Drone strikes by Turkish Armed Forces on Kurdish-held areas of northeast Syria between October 5 and 10, 2023, damaged critical infrastructure and resulted in water and electricity disruptions for millions of people.

Attacks Exacerbate Ongoing Humanitarian Crisis for Millions

  • Recent Turkish drone strikes on Kurdish-held areas of northeast Syria damaged critical infrastructure and resulted in water and electricity disruptions for millions of people.

  • People in the region, already facing a severe water crisis, now also bear the brunt of increased bombardment, exacerbating their struggle to get essential water supplies.

  • Turkey should urgently stop targeting critical infrastructure necessary for residents’ rights and well-being, including power and water stations

  • perestroika@slrpnk.net
    1·
    1 year ago

    Under the laws of war, Turkey and other parties to an armed conflict must not attack, destroy, remove, or make useless objects indispensable to the civilian population’s survival, including for water distribution and sanitation

    Turkey fighting what it claims to be a terrorist group by attacking power plants and water treatment stations is level 9000 irony, I don’t know whether to laugh or cry. :o

    Some thoughts:

    • maybe international pressure will make Turkey think twice, one can always hope
    • maybe the folks in Rojava manage to decentralize some of their infrastructure, making the targets too small to be “high reward” in the eyes of the Turkish military
    • maybe they can harden some locations, making the targets too hard for a drone, and hope Turkey doesn’t dare to send piloted planes
    • or maybe the folks in Rojava learn from the fight in Ukraine and come up with anti-drone systems, since after all, Turkish-made Bayraktars stopped flying when Russians got their air defense set up, and Iranian-made Shaheds get shot down by Ukrainians in great numbers, and I’ve also seen Ukrainians soldiers with pocket-sized “Lancet warning devices” which alert of another drone type which they cannot currently jam
    • their first step would probably be to understand what hit them
    • they might deploy listening stations with radio scanners and spectrum analyzers (read: cheap TV reception dongles) at first, to get some clue about the nature of the system, and a bit of early warning (by noticing the control signal of the attack drone)
    • they might deploy spies near Turkish airfields to notify of bigger attack drones (that need runways) lifting off

    …at the point of needing to do air defense - alas, DIY methods are unlikely to work.

    For example, a Bayraktar tends to bomb targets from altitude with laser-guided bombs, staying outside the range of simple / improvised air defense. Acquiring missiles capable of downing the drones may be beyond the political connections and economic abilities of Rojava’s people. Manufacturing air defense systems in a rural back woods area… is probably going to be very, very hard. But possible with great determination, if the menace doesn’t stop.