The People's Protection Units (, ; YPG), also known as People's Defense Units, are the main armed service of the Kurdish Supreme Committee, the government of Syrian Kurdistan (Rojava). The YPG is primarily Kurdish, but it also recruits Arabs, Turks, and westerners. There are Assyrian/Syriac Christian units integrated into its command structure (Sutoro and Syriac Military Council). The YPG was originally formed in 2004 by the Democratic Union Party (PYD) in Southern Kurdistan (i.e. northern Iraq) and was transferred to the service of the Kurdish Supreme Committee (which includes the PYD) in 2012. The YPG considers itself a democratic people's army and conducts internal elections as a method of appointing officers.