Afrinpost – Special
The hanging of a poster showing “Saddam Hussein” and “Zahran Alloush” on a house in the center of the occupied Kurdish Afrin region, sparked a wave of condemnation and indignation on social media, because of the symbolism of the “Saddam” of the genocide against the Kurds in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.
In the context, “Afrinpost” learned from its sources that the house on which the poster was hanged in the city of Afrin, which shows the portrait of Saddam Hussein and Zahran Alloush, owned by the displaced Kurdish citizen “Suleiman” from the people of the village “Qantare / Qantara” of the “Mobata” district, ”who previously worked as an olive oil merchant.
The sources added that three gunmen seize and reside in the house, two of them are from the eastern Ghouta and belong to the militia of “Army of Islam”, while the third is from Deir al-Zour and belongs to the militia of “Assembly of the people of Deir al-Zour,” which is one of the formations of the militia “Al-Shamiya Front.”
Noting that the house, it is located in the security sector of the “Sultan Murad Brigade” militia in the ancient Afrin neighborhood.
One of the sources confirmed to the “Afrinpost” that the poster had been hanged recently, and that one of the gunmen standing behind the hanged poster, said frankly, that “the poster lacks the phrase (Saddam, the vanquisher of Kurds), but the Turks do not allow such clear hostile expressions.”
The source added that the Army of Islam militia has two headquarters, one of which is in the house of the displaced Kurdish citizen “Subhi Abdo”, which is located on the road to Turinde (Al-Ashrafiya neighborhood), and the other is in the building “Abbaret Al-Najjar”, where the Kurdish Progressive Democratic Party was taking an office in it, the militia now controls the entire building and is based in it.
It is noteworthy that the militias of “Ahrar al-Sharqiya”, “Al-Hamza” and “Al-Sharqiya Army” are the ones who place more pictures of “Saddam Hussein” on the back windows of their cars roaming in the streets of the city, in a provocative step to the feelings of the remaining Kurdish citizens, as well as suspending pictures of militia deaths in the fighting in Libya on main streets and on military headquarters.
During the occupation of Afrin in March 2018, militants of the “Eastern Ahrar” militia wrote the phrase “Welcome to Deir Al-Zour” at the entrance in Afrin to the district of Gandiris, and they also named Afrin on their pages in the city of “Saddam Hussein”, while the Turkmen gunmen recently named it “The Turkmen eye”.
As for the indigenous Kurds of Afrin, they assert that the days of the occupiers will not be prolonged, and no matter how long they will remain, Afrin will remain their always-to-be ” Ciyaye Kurmenc” city.
