Old video of Turkish-backed militias kidnapping Kurdish woman fighter falsely linked to Assad ouster

"See in the Kurdish area of Syria how the followers of Muhammad, Turkish Muslims, are kidnapping Kurdish Muslim girls to make them sex slaves and rape them," read a Hindi-language Facebook post shared on December 8.  

"Those who oppose Modi see what they want after defeating Modi," it added, referring to India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Rights groups say hate crimes and violence against India's large Muslim minority have been on the rise since the Hindu-nationalist leader took office in 2014 (archived link).

The post shared a video of a masked man in combat fatigues carrying a woman in his arms, as other men hurl insults at her in Arabic. 

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Screenshot of the false post, taken on December 11, 2024

The video surfaced as Assad fled Syria after a lightning offensive spearheaded by the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group and its allies, which brought a sudden end to five decades of repressive rule by his clan (archived link).

Syrians across the country and around the world erupted in celebration after enduring an era in which suspected dissidents were jailed or killed, and nearly 14 years of war that killed more than 500,000 people and displaced millions.

However, the power vacuum left by Assad's ouster has given Turkey a golden opportunity to move against US-backed Kurdish forces in northeast Syria that it links to a group waging a decades-long insurgency against the state (archived link).

The same video was shared alongside similar claims elsewhere on Facebook and X.  

However, the video predates the fall of the Assad regime -- it circulated in October 2019 as the Turkish army and pro-Turkish Syrian rebels attacked Kurdish-led forces in Syria.

Kurdish fighter capture

Reverse image searches and keyword searches on Google found the same video on the official X account of Iraq-based news outlet Rudaw English on October 26, 2019 (archived link). 

The caption read: "#Kurdish force makes appeal after female fighter captured alive by #Turkey-backed militia. #Kurds #Rojava.".

According to text on the video, the woman in the footage is Cicek Kobane, a member of the all-women Kurdish Women's Protection Units (YPJ), which played a key role in defeating the Islamic State in Syria but is considered a terrorist organisation by Turkey (archived link).

The report said she was captured alive but wounded by a Turkish-backed militia on October 21, 2019.

Below is a screenshot comparison of the video in the false posts (left) and the video shared by Rudaw English (right):

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Screenshot comparison of the video in the false posts (left) and the video shared by Rudaw English (right)

Turkish state broadcaster TRT World also published a photo of Cicek Kobane's capture, in which she can be seen wearing the same clothes as in the circulating video (archived link).

A November 2019 BBC News report about "war crimes" in northeast Syria caught on phone footage described the same video of Kobane's capture (archived link).

According to the report, US officials at the time said "some of the actions in these videos probably constitute war crimes".

In March 2021, a Turkish court sentenced her to life in prison, a move rights groups said was a violation of international laws (archived link).

AFP has debunked more misinformation about Assad's fall, including a photo falsely shared as the ousted leader spotted in Moscow and old footage falsely linked to the offensive against him.

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