Shelling of Aleppo neighborhood threatens to stir up Arab-Kurdish strife
The armed Syrian opposition's ongoing shelling on the Kurdish-majority Sheikh Maksoud neighborhood of Aleppo risks potential strife between Sunni Arabs and Kurds.
Since February, the Syrian armed opposition has been shelling Aleppo’s Kurdish Sheikh Maksoud neighborhood, where the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) and about 25 armed opposition factions have been fighting.
The opposition is using locally made improvised weapons — such as the Hell cannon, Hamim missiles and mortars, in addition to other heavy weapons — against civilians. Shelling the neighborhood, where nearly 40,000 people reside, is a violation of the Syrian truce reached after the UN Security Council unanimously voted in favor of a cease-fire. Nidal Hannan, a journalist residing in the neighborhood, told Al-Monitor that April 5 was one of the deadliest days, as “the shelling resulted in the death of dozens of civilians.”
Hannan denounced the Syrian political opposition’s silence on the Sheikh Maksoud incidents. A number of Kurdish and Syrian journalists and activists, including Hannan, issued a statement April 9 calling on international human rights organizations to take quick and responsible action to end the shellings, which “rise to the level of war crimes.” The statement also called for countering the actions of the armed factions, “which misrepresent the Syrian people’s aspiration for freedom, dignity and human rights, and [harm] the principle of coexistence between Kurds and Arabs.”
Human Rights Watch issued a report April 12 about the attacks against civilians.
