Bethnahrin National Council issues statement on Khabur Resistance anniversary: “The will of the Khabur Resistance is the path to our national salvation”

BETH NAHRIN (MESOPOTAMIA) — “The will of the Khabur Resistance is the path to our national salvation.” That is how the Bethnahrin National Council (Mawtbo Umthoyo d’Bethnahrin-MUB) begins its statement on the national commemoration of the martyrs of the Khabur Resistance. Annually on 23 February, MUB commemorates the martyrs who gave their life for the national cause of the Syriacs–Assyrians in the Khabur Valley.

Starting in 2014, the Islamic State (ISIS) terrorist organization began its campaign of oppression against the peoples of the Middle East. During the years when it controlled vast swathes of land in Iraq and Syria, the organization committed barbaric crimes against humanity and genocide against the peoples of the region. It carried out ethnic cleansing by uprooting Christians from their original homelands and committed genocide in Nineveh Plains against the Yezidis and the Chaldeans–Syriacs–Assyrians.

In February 2015, ISIS began a campaign of ethnic cleansing against the Syriacs–Assyrians in the Khabur River Valley in North and East Syria.

The Bethnahrin National Council in its statement honors “the tens of nationals of our people who showed one of the most glorious acts of resistance in the history of our people”. It added that many fighters from Hasakah, Beth Zalin (Qamishli), Derik, Qabre Hewore, and Khabur participated in the resistance to defend the lives, possessions, and honor of their people. They gave their lives for their sacred motherland.

“In this epic of resistance, they showed the world the path of national unity of our struggle and of our people. Our fighters, for freedom and for Mesopotamia, together with the fighters of other oppressed peoples in the region, resisted hand in hand and until the last bullet to defend their ground against the Islamic State extremists.

Our fighter Tamer Bahde Darwiş, nom de guerre Khabur Athro, was martyred on 8 February 2015. He passed the flag to heroes Aram-Jusef Afe, Luey-Julian Osse, Sanharib-Haytham Younan, Ninos-Marios Hermez, George Younan, Alias Darmo, Fuad Younan, and George Boulus. They became martyrs on 23 February. They passed the patriotic flag to Milad Adam who became a martyr on 24 February.”

The Bethnahrin National Council statement continues that the flag of resistance of the martyrs of Khabur waves high in the places of the hundreds of fighters of the Syriac Military Council, Sutoro, Bethnahrin Women’s Protection Forces, and on the fronts where the Syrian Democratic Forces are present.

“The Khabur Resistance is the will of defense and the freedom struggle of our nation and people. On this eighth anniversary, we honor our Khabur martyrs and call on our people to foster the will of this resistance, this act of defense and hope, and to bring it forward into the future.”