Hundreds of Syrian farmers blocked the way of the Turkish engineer equipment teams, preventing them from excavating trenches and underground tunnels in the 120-kilometer (74.5 miles)-long tract along the Turkish border, a source told Sputnik on Monday.
“The Turkish military attempted to excavate 5 meters deep and 5 meters wide trenches in the Syrian territory reaching from the town of Tell Abyad to the eastern regions of Ras al-Ayn, and in the 20-kilometer-long tract to Al Asadia … This is private property, farmlands belonging to Syrians,” a local resident told Sputnik.
Villagers of the provinces of Raqqa and Al-Hasakah “have bravely blocked the path of the Turkish military and vehicles, and pushed them out of the Syrian territory,” the source said, adding that the pro-Turkish groups that carried out activities in those territories “did not interfere at all, keeping neutrality.”
The source also said that Syrians near Al Aasdia “cannot use 25,000 hectares (61,000 acres) of farming land because Turkish military and their loyal militia groups have blocked the access to them.”
A member of the Al Bukhammad tribe in the province of Raqqa, in turn, told Sputnik that the Turkish military had attempted to establish a safe zone in the border area of the country by driving local farmers off their lands and excavating trenches and underground tunnels.
He said that it was connected to “the changes in the international arena and the altered landscape of power on the ground, thanks to the Russian support, and to the re-establishment of relations between Syria and the Arab countries.”
Damascus repeatedly said that the presence of the Turkish military in the border areas of Syria to conduct operations against Kurdish armed groups was unlawful, and urged Ankara to withdraw troops. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), composed primarily of the Kurdish People’s Defense Units (YPG), backed by the United States, control most of the Raqqa and Al-Hasakah provinces as well as several residential areas in the provinces of Aleppo and Deir ez-Zor. In particular, they control the greater part of the cities of Al-Hasakah and Qamishli. The official government in Damascus does not recognize the self-proclaimed autonomous administration of the northern and eastern Syria.
Source: urdupoint