On 14 January 2012, Xebat Dêrik, co-founder of the People's Protection Units (YPG) and long-time PKK guerrilla commander, was assassinated in northeast Syria in a conspiracy involving agents of the Turkish Secret Service MIT. On the twelfth anniversary of his death, the YPG General Command remembers him and his life.

Xebat Dêrik was born Mahmoud Ramadan in 1962 in the village of Kazan in Dêrik into a family in the tradition of the Kurdish resistance. Like many Kurdish families under the Syrian Ba'athist regime, his parents were financially poor and Rojava was systematically disadvantaged for decades. Xebat Dêrik left school early and went to Damascus as a teenager to work and support his family. In 1985 he was drafted into military service for the Syrian army, which he completed in neighbouring Lebanon. Here he also got to know the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) better.

Xebat Dêrik deserted and joined the PKK

The following year, Xebat Dêrik deserted and went to the Lebanese Bekaa Valley, where the PKK operated its Mahsum Korkmaz Academy in the village of Helve. Here he met Abdullah Öcalan, took part in the famous training courses of the founder of the PKK and stayed until 1987. That year he made his way to the mountains of Kurdistan to become a guerrilla. He fought against the Turkish occupation in almost all regions, trained commanders, belonged to the Military Council of the People's Defense Forces (HPG) and its predecessor organizations and was a member of the Central Council of the Community of Kurdistan Societies (KCK).

Xebat Dêrik spent more than two decades of his life with the guerrillas. After the uprisings began in Syria, he returned to Rojava to help build the revolution.

On Xebat Dêrik's initiative, the autodefense units of the YXG (Yekinêyên Xweparastina Gel), which had been set up in 2011, were restructured into the YPG.

Killed as a result of a conspiracy

In addition to Turkish agents, Kurdish collaborators were also involved in the deadly conspiracy against Xebat Dêrik. The hit man was a member of the Bedro family from the environment of anti-revolutionary groups that founded the so-called ENKS (Kurdish National Council) in 2011. Xebat Dêrik was a guest at Abdullah Bedro's house when he was hit from behind shortly after leaving. Even then, this murder made clear Turkey's active "interest" in the situation in Rojava.