Kurdish forces have carried out a
wave of forced displacement and mass house demolitions - amounting to
war crimes - in northern Syria, a rights group says.
A report by Amnesty International accuses the Popular Protection Units (YPG) of razing entire villages after capturing them from Islamic State (IS).
This appeared to be in retaliation for residents' perceived sympathies with or links to the jihadist group, it says.
The YPG has consistently denied accusations of forced displacements.
However,
the YPG - a key ally of the US-led international coalition against IS -
and its political parent the PYD have admitted to some "isolated
incidents".
Coalition air strikes, as well as air drops of weapons
and ammunition, have helped the militia to drive IS out of large parts
of northern Syria this year.
The Amnesty report came as the US said it had dropped more than 45 tonnes of ammunition to rebels in north-western Syria.
Civilians 'caught in middle'
On
Tuesday, Amnesty said its researchers had uncovered evidence of
"alarming abuses" carried out by the YPG - the military wing of the
Democratic Union Party (PYD) - in towns and villages controlled by the
Kurdish Autonomous Administration in Hassakeh and Raqqa provinces.
Its
report quoted one witness in the village of Husseiniya, in Hassakeh
province, as saying: "They pulled us out of our homes and began burning
the home... they brought the bulldozers... They demolished home after
home until the entire village was destroyed."
Satellite images
illustrated the scale of the demolitions in Husseiniya, Amnesty said. Of
225 buildings visible in June 2014, only 14 were still standing by June
2015. Meanwhile, in villages south of the town of Suluk,
some residents told Amnesty's researchers that YPG fighters had accused
them of supporting IS and threatened to shoot them if they did not
leave.
While in some cases residents acknowledged that there had
been a handful of IS supporters in their villages, the majority did not
back the jihadist group, Amnesty concluded.
In other cases,
residents alleged that YPG fighters had ordered them to leave,
threatening them with air strikes if they failed to comply.
"They
told us we had to leave or they would tell the US coalition that we
were terrorists and their planes would hit us and our families," one
person told Amnesty's researchers.
Image copyrightAFPImage caption
The YPG has recently formed an alliance with Arab rebel groups
In one incident, YPG fighters allegedly poured petrol on a house, threatening to set it alight with the inhabitants inside.
Amnesty
said the YPG had sought to justify its actions, insisting that they
were necessary for the civilians' own protection or militarily
necessary.
"In its fight against IS, the Autonomous Administration
appears to be trampling all over the rights of civilians who are caught
in the middle," Amnesty's senior crisis adviser Lama Fakih warned.
The
YPG is part of a new alliance of Arab and Kurdish groups, called the
Democratic Forces of Syria, which was announced on Monday.
A
Pentagon spokesman said C-17 transport aircraft, supported by fighter
escorts, had dropped pallets of supplies overnight to Syrian Arab groups
fighting IS in Hassakeh province.
It said the rebel leaders had been vetted by the US.
The air-drop comes days after the US abandoned a $500m (£326m) plan to train thousands of "moderate" rebels to fight IS. Are you affected by the issues raised in this story? Please email haveyoursay@bbc.co.uk with your experiences. Please include a contact number if you are willing to speak to a BBC journalist. You can also contact us in the following ways:
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