The State Department remains concerned by credible reports of human rights abuses committed by Turkish-backed fighters in parts of northeast Syria seized during military operations against US-allied Kurdish fighters, according to a new inspector general's report.
The State Department has received reports of “arbitrary detentions, extrajudicial killings, seizure of and resettlement of new populations in private properties, the repeated and deliberate shutting off of water access to half a million civilians, and transfer of arbitrarily-detained Syrians across an international border into Turkey,” according to the Lead Inspector General report on Operation Inherent Resolve, the operational name for the US fight against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria. The report released Tuesday covers the period of April 1 to June 30.