Syrian Kurdish Force Says It Lost 9 Fighters in Iraq Crash

The Syrian Democratic Forces said the helicopters crashed during bad weather while en route to the northern Iraqi city of Sulaymaniyah on Wednesday night. (Getty Images/AFP)
The Syrian Democratic Forces said the helicopters crashed during bad weather while en route to the northern Iraqi city of Sulaymaniyah on Wednesday night. (Getty Images/AFP)
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Syrian Kurdish Force Says It Lost 9 Fighters in Iraq Crash

The Syrian Democratic Forces said the helicopters crashed during bad weather while en route to the northern Iraqi city of Sulaymaniyah on Wednesday night. (Getty Images/AFP)
The Syrian Democratic Forces said the helicopters crashed during bad weather while en route to the northern Iraqi city of Sulaymaniyah on Wednesday night. (Getty Images/AFP)

The main US-backed and Kurdish-led force in northeastern Syria said Friday it lost nine fighters, including a commander, when two helicopters crashed this week in neighboring Iraq.

The Syrian Democratic Forces said the helicopters crashed during bad weather while en route to the northern Iraqi city of Sulaymaniyah on Wednesday night. The nine killed included elite fighters, the group said.

The statement added that the Syrian Kurdish fighters were in Iraq as part of an “exchange of expertise” in the fight against the ISIS group. It identified the killed commander as Sherfan Kobani, a cousin of SDF's top commander, Mazloum Abdi.

The SDF did not elaborate on the cause of the crash or provide further details. The group called on local authorities in Iraq to hand over the nine bodies so they could be brought home for burial in Syria.

The SDF has been a main force in the fight against the ISIS in Syria and still carries out operations against the extremists. ISIS once controlled large parts of Syria and Iraq under the extremists’ so-called “caliphate” and still has sleeper cells in the region. The militants frequently stage attacks, targeting Kurdish-led fighters in Syria, and also Iraqi forces and civilians in Iraq.

The SDF statement is in sharp contrast to a report on Thursday from Iraqi Kurdish authorities, which said that only one helicopter — an AS350 Eurocopter — had crashed in Iraq’s Dohuk province in the northern semi-autonomous Iraqi Kurdish region.

That report said that at least five people, including insurgents of Türkiye's outlawed Kurdistan Worker’s Party, or PKK, were on board. Zagros Hiwa, a PKK spokesperson, said Thursday the group does not possess helicopters and that the PKK was also investigating the crash.

The PKK has been waging an insurgency against Türkiye since the 1980s and is considered a terrorist group by Ankara, the United States and the European Union. Its militants have established safe havens in northern Iraq and frequently come under attack by Türkiye in the region.

Iraq’s government, the US-led coalition and Türkiye had all denied ownership of the helicopter.



Israel Says It Arrested 2,500 Palestinians in Gaza in 2024

Displaced Palestinians rush to take shelter during a storm at a makeshift camp in Gaza City on December 31, 2024, amid the continuing war between Israel and the Hamas group. (AFP)
Displaced Palestinians rush to take shelter during a storm at a makeshift camp in Gaza City on December 31, 2024, amid the continuing war between Israel and the Hamas group. (AFP)
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Israel Says It Arrested 2,500 Palestinians in Gaza in 2024

Displaced Palestinians rush to take shelter during a storm at a makeshift camp in Gaza City on December 31, 2024, amid the continuing war between Israel and the Hamas group. (AFP)
Displaced Palestinians rush to take shelter during a storm at a makeshift camp in Gaza City on December 31, 2024, amid the continuing war between Israel and the Hamas group. (AFP)

Israel’s Shin Bet security service said it had arrested around 2,500 Palestinians in Gaza during 2024, of which 650 were interrogated.

The agency said, without providing evidence, that the interrogations enabled Israel to retrieve nine bodies of hostages who were kidnapped and taken to Gaza during Hamas’ Oct. 7, 2023, attack.

Additionally, 27 Israelis were indicted for spying for Iran, a nearly four-fold increase from 2023, it said. The Shin Bet released the figures in their year-end review of operations during the calendar year.

In the occupied West Bank, 3,682 Palestinians were arrested on suspicion of involvement in “terror activities,” the Shin Bet said.

Last year, Israel arrested more than 4,000 Palestinians in the West Bank between October to December, according to the UN.

The UN Human Rights Office issued a report this summer saying Palestinians detained by Israeli authorities since the Oct. 7 attacks faced waterboarding, sleep deprivation, electric shocks, dogs set on them and other forms of torture and mistreatment. Israel’s prison authorities previously said that all Palestinian prisoners are treated according to Israeli and international law.