By Adham Kako</p> <p>ANKARA (AA) – In a period lasting about three months, the allied U.S.-led coalition and YPG/PKK terrorists killed 165 civilians in one region of eastern Syria, a Syrian NGO said in a report on Saturday.</p> <p>Working to expel Daesh from the area, coalition forces attacks around Deir ez-Zor killed 153 civilians, including 71 children and 29 women, and attacks by YPG/PKK terrorists killed 12 civilians in the same period, including three children, said the Syrian Network for Human Rights (SNHR) in a report covering the 101 days from Sept. 11 to Dec. 20.</p> <p>After Deir ez-Zor's Hajin district center was invaded by the YPG/PKK terror group, some 6,000 civilians in the remaining towns and villages in the hands of Daesh were stranded under a siege by Bashar al-Assad regime forces and YPG/PKK terrorists, the report said.</p> <p>The report added that Daesh uses civilians as human shields, leaving them exposed to random strikes by regime forces and YPG/PKK terrorists.</p> <p>Daesh still maintains control of five towns in rural parts of the eastern Deir ez-Zor province.</p> <p>With U.S. help, YPG/PKK terrorists are in control east of Euphrates River and rural areas in western and eastern Deir ez-Zor. France also provides the terrorist group with artillery support. </p> <p>Regime forces, meanwhile, maintain control of the western section of Deir ez-Zor. </p> <p>As of today, YPG/PKK terrorists occupy some 28 percent of the total area of Syria.
Turkey has long objected to the U.S. allying itself with the terrorist YPG/PKK against Daesh, saying that using one terrorist group to fight another makes no sense.
In its more than 30-year terror campaign against Turkey, the PKK — listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey, the U.S. and the EU — has been responsible for the death of some 40,000 people, including women and children. The YPG is its Syrian branch.
Turkey has said it will soon launch a third counter-terrorist operation against the terrorist YPG/PKK in northern Syria, citing both the threat to Turkey and to local civilians.
Syria has been locked in a vicious civil war since early 2011, when the Bashar al-Assad regime cracked down on protesters with unexpected ferocity.
