In the absence of official statistics on the number of victims of the massacre, it is expected that the number of victims may have exceeded 100, according to the numbers mentioned by the survivors of the massacre. However, what is certain is that no international human rights body has included this massacre on its agenda and has not taken any step to hold the perpetrators of the massacre accountable and the parties behind them.

What did the Damascus government forces do during the massacre?

The Damascus government forces were controlling sites near Tel Hasil and Tel Arran, and these forces gave the people of Tal Arran and Tal Hasil a choice between surrendering to them or facing their fate on their own.

The people refused to surrender to the forces of the Damascus government, leaving them to face the massacre.

During the first hours of the massacre, the Syrian cellular network stopped working in Tal Hasil and Tal Arran, and there was no possibility of communication between the residents. This outage in cell lines was no coincidence, says Juma Kalo.

After the massacre

After the massacre, a committee was formed to investigate the massacre, consisting of 9 members representing the Kurdish parties, including the Kurdistan Democratic Party.

This committee met with a committee consisting of 3 members from the people of Tal Hasil and Tal Arran. The committee presented documents and evidence of the massacre to representatives of the Kurdish parties that condemned the massacre, with the exception of the Democratic Party, which refused to acknowledge the massacre and considered it a clash between armed groups in an attempt to justify the massacre and hide the role of its mercenary groups in the massacre.

The Damascus government controls Tal Hasil and Tal Arran after their destruction

About 4 months after the massacre, the Damascus government forces attacked Tal Hasil and Tel Arran with barrel bombs, causing a large number of civilians to lose their lives and massive destruction.

Juma Kalo confirms that there was no direct clash between the Damascus government forces and the mercenary groups, describing what happened as a hand-over process between the Damascus government and the mercenary groups.

"The regime forces looted the people's property," Kalo added.

The current situation in Tal Hasil and Tal Arran

Currently, the town of Tal Arran and the village of Tal Hasil are under the control of the Damascus government forces, and there are only a few women and elderly people from the original villagers, according to Juma Kalo.

T/ Satt.

ANHA