Scores of young Kurdish fighters from Iraqi Kurdistan, Sulaimaniyah province, went to Syria to fight the Assad regime recently as the fighting between the Assad forces and rebels intensified. However they found themselves fighting a different force, one of their own ethnic group and language, the YPG (People's Protection Units), this is according to an interview by the Sterk TV with three young Kurdish fighters who claimed they laid down their weapons when coming in contact with Kurdish-speaking forces on the confrontation lines. The fighters are in YPG detention now.
All the Kurdish fighters crossed into Syria through Turkey using their Iraqi passports. One of the three fighters appearing in the video says he entered Syria through Tal Abyad where he joined the Faruk Brigade and was given a gun and sent to the battle ground.
"They told us that the TV report that there was a battle near Tal Tamar between the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and the Assad regime. It was about 12 midnight we went to this village near Tal Tamar where we stayed in a room until morning, about 7 or 8 am when there was gunfire. There we found out they were Kurds and we laid down our weapons because we came here to fight Bashar Assad not Kurds"
Another one of the young men says "we came here to liberate the Syrian people form Bashar Assad regime including the Kurds who are part of Syria.. But when we came here they [al-Nusra and ISIS] did not tell us where you are, Ras al-Ain…. there are Kurds, they said there were Bashar Assad regime [forces]. And when we went they told us that we were going to fight against Bashar Assad forces. It was about 12 midnight when we went there to fight, I called on my Kurdish friends in Kurdish and they [al-Nusra and ISIS] told me 'don't speak Kurdish"
