World Council of Arameans [Syriacs]

PYD/YPG Proxy Failed Murder Attempt on Aramean Teacher in Qamishli, Syria

On Saturday morning, 22 September 2018, an innocent 60-year-old Aramean teacher was critically injured after two men attacked him with baseball bats in a failed murder attempt right in front of his house in Qamishli, Northeast Syria. Mr. Isa Rashid, who is the director of the Nsibin Institute responsible for the Arameans schools, is still treated in a local hospital.

Mr. Eddie Gaboro Hanna visits Mr. Isa Rashid at his hospital bedside.

A few days before this assault, Mr. Rashid had met with PYD affiliate Olaf-Taw, offering the possibility for changes to the present curriculum of the Aramean schools in Northeast Syria. This gesture follows earlier violent attempts by the PYD to first enforce its own ideological and Kurdish-oriented syllabus on the Aramean schools and then, after this failure, to close them down altogether.

Two former students of Mr. Rashid represented Olaf-Taw at the meeting. When they expressed that they had no suggestions to what their former teacher had already implemented, their colleague and chairperson of Olaf-Taw, Ms. Elisabeth Gouriye, reacted enraged. She turned particularly hostile after Mr. Rashid’s refusal to meet her demands to fully implement their study program. Moreover, local sources have informed WCA that the chairperson of Olaf-Taw even claimed that the Syriac Orthodox Patriarch had given covert support for this PYD-driven program and that she threatened Mr. Rashid with a deadline until Friday, 21 September, to cooperate or face the consequences.

A day after this deadline, early in the morning, two men attacked Mr. Rashid from behind when he was about to leave his house. The assailants struck him several times with baseball bats on the back of his head until his head splashed open. They left him bleeding on his doorsteps, assuming he was dead. Mr. Rashid suffered a great loss of blood and was later taken to a hospital where he arrived in critical condition. Fortunately, he miraculously survived, was able to speak and inform WCA’s local sources that he recognized one of his attackers. So far, no suspects have been arrested yet.

Eddie Gaboro Hanna from Australia happened to be again in Qamishli to present aid on behalf of his charity to local Arameans. He took the opportunity to take pictures and footage, which he shared with WCA. The evidence includes an exclusive interview with the victim, images of the fresh bloodstains at his house and on his clothes. Mr. Isa Rashid is a grandfather, a respected teacher who has contributed to the Aramaic language for some 30 years and the director of the Nsibin Institute which is responsible for setting up the textbooks and programs for the Aramean schools in the Qamishli region. WCA’s other sources stress that he had no quarrels with anyone and often acted, in fact, as a mediator to resolve issues and to improve the situation of the Aramean people.

WCA President, Mr. Johny Messo, strongly condemns this cowardly attack and further comments: “Arameans worldwide interpret this latest attack as an outright declaration of war by the PYD/YPG Kurds against Syria’s native populations and as an act of high treason by their handful of Aramean puppets. Once again their real intentions are revealed. We call upon the countries supporting the PYD/YPG, first and foremost the United States, to speak out and to demand the end of these ongoing terrorist acts against innocent civilians before the last Arameans will flee their homeland.”

There is a clear pattern that demonstrates how the PYD/YPG and its Aramean proxy have created Aramean front organizations, such as the so-called Syriac Military Council whose majority is, in fact, non-Aramean and, according to testimonies of Arameans in Al-Hasakah Governorate, it even includes former ISIS fighters! Their main party is Gabo d-Hirutho d-Beth Nahrin (“Mesopotamia Freedom Party”) and the followers of this movement call themselves and each other in Aramaic dawronoye (“revolutionaries”) and hawrone (“comrades”). They were founded, supported and trained by the PKK in Southeast Turkey in the mid-1990s. In the last years, this communist group has been exploiting the growing force of power of the PYD to pressure Arameans in Northeast Syria in a number of ways, including threats, kidnappings, forced conscriptions of youths, murders.

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Click here to download the Press Release in PDF. All photos are courtesy of Mr. Eddie Gaboro Hanna.

The below (graphic) pictures show how Mr. Isa Rashid tried to pull himself up and managed to make it to the street to call for help.

For earlier reports and background information on

the Kurdification of Northeast Syria, see:

• Kurdish YPG Unlawfully closes Aramean and Armenian Schools
• Kurdish YPG/Asayish Forces Once Again Kidnap Christians in Northeast Syria
• Video Shows Christian Property in Syria Seized by Kurdish Forces
• Kurdish YPG/Asayesh Forces Kidnapped More Aramean Christians in Northeast Syria
• Ongoing Kurdish Terror Attacks Against Aramean Christians in Syria
• New Bomb Attack kills Three Aramean Christians in Qamishli, Northeast Syria
• WCA to UN Commision on Syria and HRC: End YPG’s Kurdification of Northeast Syria
• WCA to Human Rights Council: recognize and support Arameans of Syria and Iraq
• UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria recognizes genocide by ISIS
• WCA to UN: Arameans in Syria and Iraq on Brink of Extinction
• WCA submits statement to COI on Syria
• Arameans demand inclusion in Syria peace process