afrinpost– Exclusive
On July 23rd, a group affiliated with the Turkish-backed “Ahrar al-Sharqiya” militia attempted to murder the young man, Nazmi Ashraf Othman, in Jindires town, northern Afrin.
The armed militants intercepted Nazmi on his way from his home to work at a barber shop on Yalanqoz Street in Jindires. They brutally beat him with the butts of their weapons and sticks and then tried to run him over with their car as a revenge and threat to his family, in response to them raising their case to the Syrian media and public opinion.
The assailants kept shouting, “We are Ahrar al-Sharqiya, and this is the price.” However, the residents of the neighborhood managed to rescue the young man from the hands of the militants, who caused him fractures in his back and arms. He was rushed to Atma Hospital in Idlib countryside, and it should be noted that he previously suffered from heart problems.
Nazmi is now the only surviving member of the Peshmarg family in Jindires. On March 20, 2023, on the eve of Kurdish national Newroz, militants from the “Ahrar al-Sharqiya” militia committed a massacre and killed four members of the Peshmarg family, namely: Farhadin Muhammad Othman (43 years old), his son Muhammad Farhadin Othman (18 years old), and his brothers: Muhammad Muhammad Othman (42 years old), and Nazmi Muhammad Othman (45 years old).
This heinous act prompted hundreds of residents from the Afrin region to protest and stage a sit-in in front of the victims’ house, demanding justice against the criminals and an end to the presence of militias in Afrin.
The Turkish authorities tried to mediate reconciliation between the family and the killers in an attempt to cover up the bloodshed of the murdered Kurdish civilians and obscure the case, altering the description of the crime. They released “Abu Habib Khusham,” the mastermind behind the gruesome massacre against the Peshmarg family, which was carried out under direct orders from “Hussein Hamadi.”
Local sources reported that the leader “Hussein Hamadi” ordered his militants to prevent Kurdish locals from lighting bonfires to celebrate Newroz and to use force to suppress the celebrants, saying to his militants, “Blind the eyes of anyone who lights a fire and chase them away from the area.”
