The Press Office of Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) announced the results of combat and resistance of the SDF in 2019.

The balance sheet of the SDF for the last year includes the following;

“The people of Rojava and Northern Syria were vanguards of a unique revolutionary struggle with the aim of protecting their freedom and honor throughout 2019. Today, our resistance against ISIS and the Turkish army with the protection of basic human values, has brought forward internationalism and a wish for freedom by taking on the role as vanguards for a national struggle.

In 2019, our forces brought an end to the reign of terror of the ISIS terrorist organization and their enslavement of the people in the region. The Syrian Democratic Forces carried out their duty of legitimate self-defense without hesitation in protecting the peace and security of the people in the region against all kinds of attacks, complots, occupation and terror.

On March 23rd, the days of the physical ISIS caliphate was brought to an end in Baghouz.This brought an end to a long period and made peace in the region visible again. The results of this combat operation and the operations carried out by our forces against sleeper-cells throughout 2019 are as follows:

In the Deir ez-Zor region, Hajin and its vicinity was liberated

During 3 months of combat, at least 1306 terrorists were killed

More than 29.600 terrorists and their families (from Iraq, Syria and all parts of the world were arrested)

7.000 km2 of land was liberated from terror.

A large number of weapons, armament, documents and other miscellaneous tools were seized

More than 40 counter terrorism operations foiled many attempts of massacres and other attacks

4 operations against sleeper-cells with MIT members (Turkish Intelligence Services) foiled the attempts of disrupting the peace and stability of the region.

As a result of those operations and the resistance in the final battle against ISIS, 256 of our comrades who put up a brave fight were martyred.

In regards to the long time of thorough planning and cooperation between our forces, the international coalition and US, our forces participated with great cooperation in the operation against Al-Baghdadi, the leader of ISIS. The operation took place in an area occupied by Turkey in north-west Syria and resulted in Al-Baghdadi being killed.

As the terror of ISIS was brought to and end, the Turkish army started their attacks on Rojava.

On October 9th 2019, the Turkish army and their mercenary proxies started their attacks on Rojava and Northern Syria with the aim of occupying the region. The occupation forces attacked the entire border areas of Rojava with thousands of mercenaries, tanks, heavy machineguns, warplanes and UAV’s. This resulted in hundreds of thousands of civilians being displaced from their homes, being martyred and injured.

The occupation forces carried out indiscriminate bombardment and shelling on areas without clarifying whether or not their targets were civilians or military personell.

As the Syrian Democratic Forces, in the framework of legitimate self-defense, we retaliated to those attacks. The outcome of combat operations and resistance is as follows:

In 2019, the Turkish army carried out in total:

- 379 aerial attacks with UAV’s and warplanes

- 1.021 ground incursions with tanks, artillery, howitzers and various types of heavy weapons.

Our forces retaliated to all the attacks in self-defense which resulted in combat along the entire border areas. In those clashes:

1.534 mercenaries and Turkish soldiers were killed, 294 mercenaries and soldiers were injured.

As a result of the response to the attacks, our forces destroyed 7 tanks, 17 APC’s, 11 BMP’s, 42 military vehicles, 11 heavy machine gun mounted vehicles, 2 construction vehicles and 2 motorcycles.

The Turkish army and their mercenary proxies undermined agreements by not halting their attacks despite the agreement to a ceasefire, and continued their air and ground attacks on many areas.

In the resistance against the Turkish army, in total:

- 508 of our comrades put up a heroic resistance and were martyred

- 1.547 of our comrades were injured

- 73 of our comrades were captured

As a result of the attacks by the occupation forces on civilian areas, more than 400.000 civilians were displaced from their homes. During shelling and bombardment, 522 civilians were martyred, 2.757 civilians were injured. Among the martyred and injured civilians were a larger number of children. As a result of those attacks, the cities of Ras Al-Ain and Tal Abyad and the areas between were occupied.

YPJ units played a significant role in the fight against ISIS terrorism as well as our in the struggle in the face of Turkish occupation.”