Amid the bevy of armed groups fighting in Syria, none has received the sort of fawning heaped on the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) and its political arm, the Democratic Union Party (PYD). Their prowess against the Islamic State, embrace of secularism and non-Muslims and emphasis on gender equality have made them the darlings of the international media and top allies of the United States. So it may come as a shock that the London-based human rights watchdog Amnesty International is accusing the autonomous administration that runs the areas of northern Syria under Kurdish control known as Rojava of committing war crimes.

In a 38-page report, "'We Had Nowhere Else to Go': Forced Displacement and Demolition in Northern Syria,” Amnesty International catalogues allegations of forced evictions of Arabs and Turkmens and the destruction of their homes and property. “In some cases, entire villages have been demolished, apparently in retaliation for the perceived support of their Arab or Turkmen residents for the group that calls itself the Islamic State,” Amnesty International noted. Villagers said they were ordered to leave at gunpoint, their livestock shot at. The watchdog used satellite imagery and video footage to verify the claims.

In the Arab village of Husseiniya near Tell Hamees, for instance, only a single house was left standing. Residents said the YPG had razed their homes in February. In Raneen, near Tell Abyad, locals said YPG forces had threatened to shoot them if they failed to leave. One person said, “They told us we had to leave or they would tell the US coalition that we were terrorists and their planes would hit us and our families. In Raneen, where some people were with IS, there were lots of problems but we had nothing to do with anything.” Alleged YPG threats of calling in US airstrikes against villagers if they didn’t leave are repeated throughout the report.

Kurdish officials consistently reject all such claims, saying that villagers had been evicted for their own safety because they were in militarized zones and could get caught in the fighting or hurt by improvised explosive devices planted by IS.