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Al-Qaeda in Syria targets Turkmen minority

Syrian Turkmen feel Turkey has abandoned them.
TO GO WITH AFP STORY BY ANTONIO PAMPLIEGA
Syrian Turkmen rebels run across a street controlled by regime forces to dodge sniper fire in the Hanano district of the northern city of Aleppo on January 28, 2013. Members of Syria's Turkmen minority have joined forces with rebels fighting President Bashar al-Assad's regime in a struggle they say is for democracy and revenge for years of oppression. AFP PHOTO/JM LOPEZ        (Photo credit should read JM LOPEZ/AFP/Getty Images)

As al-Qaeda-linked fighters push for control over northern Syria, they have singled out a new and vulnerable target: the country’s small Turkmen minority. Over the past two months, the group known as the Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham (ISIS) has been menacing a cluster of Turkmen villages wedged between the Turkish province of Hatay and the Mediterranean Sea. The Turkmen call the area  "Bayir," which means "cliff" in their native Turkish. On a recent night, I stood with a group of Turkmen fighters on the Turkish side of the border and watched a Syrian army tank positioned on a nearby mountain shell the villages at a slow but steady pace.

"We used to live in peace in our orchards, now we are being attacked from all sides," said Omar Abdullah from the Omar al-Mokhtar brigade. "The regime bombs us with MiGs [Russian-made fighter jets] from the air, with tanks from the land and with ships from the sea, and now we are being attacked by ISIS," he said.

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