Syria: Erdogan jihadists steal locals’ oil and sell their olives for firewood

The paramilitary “Al-Sham Corps”, which is close to the Turkish secret services, systematically cuts down olive trees in various parts of the wider province around Afrin, reliable sources in the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

All this practice is practiced in the wider context of exhaustion of the local population with ultimate goal is the Turkification of the region.

Meanwhile, the infamous Al-Hamza division continues to forcibly seize hundreds of olive trees in the village of Maidanki in the Sharan region. SOHR sources said that the guerrillas and jihadists of this group, which belongs to the forces funded by the regime of Recep Tayyip Erdogan, have confiscated almost 1,100 olive trees belonging to citizens from the village of Maidanki. Residents have lodged a complaint against the faction with the “rights restoration committee”.

Of course, a few days later, the residents withdrew their complaint, after the … appropriate threats against the life and freedom of them and their families.

Yesterday, SOHR sources reported that gunmen from the “Al-Hamza Division” cut down more than 300 olive trees of a resident of Drakarih village in the Maabatli area.

The Suqour Al-Sham Brigade continued to cut down olive trees in the village of “Ali Jarrow” in the Bulbul area, in front of the people and in the light of day, however, no one was able to stop them. In recent days, the group cut down almost 250 trees, some of them completely cut down and others partially, then the group sold them as firewood.

Turkey now controls more than 8,000 square kilometers in Syria, or almost 4.9% of the war-torn country.

Ankara has also set up its own militias consisting of about 80,000 to 100,000 fighters. Most have adopted Turkish and Ottoman names, mainly “Sultan Murad“Mohammed the Conqueror”, “Samarkand Brigade” and “Suleiman Shah”, who formed a group of young fighters in April 2019 named “Erturul’s Grandchildren”.

During a decade of war in Syria, the conflict between rival forces focused on demographic change as a goal rather than an outcome. Fighting has given warring parties rare opportunities to replace locals belonging to the sects or ethnicities of their opponents.

One engineering weapon used by Turkey in the region is to cut off the livelihoods of the indigenous Kurdish population in an effort to repel them. Olive cultivation is the main source of income for the Kurds, the majority of whom are farmers, in contrast to the Arab and Turkmen settlers who are mostly small traders and craftsmen. Turkish-backed groups regularly uproot and sell olives as firewood in Turkey.

No one believed that when Turkey launched its “Olive Branch” military operation in northern Syria, it would turn this branch towards the Syrians, but no one imagined cutting it down and selling it. Why The Turkish government is trying to import into Spain through various cooperative companies and businesses many thousands of tons of oil produced from olives looted by Islamist militants in Afrin and other neighboring areas.

Petros Kranias

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