More than 50,000 mourners marched through the streets of Qamishli, a city in Syria’s Kurdish northeast, to mark the funeral of Mish’al Tammo, who was killed on Friday when masked gunmen burst into his flat.
Security forces opened fire on Tammo’s funeral procession on Saturday after it turned into an anti-regime rally, according to activists. At least five people died according to the Associated Press.
Demonstrations were held on Sunday in the Kurdish regions of Qamishli, Amuda, Derbasiyeh and Malkieh near the borders with Turkey and Iraq, according to activists who have called for more protests “for the torch of freedom.”
A video posted on YouTube showed protesters in Amuda destroying a giant statue of Hafez al-Assad, the late father of the current president.
Tammo’s Death: tale of Syrian and Iranian regime’s terror
According to Kurdwatch.org an independent Internet portal that reports on human rights abuses against the Kurdish population in Syria, on October 7, Mish’al Tammo and the speaker of the Kurdish Future Movement in Syria were attending a political meeting with his son Marsil Mish’al Tammo, his brother ʿAbdurrazaq at-Tammo, party member Zahida Raschkilo, and three other people in a house in al-Qamshli, when a group of five men entered the house and asked, in Arabic, for at-Tammo. When he stood up, they opened fire. Already lying on the floor, at Tammo was intentionally shot in his head. His son Marsil had to be operated on due to a gunshot wound to the stomach, and Zahida Rashkilo suffered a leg injury.
Mr. Tammo was one of the staunch Kurdish political leaders in Syria who advocated regime change openly “you simply cannot speak with a regime that kills its own population.” as was famously said in an interview in July. “We can work only with those groups which decline to converse with the government. All of our actions should be aimed at the fall of the regime. We say that completely openly. We have the same position in this affair as the young people in the street.” He added.
On September 8, 2011, at-Tammu had only barely escaped an attempt on his life [KurdWatch reported]; since then he had periodically lived in hiding. Following the assassination attempt, he explained to KurdWatch:
“The regime issues the order. But, of course, acquaintances will carry out the order. The regime has many henchmen. We have received information that attempts will be made on the lives of well-known figures. It is not important who carries out the orders, what is more important is that it is the government that issues the orders.”
“When we made our stance on the regime and our stance on Kurdish participation in the Syrian revolution clear, we knew that such a thing could happen. […] We decided that we will win our freedom. Either we will win our freedom alive or we will die honorably. We will never stray from this course.” he stated.
In an opinion piece published on ekurd.net, journalist David Samuels has claimed that “Members of the “Quds Force”, a special unit of Iran’s Army of the Guardians of the Islamic Revolution, carried out the recent assassination of Mish’al Tammo, a prominent Kurdish political activist in the Kurdish city of Qamishli. Major Qassim Hussaini (pseudonym), a member of the Quds Force, was in charge of the operation.”
Some 200 members belonging to Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRCG or Pasdaran) were lately dispatched to Iranian embassy in Damascus to monitor the situation and provide moral and intelligence support to President Bashar al-Assad regime, according to the Samuels’ accounts.
Syrian opposition sources had said Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps has sent scores of snipers to help in Assad’s crackdown of the revolt. They said the snipers were ordered to target protest organizers as well as those filming the demonstrations.
The sources, according to a Syrian website, said IRGC has been assigned to what they termed the “dirty work” in quelling the revolt against Assad. They said IRGC, aided by Hizbullah, was also participating in the identification and capture of rebels, including defecting soldiers.
On the hand, the Syrian government has blamed Tammo’s death on “armed terrorist” groups, an accusation it has frequently flings when clashes erupt between regime forces and the opposition. “There are groups carrying out acts of violence in Syria and who have killed a great number of martyrs. The West speaks of a peaceful revolution and does not admit these groups exist but arms them anyhow,” Mr. Moallem said, according to The Daily Star.
Diaspora outburst
The assassination of Kurdish leader Mesha’al Tammo has enraged Kurds in Syria and abroad, Ebrahim Al Yousuf, a Kurdish human rights activist, told Gulf News.
Yesterday, Syrian protesters stormed their country’s diplomatic missions in Germany and Switzerland in protest against Friday’s killing of the opposition leader.
Protesters attacked the Syrian consulate in the northern German port city of Hamburg early yesterday, causing damage to buildings and painting walls with slogans denouncing President Bashar Al Assad’s regime, police officials said.
Now Lebanon also reported that some 200 people held a rally against the Syrian regime near Sweden’s parliament Sunday, calling on Stockholm and the European Union “to support the revolution in Syria”.
In Switzerland, five men were arrested after forcing their way into Syria’s mission to the United Nations in Geneva late Saturday, police spokesman Patrick Pulh said.
And in London, British police said they had arrested seven protesters outside the Syrian embassy on Saturday, including three who scaled the building and waved the Kurdish flag from the rooftop. Around 50 to 60 people had gathered outside the embassy to protest, according to police.
Leaders of Egypt’s expatriate Syrian community have announced plans to hold a symbolic funeral for slain Syrian-Kurdish activist Meshaal Al-Tamo in Cairo on Monday, Egypt’s Ahramonline reported.
To protest the Russian and Chinese’s decision to veto the latest Security Council resolution on Syria, the funeral will begin in front of the Russian embassy in Cairo before moving to the Chinese embassy, they said. It will then converge on the Syrian embassy, the website further added.
International fume and embrace following Tammo’s death
Syria’s uprising could be poised for major strides forward both internationally, as a result of France’s announcement that it will recognize the opposition government, and domestically due to the assassination of a Kurdish opposition leader, according to Christian Science Monitor.
EU’s Foreign Policy chief Catherine Ashton in a statement condemned “in the strongest terms the murder of Mash’al al-Tammo, a political leader and activist among the Kurdish minority in Syria. He had served more than three years as a political prisoner for his criticism of the Syrian regime. Mr. Tammo’s death follows other targeted assassinations in the past days, which are totally unacceptable. These appalling crimes further add to the EU’s grave concern over the situation in Syria. All those responsible for and complicit in these crimes must be held accountable.”
The European Union also on Monday welcomed a newly formed Syrian opposition council, urging other world powers to do the same, but stopped short of any call to recognise the body, which is seeking international support for a six-month-old uprising against President Bashar al-Assad.
Calling the attack “vicious and unprovoked,” the White House press office said al-Tammo, was killed by government security forces. It added that another prominent activist, Riad Sayf, was hospitalized after being attacked by regime forces.
The United States has renewed its calls for Assad to step down immediately amid escalating violence against anti-regime protesters that the United Nations says has left nearly 3,000 people dead.
Reuters also reported that French Foreign Minister Alain Juppe met and shook hands with a Syrian opposition leader in Paris on Monday, but stopped short of granting the movement recognition during a symbolic public encounter in Paris, saying it was too soon.
Asked about recognising the council, Swedish Foreign Minister Carl Bildt said: “We are talking to them, as we are talking to a lot of other people who have the ability to influence events in Syria. We will be discussing that further today.”
Turkey condemning Tammo’s killing, yesterday warned Al Assad’s government that violent suppression of the opposition “cannot turn back the course of history”. “We are deeply saddened by the heinous assassination of Mishaal al-Tammo, leader of the Syrian Kurdish Future Party,” the Turkish Foreign Ministry said in a statement posted on its website late on Saturday evening, Haaretz reported.
British Foreign Office Minister for the Middle East Alistair Burt has called for a full and transparent investigation into the killing of the Kurdish Future Movement spokesman, Meshaal Tammo, in Syria. Kuwaiti News Agency reported.
In a brief statement early Monday, Burt said “I strongly condemn the killing of Mr Meshaal Tammo on 7 October in Qamishli in Syria”. On behalf of the British Government, the minister sent his sincere condolences to Tammo’s family and friends.
“The loss of Tammo is not only a personal one for them, but also for the Kurdish Future Movement of which he was a longstanding member and spokesman in Syria” the UK statement read.
Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan (PDKI) in a statement confirmed that the Syrian regime is the sole responsible party for his assassination, especially considering Mr. Tammo’s opposition to the Syrian regime and his past ordeal in Syrian brutal dungeons.
The statement, along with conveying condolences to the family and colleagues of Mr. Tammo condemned the assassination of this Syrian Kurdish political leader: “We hope that the will and the sacrifices of the Kurdish nation along with other awakened and arisen population in Syria will result in the overthrow of this dictatorial regime and the establishment of a populace government where all strides of the Syrian society including our Kurdish brothers and sisters attain their lawful rights.”
Mashaal Tammo was “murdered by Syrian security,” Barham Salih, prime minister of Iraqi Kurdistan, said in a tweet. “Lesson from Iraq; repression cannot defeat free will of Syria’s people.” CNN reported.
Also Mahmoud Othman, an outspoken Kurdish member of Iraqi parliament, tweeted that Tammo’s assassination is a “clear example” of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s “unwillingness to reform and bloody crackdown. Demos continue till democracy is born.”
Internationally, Syria retains the support of Russia and China, who both vetoed a recent UN Security Council resolution targeting the Syrian government and are now offering to propose a more “balanced” resolution of their own, according to Lebanon’s The Daily Star. Moscow said this weekend that it expects to host delegates from the Syrian National Council later this month in an effort to help along negotiations between the Syrian government and the group.
Meanwhile, al-Assad renewed a pledge of reforms yesterday, as Syria threatened retaliation if countries recognize an opposition bloc increasingly active on the international scene. “Syria is taking steps focused on two main fronts – political reform and the dismantling of armed groups” that seek to destabilize the country, Assad told the visiting Cuban and Venezuelan foreign ministers.
Inflaming Syrian uprising
The assassination of Kurdish opposition figure Meshaal Tamo is likely to push Kurds in Syria to take a more active role in the seven-month-old anti-regime uprising, analysts and activists believe, AFP reported.
Fares Tammo, the slain leader’s son, who spoke by telephone from the Kurdish city of Irbil in neighboring Iraq, urged Syria’s 1.7 million Kurds to throw their support behind the revolt and predicted that their participation would prove the decisive factor in overthrowing Bashar Assad.
“My father’s assassination is the screw in the regime’s coffin,” he told the New York Times. “They made a big mistake by killing my father.”
According to a report by The Telegraph: Until Mr Tammo’s death, the minority had only played a peripheral role in the uprising with only a handful of Kurds among the 2,900 people the UN says have been killed in Syria since protests against the regime erupted in March.
Likewise, demonstrations in Kurdish cities have only been small and the regime has been careful to use less force against them in order not to provoke the community.
Discontent towards the regime has always existed among the Kurds, who are victims of decades of discrimination by Syria’s Alawite Shia elite. More than 500,000 Kurds were denied citizenship by the state, meaning they could not travel abroad, own property or enrol in school.
But they have also been wary of the would-be revolution, which is dominated by Syria’s Sunni Arab majority. Many Kurds believe they could fare as badly under a Sunni Arab government as under an Alawite Shia one.
So far, Kurds have resisted joining the Syrian National Council, a new opposition coalition that is seeking to present itself as an alternative government to the Assad regime because it is dominated by Sunni Arabs.
NPR’s Peter Kenyon reported from the Turkish-Syrian border that with the assassination of veteran Kurdish politician Mashaal Tammo, activists say the regime has galvanized a Kurdish minority that has largely stayed out of the fight so far.
According to one of Tammo’s jail-mate “His last message to the guys in jail was to set aside your old Kurdish slogans; just go out and join the protests, whether they’re Arabs, Kurds, anyone who’s opposing this regime. This is our fight too.”