Killing of Syrian Kurdish leader sparks anger
More than 50,000 mourners marched through the capital of Syria’s Kurdish heartland Saturday in a funeral procession for one of the country’s most prominent opposition figures a day after his assassination. Security forces fired into the crowds, killing five people, witnesses said.
The turnout was by far the largest in the Kurdish northeast since the start of the uprising against President Bashar Assad’s autocratic regime seven months ago.
But it remains to be seen whether Friday’s slaying of charismatic Kurdish opposition figure Mashaal Tammo will trigger a sustained, large-scale outpouring by Syria’s Kurds that might bolster the wider uprising against Assad taking place across the nation.
Despite the gunfire, crowds pouring into the streets of Qamishli called on Assad to step down, chanting, “Leave! Leave!” — adopting the cry used by tens of thousands of other Syrian protesters during the uprising. Some demanded Assad’s execution; others ripped down a statue of his late father and predecessor, Hafez Assad.
Tammo was killed Friday by masked men who burst into an apartment and gunned him down.
“All of Qamishli is out today. The funeral is turning into a massive protest,” Kurdish activist and lawyer Mustafa Osso told The Associated Press by telephone. The grieving cries of fellow mourners could be heard in the background.
Members of the Kurdish ethnic minority — Syria’s largest — have long complained of neglect and discrimination. Assad granted citizenship in April to stateless Kurds in eastern Syria in an attempt to address some of their grievances in the face of the swelling anti-government uprising that began the month before.
While many Kurds — who make up 15 percent of the country’s 23 million people — have been taking part in the anti-government protests, Kurdish groups have yet to put their full weight behind the revolution…