Nalîn Dêrik Sozdar Dêrik Serhildan Garisî Foreign intervention in behalf of Syrian rebels U.S.-led intervention against ISIL 2013 2014 2015 2016 2017 2018 2019 2020 2021 2022 2023 2024 The People's Defense Units (YPG),[a] also called People's Protection Units, is a libertarian socialist[4] US-backed[5][6] Kurdish militant group in Syria and the primary component of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

[7][8] The YPG mostly consists of Kurds, but also includes Arabs and foreign volunteers; it is closely allied to the Syriac Military Council, an Assyrian militia.

[21][22] YPG was included in the declaration in the trilateral memorandum signed by Turkey, Finland and Sweden during the NATO summit in Madrid on 28 June 2022, but did not define it as a terrorist organization.

[24] The Turkish terror classification is not shared by key international bodies in the fight against the Islamic State in which the YPG takes part.

[1][33] By December 2012, it had expanded to eight brigades, which were formed in Qamishlo, Kobanî, and Ras al-Ayn (Serê Kaniyê), and in the districts of Afrin, al-Malikiyah, and al-Bab.

Aiming mostly to defend Kurdish-majority areas, it avoided engaging Syrian government forces, which still controlled several enclaves in Kurdish territory.

The subsequent Battle of Ras al-Ayn started in earnest when on 19 November 2012, the al-Nusra Front and a second al-Qaeda affiliate, Ghuraba al-Sham, attacked Kurdish positions in the town.

The clashes lasted about three days, with the Til Koçer border gate to Iraq being taken in a major offensive launched on the night of 24 October.

[45] PYD leader Salih Muslim told Stêrk TV that this success created an alternative against efforts to hold the territory under embargo,[45] referring to the fact that the other border crossings with Iraq led to areas controlled by the Kurdistan Regional Government, while al-Yaarubiyah led to areas controlled by the Iraqi central government.

[47] However, the general outcome of this campaign was a massive advance by IS, which effectively separated the eastern part of Rojava from the main force of FSA rebels.

When the YPG and the FSA entered the border town of Tell Abyad in June 2015, parts of the population fled the intense fighting and the airstrikes.

On 7 April 2016, the Kurdish neighborhood of Sheikh Maqsood in Aleppo was shelled with mortars that may have contained chemical agents (160 killed or wounded).

[57][58] Spokesperson for the YPG said that Saudi Arabia-backed Jaysh al-Islam (Army of Islam) rebel group has attacked the Kurdish neighborhood of Aleppo with "forbidden weapons" many times since the war's start.

[61] In 2017, the YPG began to form units called regiments in translation, though they are smaller than comparable units in standard militaries: According to a report in IHS Jane's regarding the YPG, Relying on speed, stealth, and surprise, it is the archetypal guerrilla army, able to deploy quickly to front lines and concentrate its forces before quickly redirecting the axis of its attack to outflank and ambush its enemy.

Although operating under an overarching tactical rubric, YPG brigades are inculcated with a high degree of freedom and can adapt to the changing battlefield.

[64] A 20-year-old female YPJ fighter named Zlukh Hamo (Nom de guerre: Avesta Khabur) was reported to have carried out a suicide attack towards Turkish troops and a tank during the early phase of the Afrin Offensive, killing herself and several soldiers in the process.

[68] To compensate for the resulting capability gap, the YPG became heavily involved in the production of DIY armoured vehicles, typically based on bulldozers or large trucks.

[73] Aside from a large fleet of Humvees, IAG Guardians, and M1224 Maxxpros, the US has reportedly transferred a number of M2 Bradley infantry fighting vehicles (IFVs) to the YPG.

[74] These reports appear to be based on the sighting of M2s with SDF flags and a video of YPG members training alongside M2s, and there is currently no evidence that such a transfer has occurred.

Injured by an IS suicide bomb, he developed the "Lions of Rojava" recruitment campaign for foreign volunteers,[76] launched on 21 October 2014 on Facebook.

The party released a video in late January 2015 showing several Spanish- and German-speaking volunteers from Europe among its ranks in Jazira Canton; they were reorganised into the International Freedom Battalion on 10 June 2015.

[93] As a YPJ fighter, the British woman Anna Campbell, 26, from Lewes in East Sussex, was killed in a Turkish airstrike in Afrin on 15 March 2018.

[102] Because the YPG operates in a landlocked territory, rival opposition groups as well as the Turkish and Syrian government were able to physically prevent foreign aid from reaching it.

[107] On 11 October 2015, the US began an operation to airdrop 120 tons of military supplies to the YPG and its local Arab and Turkmen allies to fight IS north of Raqqa.

[121] In February 2018, USA's Director of National Intelligence in the Trump administration described YPG as the Syrian wing of PKK in its new report.

[123] In June 2015 the Turkish government stated that the YPG was carrying out an ethnic cleansing as part of a plan to join the Jazira and Kobanî cantons into a single territory.

[132][dead link‍] It furthermore states that "the circumstances of some of these displacements suggested that they were carried out in retaliation for people's perceived sympathies with, or family ties to, suspected members of IS or other armed groups",[132] thus constituting "collective punishment, which is a violation of international humanitarian law".

[136] In response, the YPG and YPJ signed the Geneva Call Deed of Commitment protecting children in armed conflict, prohibiting sexual violence and against gender discrimination in July 2014.

[140] According to the annual UN report of 2018,[141][142] there were 224 cases of child recruitment by the YPG and its women's unit, the YPJ, in 2017, an almost fivefold increase from the previous year.

The NGO Fight For Humanity conducted multiple training sessions with hundreds of SDF commanders about the UN-SDF Action Plan To Prevent Child Recruitment, and distributed informational posters and flyers about it written in both Arabic and Kurdish, as part of an ongoing educational process.