‘To send a message’: What happened to the Tishreen Dam protest convoy?

ERBIL — On January 8, the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) announced the killing of five civilians and injury of 15 others when a protest convoy heading for the Tishreen Dam on the Euphrates River was hit by a Turkish drone strike. Among those killed was Karam Ahed Shahhabi, a member of the Zenobia Women’s Gathering, a women’s union in Arab-majority AANES areas. 

The day before the incident, the AANES—the civil wing of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF)—called on residents in parts of northeastern Syria it controls to participate in a protest at the Tishreen Dam, located near the northeastern Aleppo city of Manbij. 

The protest aimed to “denounce the systematic bombing, emphasize our rejection of any threat that could lead to a humanitarian catastrophe in the region and support the SDF in repelling these attacks by the Turkish occupation state and its mercenaries,” it wrote on social media.  

The AANES urged its employees, as well as university students, to participate in the convoy, several civilian sources in northeastern Syria told Syria Direct. Activists on social media, meanwhile, accused the SDF of transporting employees and workers from Raqqa city to the dam “by force” as “human shields.” 

Before the convoy left, activists warned residents not to head to the dam for their safety. In 2018, a convoy traveling from the SDF-held Jazira region of northeastern Syria to Afrin, in northwestern Syria, was struck by Turkish warplanes during Operation Olive Branch, a military offensive launched by Ankara-backed opposition forces against the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG). In 2019, during the Operation Peace Spring offensive, a Turkish airstrike hit another convoy, this one coming from Jazira to Ras al-Ain (Serekaniye) in northern Hasakah province. Both incidents killed and injured civilians. 

Into the line of fire

Despite these warnings, on Wednesday AANES institutions oversaw the Tishreen Dam convoy’s passage from several areas it controls—including Raqqa, Tabqa, Kobani (Ain al-Arab) and Qamishli. The AANES identified gathering points for residents and employees and transported them in buses and cars belonging to it, convoy participants told Syria Direct. 

Amina Muhammad (a pseudonym), 29, works for the AANES Executive Council in Tabqa. The council’s leadership informed employees that “we should participate in this convoy to support the forces that protect us,” she told Syria Direct. She declined “because I don’t have to risk my life, and I have a daughter I can’t leave behind.” 

“Participation in the convoy was optional,” Muhammad explained, despite the AANES’ directives to its employees.

Abdullah Omar (a pseudonym), 35, who works for the AANES Education Authority in Raqqa city, joined the convoy because he “feared we would be ostracized by the AANES” otherwise. His salary is still paid by the AANES despite classes being suspended at his school, which has become a reception center for people displaced from the al-Shahbaa center of northern Aleppo, he told Syria Direct. 

Deputy Co-Chair of the AANES’ Executive Council, Hamdan al-Abd, said no civilians were forced to go to the Tishreen Dam. What happened, he stressed, was “inviting our people to participate in the procession and take a stand peacefully.”

As the convoy drove towards the Tishreen Dam on Wednesday, violent battles between the SDF and SNA factions were taking place in the villages of Alloush, Tal Arish, Talla and Sirtel surrounding the dam. An SDF statement about the fighting specified the time of the clashes: 10:40 on Wednesday morning, the same time the convoy was moving towards the dam.

For around a month, clashes have continued in the area of the Tishreen Dam as SNA factions with Turkish drone support attempt to seize control from the SDF. Artillery fire has been exchanged between the two sides. 

The AANES has warned several times that Turkish targeting of the Tishreen Dam could have “dire consequences for the region.” The reservoir behind the dam holds around two billion cubic meters of water. A catastrophic dam failure could cause water to flow out and flood vast areas of farmland, villages and areas along the Euphrates River from Tabqa to Raqqa and all the way to Iraq. 

Assigning responsibility

Hogir al-Abdo, a journalist with the Associated Press, was on assignment accompanying the convoy as it headed to the Tishreen Dam on Wednesday. As it moved forward, Turkish military aircraft struck the road leading to the dam, leaving “two large holes that prevented the vehicles from passing,” al-Abdo told Syria Direct. In response, “many people walked five kilometers on foot to the dam while many participants turned back, afraid of the bombing,” he added. 

Aircraft targeted the sides of the road several times “to intimidate the participants and force them to return” but ultimately “the convoy reached the dam, after which some turned back while others stayed to spend the night,” al-Abdo said. 

Omar, the teacher from Raqqa, decided to return with other employees who were with him in the same AANES vehicle. “The first time we heard the bombing, we expected the convoy to stop. We were surprised when the cars in the front continued, trying to move towards the dam,” he recalled. After several more strikes, “hearing the wounded people screaming, we decided to go back,” he added. 

Al-Abd, of the Executive Council, defended sending a civilian convoy towards an area of active clashes. The goal was “to send a message to the international community, to express the dangers of the war against our areas, especially the targeting of the Tishreen Dam and the damages and humanitarian catastrophe it could cause in the region,” he said. 

The protest also aimed to call on the guarantors of a 2019 ceasefire agreement—the United States (US) and Russia—to prevent attacks on the Tishreen Dam and stop military operations in the area, al-Abd added. In 2019, during the Turkish-backed Operation Peace Spring, the US and Russia sponsored a ceasefire agreement under which the SDF withdrew from Ras al-Ain (Serekaniye) and the offensive stopped. 

“It is people’s right to organize popular marches demanding the international community protect them from a NATO member state unjustly attacking civilians,” al-Abd added. 

Commenting on this, Bassam Ahmad, the executive director of rights organization Syrians for Truth and Justice (STJ), said “protecting civilians should be a priority for the Autonomous Administration. It must refrain from involving, pushing or forcing them to act as barriers to stop Turkish attacks on the region.” 

If there were military personnel or equipment in the convoy, “the AANES could be accused of using civilians as human shields and bear part of the responsibility for them being bombed,” al-Ahmad said. However, this would not absolve Turkey of its responsibility, as it “must distinguish between combatants and civilians,” he told Syria Direct. 

Syria Direct reached out to the SDF’s media office for a comment on these events, but received no response by the time of publication. 

While local and international media accuse Ankara of targeting the convoy and eyewitnesses describe strikes by aircraft, Abu Salah, a commander in the Turkish-backed SNA’s Liwa al-Waqqas brigade, accused the SDF of being responsible. “Since the SDF mobilized civilians, perhaps it is behind the explosion or killing of civilians,” he contended. 

Salah conceded it was unlikely there were weapons or military personnel present in the convoy, since “they use tunnels on both sides of the dam,” he told Syria Direct. 

Talal Silo, the SDF’s former official spokesperson before defecting in 2017, said the AANES “uses civilians as human shields, or in certain demonstrations, to garner the sympathy of global public opinion and the international community about the killing of civilians in the region.” While “this game has been exposed, civilians fall victim,” he added. 

This report was originally published in Arabic and translated into English by Mateo Nelson.