Syrian Democratic Forces, the SDF, refuted a report by the Guardian of fake news that ISIS mercenaries were released in return for money confirming forces will firmly continue the fight against ISIS in all forms.
The statement that was released by the Media Office of the Syrian Democratic Forces on the report fabricated by Bethan Mckernan reads:
On November 5, Bethan McKernan, the Guardian reporter, contacted the SDF Media Center, inquiring for a document she said it was for one of Daesh detainees who was released for money. After reviewing the document, we confirmed categorically that it is fake and there is no such document in the SDF’s official documents or the
Autonomous Administration of north and eastern Syria. We confirmed that there are cases of releasing some
Daesh detainees who were not involved in terrorist acts, and it was proven by investigations that they were civil employees in Daesh’s civilian institutions, so they were released with tribal guarantees publicly and on the media.
Then, we were surprised by a report published by the Guardian attached to that fake document. Although we have confirmed to the journalist that it was fake, yet she strongly relied on it to accuse our forces. On this basis, we communicated with the newspaper’s management, submitting our papers proving that the document was
faked, as we publish to the public opinion these pieces of evidence:
1- In the attached document, was mentioned Article 13 of Decree No. 20 of 2019, under which the two Daesh members were released according to the newspaper’s allegation. After researching, it was found that the decree mentioned in the fabricated document was an amnesty decree issued by the Syrian regime in 2019, which is non-applicable in the north and eastern Syria region. It has become clear to the public that we do not deal at all with the decrees of the Syrian regime in the north and eastern Syria region, especially in cases of the Daesh trial.
In addition, there is no such decree in the Autonomous Administration regulations. The following is the link of the decree of Bashar al-Assad’s regime mentioned in the fabricated document:
2- At the upper right end of the fabricated document written the Democratic Autonomous Administration – al- Jazeera Province, and at the other side there is a logo of the General Command of the YPG, we are surprised how the forgers cannot differentiate between the logo of the Democratic Autonomous Administration and the logo of the YPG
3- The fabricated document dated 2020 and has the term “al-Jazeera Province,” which is no longer used for four years now, and it was replaced in 2017 with “al-Jazeera Region.”
4- The letterhead of all Autonomous Administration and SDF official documents, is written in the three adopted official languages “Arabic-Kurdish-Syriac.” And it is known by dozens of Guardian journalists who have visited the region and conducted many press reports, including the latest report’s author. All Autonomous Administration and SDF’s institutions, especially “public finances”, have special seals. The fabricated document was not sealed,
but it has one signature that is easy to be forged.
5- The term “public reconciliation” is not used at all in the north and eastern Syria.
In addition to serious errors related to photoshop design in the document that the newspaper was trapped in.
The newspapers reliance on unverified fabricated documents provided by a “journalist” who resides in Turkey and already wrote the same report for local nobody reads sites (Refer to the material with the same title on the Internet). It is considered the worst mistake of a prestigious newspaper such as The Guardian and not to remove the fabricated article and not to apologize is considered an additional mistake unworthy of the prestigious newspaper, so it should be taken into account by the Newspaper’s administration. On the basis, we call on the Guardian to open an investigation with the authors of the report regarding the reasons and justifications for this forgery and the attempt to denigrate our forces that have fought and provided many martyrs in order to eliminate Daesh and protect humanitarian security. We in SDF confirm that we will take appropriate legal action to prosecute the authors of the false report.
We assure our people and the world’s public opinion that our forces will firmly continue the fight against Daesh in all forms despite some countries did not support us regarding their Daesh nationals in our prisons, and we recall the seriousness of neglecting the danger of Daesh detainees and families.
