Yazidis urge US to keep troops in Syria
AMSTERDAM 6 Jan (ANA) - A Yazidi rights group has urged the United States to delay its plans to withdraw troops from Syria, saying the move endangers religious minorities as it could allow ISIL to stage a comeback.
In a statement on Friday, the Netherlands-based Free Yezidi Foundation said the resurgence of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL, also known as ISIS) group poses an "existential threat to minorities" such as the Yazidis.
When ISIL swept across northern Iraq and into Syria, fighters from the armed group killed 3,000 Yazidis and abducted and sexually abused nearly 7,000 Yazidi women and girls.
The United Nations has described the campaign against the Kurdish religious minority as genocide.
"Any premature withdrawal of the United States forces from Syria not only endangers religious minorities in Iraq and Syria, it vastly increases the likelihood of a resurgent Daesh militant power," the Free Yezidi Foundation said, referring to ISIL by its Arabic acronym.
"This is an existential threat to minorities like the Yazidis."
US President Donald Trump announced his plans to withdraw some 2,000 US troops deployed in northern Syria on December 19, following a telephonic conversation with Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
The abrupt announcement contributed to the resignation of US Defense Secretary James Mattis and prompted alarm from the Kurdish People's Protection Group or the YPG, the strongest armed group in the US-backed anti-ISIL alliance, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).(ANA)
FA/ANA/6 January 2019--------