The People’s Defense Units (YPG), the military arm of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), issued a call to arms against Islamist forces in Syria, and charged that the Al Nusrah Front and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, along with the Free Syrian Army, have “become one side in attacking the Kurdish people.” The deputy leader of the banned Kurdistan Workers Party recently warned that unless the government begins to implement promised reforms by Sept. 1, “the freedom movement and Kurdish people will defend itself.” Two members of the outlawed Revolutionary People’s Liberation Party-Front (DHKP-C) were arrested with several other foreign nationals in a boat heading for Turkey that carried heavy guns and explosives near the Greek island of Chios.
