Qamişlo: Report of fighting between rebels and Syrian regime

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Fighting between the rebels and soldiers from the Syrian regime began early this morning after clashes on a rebel-controlled farm in the southern part of Qamişlo.

During the two-year long war in Syria, the Kurdish People’s Defence Units (YPG) has managed to keep Qamişlo free from the fighting between rebels and the regime that has left the country with more than 74,000 dead Syrians and 1,2 million Syrians seeking refuge outside the borders.

There have during this time been a few clashes between Kurdish fighters, rebels and Syrian troops but it did not result in an escalation as the rebels did not enter the city. Since July 2012 the precense of regime soldiers in Qamişlo increased while other Kurdish cities in West Kurdistan (Northern part of Syria) came under the control of Kurdish fighters.

A facebook page affiliated with the rebels announced this morning before the media that the rebels had come “to liberate” Qamişlo from Assad’s soldiers and that the people of Qamişlo should support them.

 

 

 

A video was later published showing a convoy of the rebels who reportedly consist of the Free Syrian Army and Islamist Nusra Front.

Despite claims that today was the first time rebels have entered Qamişlo, sources in the city have told Alliance for Kurdish Rights that rebels have been present in the Arab neighbourhoods for some time, although not officially. This is supported by an FSA soldier’s remark to a journalist (known to Alliance for Kurdish Rights) that there have been so-called “sleepy cells” in cities in the Hasakeh province, including Qamişlo.

The video below shows smoke rising from a neighbourhood in Qamişlo after it was shelled; it does not state whether it was rebels or Syrian regime soldiers who attacked the area.

This video is supposedly showing missiles targeting the airport in Qamişlo where the focus of the fighting has been.

Footage of civilian homes demolished by the shelling in western neighborhoods within Qamişlo: