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Ed Webb

Arabs Across Syria Join the Kurdish-Led Syrian Democratic Forces - MERIP - 1 views

merip.org/...h-led-syrian-democratic-forces

Syria Arabs Kurds minorities civil_war ISIS ideology Rojava

shared by Ed Webb on 29 Jul 20 - Cached
  • Led by Kurds, the YPG evolved over time into the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF): a multi-ethnic, multi-religious force in which all the indigenous peoples of the region are represented. Arabs, Assyrians, Armenians, Yezidis, Circassians and Turkmen have fought alongside Kurds to defend their homeland. By 2019, when the SDF had liberated all of Syrian territory from ISIS control, there were some 100,000 fighters (including SDF and Internal Security Forces) under the leadership of SDF commander-in-chief Mazlum Abdi, a Syrian Kurd and former Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) cadre.[2] The majority of his rank-and-file fighters, however, were Arabs.
  • My field survey of over 300 SDF members reveals that there are three main reasons for the SDF’s success in recruiting and retaining Arabs: First, the SDF offered material incentives such as salaries and training opportunities.[3] Second, the existence of a common threat—first ISIS and now Turkey—solidified bonds between Kurds and Arabs and also prompted many to enlist. Third, the survey shows that many Arab members of the SDF support at least some, if not all, of the basic political principles upon which the SDF and the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) are based.
  • In September 2014, a joint operations room was established between the Free Syrian Army (FSA) and the YPG, known as Burkan al-Firat (Euphrates Volcano).[4] The ISIS siege of Kobane and ensuing US military support cemented the alliance between the YPG and a number of Arab units within the FSA, which led to the emergence of the SDF in October 2015.
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  • the SDF became the main partner force for the United States on the ground in Syria. In order to defeat ISIS, it was necessary to further expand the geographical reach of the SDF to Arab-majority cities such as Manbij, Raqqa, Tabqa and Deir Ezzor. In the course of this expansion, some Arab women were recruited as well. In July 2017, the YPJ (the women’s branch of the YPG) announced the creation of the first battalion of Arab women, the “Brigade of the Martyr Amara.”[5]
  • the expansion of the SDF and self-administration across north and east Syria was not always welcomed by Arab communities. The increase in Arab rank-and-file fighters has not yet been accompanied by an equally significant increase of Arabs in leadership positions, although Arabs have been promoted within both the military and civilian structures of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria. The secular and gender-egalitarian ideology is not embraced by some more conservative members of society
  • In an attempt to undo tribal hierarchies, administration officials are encouraging people to use the term al-raey, which means shepherd
  • during my visits to ramshackle YPJ outposts in Manbij, Raqqa, Al-Sheddadi, Tabqa, Ain Issa, Al-Hasakah and elsewhere, I met many Arab women. They had all enlisted in the YPJ voluntarily, as there is no conscription for women. Many of them were eager to tell their stories
  • name of the governing entity was changed to the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria and the Kurdish term Rojava was dropped in December 2016.[10] Although this decision angered some Kurdish nationalists, it was justified by the expansion of the territory beyond Kurdish-majority areas. The official logo recognizes the linguistic diversity of the region, and is in four languages: Arabic, Kurdish, Syriac-Aramaic and Turkish. Furthermore, in 2018 the de-facto capital or administrative center of the region was moved from Qamishli to Ain Issa, an Arab town
  • By 2019, the SDF was in de-facto control of approximately one-third of Syria. The territory they defend from incursions by ISIS, the Turkish government and Syrian government forces is an ethnically and religiously diverse region. These six regions—Jazira, Deir Ezzor, Raqqa, Tabqa, Manbij and Euphrates—are governed by the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, which operates semi-independently of Damascus. The Arabs who inhabit these six regions are not a homogenous group. While some Arabs have protested the policies of the Autonomous Administration, others openly endorse the new political project.
  • Inspired by an eclectic assortment of scholars, ranging from Murray Bookchin to Immanuel Wallerstein, the ideology that emerged is referred to as Democratic Confederalism. The nation-state is no longer a prize to be obtained but is now seen as part of the problem that led to the subjugation of Kurds in the first place, along with that of women and other minorities, and therefore to be avoided.
  • The emergence of Arab Apocis may be one of the many unexpected twists of the Syrian conflict, signifying the appeal of the Rojava revolution beyond Rojava.
  • A co-chair system was established where all leadership positions—from the most powerful institutions down to neighborhood communes—are held jointly by a man and a woman
  • here I focus on Arabs since they now constitute the majority of rank-and-file fighters and yet are frequently omitted from analyses of the SDF. Scholars, journalists, think tank analysts and government officials still incorrectly refer to the SDF as a Kurdish force.
  • joining the SDF entailed risks, especially for women. Anyone who joined the SDF from a city that was under the control of ISIS, or who joined from territory never controlled by the SDF, did so at great personal risk
  • The Syrian Democratic Forces is the only armed group in Syria that has a policy of not discriminating on the basis of race, ethnicity, religion or gender, which has allowed the SDF to develop into a truly multi-ethnic and multi-religious force. This radical egalitarianism clearly appealed to non-Arab minorities who suffered under decades of pan-Arabism promoted by the Baathist regime of the Asad family. Kurds from the far corners of Kurdistan were galvanized by the promise of the Rojava revolution. What is less well appreciated is that Arabs have also embraced these ideals and practices.
  • a large number of Arab respondents rejected the Turkish occupation of Syria and demanded that the land be returned to Syria. Contrary to analysts who portray the conflict as one solely between Turkey and the Kurds, my survey shows that Arab SDF members also view the Turkish incursions and expanding Turkish presence as an illegitimate foreign occupation of Syrian land
  • The SDF faces ongoing threats from the Asad regime, Turkey and ISIS cells. The Turkish intervention in October 2019, however, did not lead to a disintegration of the SDF, or even to any serious defections, as some had predicted.[14]
Ed Webb

Accountability for Islamic State Fighters: What Are the Options? - Lawfare - 1 views

www.lawfareblog.com/tate-fighters-what-are-options

Syria Turkey Iraq ISIS Russia US Albania Netherlands Germany Sweden EU prisoners justice terrorism

shared by Ed Webb on 12 Oct 19 - Cached
  • Trump’s sudden announcement that the U.S. would withdraw forces from along the Syria-Turkey border has already had dramatic consequences. Turkish armed forces launched an invasion into northern Syria dubbed “Operation Peace Spring,” in response to which the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the predominantly Kurdish military backed by the U.S.-led coalition, has warned that it will be forced to withdraw some of its guards from the Islamic State detention centers and camps to deal with the invasion
  • both the Islamic State and Syrian President Bashar al-Assad are taking advantage of the Turkish invasion to launch their own attacks within Syria: On Oct. 9, the Islamic State attacked an SDF position in Raqqa, the former de facto capital of the Islamic State, and Assad’s Russian-backed forces moved further into Manbij and Idlib. The same day, the U.S. reportedly helped move some of the “most dangerous” Islamic State detainees out of SDF custody but subsequently ordered a halt to any further operations against the Islamic State
  • By some estimates, the SDF is currently holding more than 10,000 Islamic State fighters—including at least 8,000 Iraqis and Syrians and 2,000 foreign fighters—in overflowing temporary detention centers in northeastern Syria. Thousands of family members of detainees are being held in camps for internally displaced persons in the same region
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  • The SDF has consistently asserted that it has limited capabilities to guard these facilities and has continually called for support from the coalition countries. Even before Trump’s announcement on Sunday, the head of the Kurdish forces expressed concern that the camp was at risk of falling under the control of the Islamic State. Despite the general consensus that the status quo was not sustainable, coalition countries have done little to address the problem and there has been no agreement on how to handle these fighters and their families.
  • Iraq reportedly intends to execute at least seven French nationals who were convicted under charges of being members of the Islamic State. There has been little clarity about exactly how these French citizens who had been fighting in Syria ended up in Iraqi detention centers, but experts suspect that they were transferred to Iraq by the SDF at the request of the French government after the French refused to allow them to return home
  • The situation may depend on who—among the SDF, Turkey, Syria and Russia—gains control of the northeastern territory. But if the security surrounding the detainees deteriorates, the Islamic State will likely exploit the situation and create a further opportunity for its ongoing resurgence
  • Although national courts in a conflict region usually provide the most obvious mechanism for criminal proceedings, neither Iraq nor the Kurds controlling territory in Syria have courts that are capable of achieving a just and fair form of accountability
  • a small subset of European governments—along with the SDF—have been calling for some sort of tribunal to deal with the detainees
  • Some see local prosecutions in Syria and Iraq as unrealistic options for foreign fighters, arguing instead for active repatriation followed by possible prosecution in the fighters’ home countries. This is also the option being urged by the U.S. government. Some practitioners even argue that European countries have an obligation to bring foreign fighters to justice under certain international legal instruments (specifically under U.N. Security Council resolutions 2178 [2014] and 2396 [2017]).
  • Countries outside of western Europe, including Kosovo, Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan have demonstrated the most initiative in repatriating their nationals. Kosovo, the country that had the highest number of its citizens per capita leave to join the caliphate, has made particularly notable repatriation efforts. In April, for example, the Balkan republic brought back 32 women, 74 children, and four men from SDF custody in Syria. The male returnees were immediately placed in detention, pending prosecution, while the women and children were allowed to return home.
  • some western European examples of the successful handling of returned foreign fighters:
  • European Union has also recently set up a counterterrorism register meant to facilitate prosecutions of returning foreign fighters from Iraq and Syria. The database is intended to be a repository for information from all EU countries about ongoing investigations and prosecutions of terrorist suspects who fought in Iraq and Syria so that all 28 member states have access to the same data and evidence
  • a growing number of calls for the establishment of some sort of ad hoc international criminal tribunal to deal with Islamic State fighters. Leaders from relevant U.N. agencies, Sweden, the Netherlands and the SDF have raised the idea of an international tribunal located in the region to deal with the detainees
  • President Trump maintains that Turkey will take control of the Islamic State prisoners, but it is unclear whether any Turkish officials agreed to assume this responsibility and the detainees are located further inside Syria than Turkey is expected to occupy during the current phase of their offensive. Even if the Turkish forces did start to police the camps, there is concern that Turkey’s security would be inadequate given the country’s past failures to crack down on and contain Islamic State cells within its own borders.
  • Russian-backed Syrian forces may end up in control of the detainees since the U.S. withdrawal from Syria has created an opening for Assad to strike a deal with the SDF. Given Assad’s history of putting thousands of Syrians into “filthy dungeons” to be “tortured and killed,” the Islamic State detainees would potentially be subjected to severe conditions with no prospect of a fair trial
Ed Webb

Syrian Kurdish Fighters Mount Counterattack Against Turkish-Backed Forces Using Network... - 0 views

foreignpolicy.com/...turkish-sdf-network-of-tunnels

Syria Turkey Kurds military

shared by Ed Webb on 16 Oct 19 - Cached
  • Trump said he spoke to both Mazloum and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan on Monday, and he got Erdogan’s commitment not to attack Kobani, another strategic border town controlled by the SDF. If Erdogan keeps his word, that is seen as the first step toward a cease-fire.  (Update: As of Tuesday evening, Turkish troops are attacking Kobani and kidnapping civilians, the U.S. representative of the Syrian Democratic Council told Foreign Policy.)
  • “The SDF found that they had no defense against Turkish air power, so they built tunnels along the border that they could fight out of,” the officer said, noting that U.S. troops conducted several rehearsals with the group on how to coordinate in the event of a Turkish invasion. U.S. forces also trained the SDF on how to build what is called a “defense in depth”—defense with multiple fallback lines—without committing fratricide, the officer said. The tunnels are defensive in nature—contrary to Turkish claims, said another U.S. Army officer who fought in Syria with the SDF. 
Ed Webb

SDF says no more anti-ISIL operations after Turkish attacks | Syria's War News | Al Jaz... - 0 views

www.aljazeera.com/...erations-after-turkish-attacks

Turkey Syria Kurds PKK SDF ISIS US USA military

shared by Ed Webb on 02 Dec 22 - Cached
  • A Syrian group which Turkey accuses of being involved in the November 13 Istanbul bombing has said it will no longer participate in joint counterterrorism operations with the United States and other allies, as it continues to come under Turkish attack. A spokesperson for the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which controls territory in northern Syria, said on Friday that “all coordination and joint counterterrorism operations” with the US-led coalition battling remnants of ISIL (ISIS) in Syria as well as “all the joint special operations we were carrying out regularly” had been halted.
  • The SDF has long threatened that fighting off a new Turkish incursion would divert resources away from protecting a prison holding ISIL fighters or fighting ISIL sleeper cells still waging hit-and-run attacks in Syria.
Ed Webb

Washington on the spot as its Syrian Kurd allies are drawn into PKK-KDP fight - Al-Moni... - 0 views

www.al-monitor.com/...es-sdf-pkk-kdp-fight-iraq.html

Kurds Iraq Syria Turkey PKK KDP SDF YPG military

shared by Ed Webb on 26 Dec 20 - Cached
  • Tensions between the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Iraq (KDP) and the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) have sharply escalated amid claims that a PKK-linked Syrian militia that is backed by the United States attacked Iraqi Kurdish peshmerga forces
  • The PKK-affiliated Kurdistan Communities Union countered by issuing a statement accusing the KDP of spreading “dirty propaganda.”   “Such a misleading propaganda legitimizes policies adopted by the Turkish State, that aims at extermination of the Kurdish people, and poses grave dangers to the future of our people,''
  • two days after a peshmerga fighter was killed in a separate clash between PKK and KDP fighters in the mountainous Amedi region of Dahuk province, which borders Turkey and Syria
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  • Tensions between the KDP and the PKK have been rising since the summer, when KDP forces deployed in Zine Warte, a strategic mountain pass linking the PKK’s main bases in the Qandil mountains along the Iran-Iraq border to valleys accessing the north and south. The move came as Turkey, which has thousands of forces deployed across Iraqi Kurdistan, launched a large-scale land and air offensive against the PKK. The operations, now slowed down by unfavorable winter weather, are part of a broader campaign to encircle and cut off the PKK’s strongholds in Amedi, Qandil and Yazidi-dominated Sinjar near the Syria border from one another.
  • The KDP has repeatedly called on both Turkey and the PKK to carry their fight elsewhere as Kurdish civilians continue to get killed in Turkish drone strikes, but to no effect.
  • An SDF source who declined to be identified by name denied KRG allegations that the Syrian Kurdish force was facilitating the passage of YPG and PKK fighters into Sinjar. “These claims aren’t true and the Iraqis know that,”
  • Iraqi Kurdistan’s Fish Khabur border crossing to northeast Syria is the main supply line for incoming humanitarian aid and for military and logistical supplies for coalition forces based in an area run by Syrian Kurds. The KDP is the dominant force on the Iraqi side of the frontier. Should relations between the KDP and the SDF deteriorate, that access might be compromised for the 700 to 1,000 mainly American forces deployed across the border in Syria.
  • An Iraqi analyst who closely monitors the Kurdish region said in emailed comments to Al-Monitor that the KDP sees Kobane “as an extension of the PKK in some way. At the same time [Kobane] has with the support of the Americans been able to establish control over the Syrian side [of the common border] and reduce the influence of the KDP in that area, which is something [the KDP] doesn’t like.”
  • PKK source in the Iraqi Kurdistan region argued, however, that the root of the current tensions was Turkey, whose continued repression of its own large Kurdish minority is bloodily spilling over its borders into Syria and Iraq. “The KDP is not exercising its own will, but that of Turkey, because of its [economic] dependency on Turkey,” he said. Kurdistan’s oil, a main source of income, flows through a pipeline to Turkish export terminals on the Mediterranean Sea.
Ed Webb

Syria's Arab and Kurdish women join forces to fight for future - Al-Monitor: the Pulse ... - 0 views

www.al-monitor.com/...men-sdf-islamic-state.amp.html

Syria Kurds war military women gender

shared by Ed Webb on 07 Nov 17 - Cached
  • As the fight expands beyond Kurdish-dominated areas into Arab-heavy territory, a growing number of Arabs are either directly joining the Syrian Kurdish forces or Arab groups allied with them. They are collectively known as the Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF. An SDF official told Al-Monitor that as of Oct. 22, at least 500 Arab women had enlisted with the YPJ. Women fighters were the first to declare victory on Oct. 19 in Raqqa’s main square. “Many were Arabs,” the official said.
  • “So long as women are doing their jobs in the public sphere and there is full transparency, I don’t think even becoming fighters is that controversial in our society. Eastern Syria is not too religious.”
  • Ocalan’s rambling treatises on gender equality known as “jineoloji” — a play on words based on “jin,” which means “woman” in Kurdish — resonate with women of different ethnicities and creeds. This self-professed “science of women” is drilled into men and women across Rojava, or “Western Kurdistan,” as the Kurdish-dominated swath of territory controlled by the YPG is known. 
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  • “The anomaly of female leadership appears to be more acceptable among the Kurds than in most other Middle Eastern societies.”
  • Like many of her fellow Arab fighters she has picked up Kurmanji, the most common Kurdish dialect spoken in Rojava. “We are applying reverse assimilation here,” jokes her commander, a Syrian Kurd. She is referring to the central government’s decades-long drive to forcibly assimilate the Kurds by transplanting tens of thousands of Arabs into their midst, among other schemes.
  • “If women start using their positions to humiliate men, that could be a real problem in Arab society, far greater than any ethnic frictions that are likely to arise,” Hassan warned. “Our men are very sensitive, after all.”
Ed Webb

Raqqa's dirty secret - BBC News - 0 views

www.bbc.co.uk/...raqqas_dirty_secret

Syria military ISIS terrorism jihadism extremists

shared by Ed Webb on 13 Nov 17 - Cached
  • three days of hard driving, carrying a deadly cargo - hundreds of IS fighters, their families and tonnes of weapons and ammunition
  • The deal to let IS fighters escape from Raqqa – de facto capital of their self-declared caliphate – had been arranged by local officials. It came after four months of fighting that left the city obliterated and almost devoid of people. It would spare lives and bring fighting to an end. The lives of the Arab, Kurdish and other fighters opposing IS would be spared. But it also enabled many hundreds of IS fighters to escape from the city. At the time, neither the US and British-led coalition, nor the SDF, which it backs, wanted to admit their part.
  • the BBC has spoken to dozens of people who were either on the convoy, or observed it, and to the men who negotiated the deal
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  • He and the rest of the drivers are angry. It’s weeks since they risked their lives for a journey that ruined engines and broke axles but still they haven’t been paid. It was a journey to hell and back, he says.
  • As soon as we entered, we saw IS fighters with their weapons and suicide belts on. They booby-trapped our trucks. If something were to go wrong in the deal, they would bomb the entire convoy. Even their children and women had suicide belts on
  • We took out around 4,000 people including women and children - our vehicle and their vehicles combined. When we entered Raqqa, we thought there were 200 people to collect. In my vehicle alone, I took 112 people.
  • the convoy was six to seven kilometres long. It included almost 50 trucks, 13 buses and more than 100 of the Islamic State group’s own vehicles
  • Ten trucks were loaded with weapons and ammunition
  • It was also understood that no foreigners would be allowed to leave Raqqa alive. Back in May, US Defence Secretary James Mattis described the fight against IS as a war of “annihilation”.“Our intention is that the foreign fighters do not survive the fight to return home to north Africa, to Europe, to America, to Asia, to Africa. We are not going to allow them to do so,” he said on US television. But foreign fighters – those not from Syria and Iraq - were also able to join the convoy, according to the drivers
  • In light of the BBC investigation, the coalition now admits the part it played in the deal. Some 250 IS fighters were allowed to leave Raqqa, with 3,500 of their family members. “We didn’t want anyone to leave,” says Col Ryan Dillon, spokesman for Operation Inherent Resolve, the Western coalition against IS. “But this goes to the heart of our strategy, ‘by, with and through’ local leaders on the ground. It comes down to Syrians – they are the ones fighting and dying, they get to make the decisions regarding operations,”
  • According to Abu Fawzi, there were three or four foreigners with each driver. They would beat him and call him names, such as “infidel”, or “pig”. They might have been helping the fighters escape, but the Arab drivers were abused the entire route, they say. And threatened. “They said, 'Let us know when you rebuild Raqqa - we will come back,’” says Abu Fawzi. “They were defiant and didn’t care. They accused us of kicking them out of Raqqa.” A female foreign fighter threatened him with her AK-47.
  • “A one-eyed Tunisian fighter told me to fear God,” he says. “In a very calm voice, he asked why I had shaved. He said they would come back and enforce Sharia once again. I told him we have no problem with Sharia laws. We're all Muslims.”
  • Despite the abuse they suffered, the lorry drivers agreed - when it came to money, IS settled its bills.
  • IS may have been homicidal psychopaths, but they're always correct with the money
  • Along the route, many people we spoke to said they heard coalition aircraft, sometimes drones, following the convoy.
  • When the last of the convoy were about to cross, a US jet flew very low and deployed flares to light up the area. IS fighters shat their pants
  • Past the last SDF checkpoint, inside IS territory - a village between Markada and Al-Souwar - Abu Fawzi reached his destination. His lorry was full of ammunition and IS fighters wanted it hidden. When he finally made it back to safety, he was asked by the SDF where he’d dumped the goods. “We showed them the location on the map and he marked it so uncle Trump can bomb it later,” he says.
  • “Those highly placed foreigners have their own networks of smugglers. It’s usually the same people who organised their access to Syria. They co-ordinate with one another.”
  • battle-hardened militants have spread across Syria and further afield – and many of them aren’t done fighting yet
Ed Webb

The city fit for no-one - BBC News - 0 views

www.bbc.co.uk/...aqqa_syria_islamic_state_group

Syria ISIS military civil_war

shared by Ed Webb on 29 Sep 17 - No Cached
  • Tales of an “indiscriminate” bombing campaign, flattened buildings and hundreds of alleged civilian deaths rattled the local population. In June, Raqqa’s siege was completed and the US campaign was in full swing. Civilians were trapped inside with IS fighters. “America is a superpower. It was supposed to use laser-guided bombs and precision munitions. What did we get instead? Massive bombs, mortar rounds and countless artillery strikes. Is that how you liberate Raqqa? You’re murdering civilians instead,” Hatem says, his voice now quivering with a mix of anger and despair. Airwars, a group monitoring civilian deaths in Russian and US-led coalition air strikes Iraq and Syria, says that US-led forces dropped 5,775 bombs, shells and missiles in Raqqa in August alone, resulting in at least 433 likely civilian casualties.
  • the Islamic State group was quick to use civilian deaths to its own advantage and pumped one propaganda video after the other showing burnt corpses and maimed civilians.
  • “We know that for IS, the blood of civilians is very cheap. But is it the same for Americans? There was no-one operating the mortar that day. There were no IS fighters nearby even. It was there for nearly a month and their drones were flying night and day. Why bomb us? Why?”
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  • “There were 20, 30 civilians being killed every day. People were getting buried under the rubble of their own homes,” he says. Islamic State fighters, he says, we getting aggressive with the locals. At one point, they stopped sending bulldozers and trucks to move the rubble and rescue civilians. “They’d ask, ‘You want me to sacrifice the life of a brother for a corpse?’ How can you argue with animals like that?”
  • The SDF has its own sniper unit. Four foreigners, from Germany, Spain, the US and the UK.
  • IS fighters have mined the buildings and the roads, so few have been cleared. They’ve left motion sensors in some buildings so that when SDF forces enter, or open a cupboard door, a bomb detonates. Every home and workplace has been damaged. Even a captured IS weapons store has been left untouched for fear of booby traps.
  • Civilians in Raqqa, there may be as many as 20,000 in IS territory, are used as bait as well as human shields.
  • Time and time again, entire buildings are taken to kill a single fighter. It’s unsurprising so little of Raqqa is left. The SDF lacks the manpower to clear buildings themselves, so coalition bombs do the work.
  • IS had promised to grow a new empire from these streets. Instead, the bodies of its fighters clog the gutters. Every few hundred metres, there is another one. Some cut in half, some still with their weapons. Two men were hiding in a building doorway, but they were spotted. They lie dead where they stood, one, his legs sliced from his body. The fins of the missile that killed them stick out of the concrete pavement. There are scorch marks on at the building's entrance. An Arab fighter, with a skull and crossbones patch on his uniform, steps over the bodies, he has to check the building for booby traps.
  • They think it is mostly foreign fighters left inside Raqqa now. When I ask how many, most seem to agree: 400, no more.
Ed Webb

What's Turkey Trying to Achieve in Syria? | The National Interest - 2 views

nationalinterest.org/...key-trying-achieve-syria-25162

Turkey Syria military PKK Kurds Islamists

shared by Ed Webb on 02 Apr 18 - No Cached
  • With the Islamic State’s surviving fighters relegated to small pockets of the most austere bastions of the Syrian desert, the Turkish army likely sees an opportunity to capture Syria’s northern border, in order to project power, consolidate territory and expand its own sphere of influence throughout the near abroad.
  • Erdoğan, aims to mobilize his base at home with a “glorious little war” and to boost his cachet among surviving jihadist groups
  • While the Turkish military and the Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army have advanced considerably to surround Afrin, and entered the city center on March 18,  the fifty-eighth day of the operation, many lives have been lost, including several dozen Turkish soldiers, over a hundred Free Syrian Army members and some three thousand YPG fighters, according to official Turkish statements.
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  • Turkey seeks to dominate northern Syria by using its local Syrian Sunni populations, even radical ones, as proxies
  • Although the YPG administration insists it has evolved beyond the Marxist ideology of its founder, Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) leader Abdullah Öcalan, many in the region note the markers of Marxist-Leninist teachings in the YPG’s current ideology. Neither can the Syrian Arab asylees return to homes and land controlled today by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), currently the chief ally of the U.S. military. Further complicating the relationship is the longtime problem of forced military conscription of Arab teens into the ranks of the SDF, and lingering mistrust between the YPG Kurds and the Arabs.
  • Ed Webb on 02 Apr 18
     
    Note there are more pages to this report
Ed Webb

They're Still Pulling Bodies Out of ISIS' Capital - 0 views

www.thedailybeast.com/ing-bodies-out-of-isis-capital

Syria US USA UK France war military rights

shared by Ed Webb on 24 Mar 18 - No Cached
  • Overall, an estimated 2,000 civilians were killed during bitter fighting for control of Raqqa, according to local casualty monitors—in an assault dominated by U.S. firepower
  • international media coverage of Raqqa dwindles away. Once the center of countless stories about the so-called Islamic caliphate, ISIS’s self-declared capital is now 80 per cent uninhabitable due to destruction from recent fighting, according to the United Nations.
  • according to an Airwars analysis, at least 95 per cent of strikes in Raqqa and all artillery strikes were American. At least 21,000 munitions—and possibly thousands more—struck the city
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  • Local monitors estimate that upwards of 2,000 were killed by all parties to the fighting
  • In Raqqa, a greater reliance on air and artillery strikes ahead of more cautious ground advances—as well as the limited firepower of local partner forces (the largest weapons wielded by the SDF were 120mm mortars)—all indicated that civilian harm would be more often tied to Coalition actions. Yet nine months later, only 11 percent of Coalition civilian harm assessments have resulted in an admission of responsibility. Out of 121 reports so far assessed for the Raqqa assault, the Coalition has confirmed involvement in just 13 strikes, which it says left 21 civilians dead and six injured—far short of the 1,400 likely Coalition-inflicted deaths Airwars tracked between June and October.
  • Fired from afar and usually targeted based on intelligence from local proxy ground forces,the SDF, U.S. bombs, missiles and artillery shells rained almost continuously into Raqqa. According to official figures provided to Airwars, the Coalition launched more than 20,000 munitions into the city during the five-month campaign. In August, that barrage had officially increased to more than one bomb, missile, rocket or artillery round fired every eight minutes—a total of 5,775 munitions during the month
  • During the first half of the battle for Raqqa, fire from A-10 “Warthog” ground assault aircraft accounted for roughly 44 percent of weapon use in Raqqa. The extensive use of A-10s in such an urban setting—which fire 30mm cannons and can also deploy bombs and missiles—was described by U.S. officials at the time as unprecedented
  • Quentin Sommerville, the BBC’s veteran Middle East Correspondent, reported extensively from both Raqqa and Mosul. His battlefield dispatches from deserted areas of Raqqa that had been captured from ISIS showed a city in ruins, even as fighting still raged in other neighborhoods. “24 hours of coverage wouldn’t do justice to the total devastation across Raqqa,” he tweeted from the city on Sept. 17. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”
  • The so-called Islamic State bears significant responsibility for the destruction and death toll at Raqqa, according to investigators. “By deliberately placing civilians in areas where they were exposed to combat operations, for the purpose of rendering those areas immune from attack, ISIL militants committed the war crime of using human shields in Raqqah governorate,” the UN’s Commission of Inquiry for Syria noted in a recent report. “Despite the fact that civilians were being used as human shields, international coalition airstrikes continued apace on a daily basis, resulting in the destruction of much of Raqqah city and the death of countless civilians, many of whom were buried in improvised cemeteries, including parks,” the Commission also wrote.
  • Despite the horrors experienced by civilians during recent fighting, press reports from Raqqa have been filed far less regularly than its status as the former “ISIS capital” might have suggested. In Mosul, many more journalists covered the battle—often revealing important details about the civilian toll. In December for example, a major field investigation by the Associated Press put the overall civilian death in Mosul above 9,000.
  • “In Mosul, media were falling over each other; almost no stone was left unturned,” said Sommerville. “But Raqqa was more difficult to reach during the offensive, and is still difficult to get to. There we have barely scratched the surface. It seemed to me that wherever we went there were stories of civilian casualties. And no one was investigating.”
  • “The Coalition has not conducted interviews on the ground in or around Raqqa as part of any civilian casualty investigation,” a Coalition spokesperson told Airwars.“It is striking to see the Coalition continue to deny civilian casualties even after independent on the ground investigations found the contrary,” said Nadim Houry, of Human Rights Watch. “If they want to talk to survivors, they only need to visit these areas.”
Ed Webb

Pentagon guardianship of Syrian oil fields faces pushback - 0 views

www.al-monitor.com/...syria-oil-fields-pushback.html

US USA military Syria oil energy Russia Iraq Turkey Kurds Trump

shared by Ed Webb on 22 Oct 19 - Cached
  • Defense Secretary Mark Esper says the US administration is considering leaving a residual force of 200 American troops in Syria to keep the Bashar al-Assad regime and Russia away from the country’s contested rigs and derricks. This plan is likely to face pushback from within the administration and among allies, as well as lead to potential legal challenges from Congress, current and former American officials told Al-Monitor.
  • “I don’t know where all this oil infrastructure stuff is coming from,” the senior US official said. “Maybe playing to what [Trump] wants here. We have not seized the oil fields.”
  • current Pentagon plans focused on partnering a small American force with both the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) and Sunni Arabs in northeastern Syria. “It’s small, and no more Europeans,”
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  • the American withdrawal appeared to pick up pace on Monday as a US ground convoy carrying troops and equipment out of Syria from the main American base in Kobane “is complete,” coalition spokesman Col. Myles Caggins told Al-Monitor in a statement. “The forces in the convoy will eventually be repositioned throughout the region after a temporary pause.”
  • “The biggest concern for the US-led coalition in Deir ez-Zor should be force protection,” said Nicholas Heras, a Middle East fellow at the Center for a New American Security. “There is a lot of trial by fire that the US forces will have to directly step into in Deir ez-Zor, and they will not have the YPG as a layer of protection for them.”
  • The Kurdish Red Crescent, the primary provider of medical care in the SDF-held northeast, said on Sunday that the Turkish incursion into Syria had killed 83 people and left 231 wounded since Oct. 9.
  • In February 2018, Russian paramilitaries and pro-regime forces staged a large attack on an SDF-held field, known as Conoco, that left 200-300 dead, after the United States repeatedly warned the Moscow-backed forces to stop their advance.
  • The Assad regime has long coveted retaking the oil fields that dot Syria's northern and eastern provinces that have fallen out of Damascus’ hands as IS exploited the turmoil an of eight-year civil war
  • Experts worry the administration could be stretching a 2001 legal authority that the US military uses in Syria to combat terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda and IS. “My sense is that the footprint you’d keep in the Deir ez-Zor oil fields is not anything like a counter-IS operation,”
  • with American troops already headed out of the country, protecting oil installations, such as the United States did in the hourslong 2018 battle against Russian paramilitaries and pro-regime forces on an eastern Syrian oil field may prove more difficult.
  • The plan to reposition American forces into Iraq would face significant bureaucratic challenges, as the number of US troops is capped at 5,200, and the Iraqi government could impose limits on cross-border raids
Ed Webb

Syria: Cholera surge sparks fears of uncontrollable outbreak in Idlib camps | Middle Ea... - 0 views

www.middleeasteye.net/...era-surge-fears-outbreak-camps

Syria water climate health disease conflict

shared by Ed Webb on 27 Sep 22 - Cached
  • the outbreak is linked to the presence of bacteria responsible for cholera in the waters of the Euphrates river, the river's water level has suffered a serious decline because of climate change and is, in many areas, transforming into swamp land.
  • “The lack of treated drinking water through water stations and the irrigation of vegetables from the Euphrates river were the main cause of cholera infecting my wife and child.”
  • "We do not have potable water because of the interruption of pipe water, which makes us buy water from tanks filled from surface wells, which are not subject to sanitary control at all,"
  • ...5 more annotations...
  • cholera crisis is partly a result of the effects of climate change but also a consequence of the civil war
  • the war has damaged two-thirds of water treatment plants, half of pumping stations and one-third of water towers.
  • Turkey has justified stopping the pumping of the station, claiming it was due to the cutting off of electricity by the SDF, which controls the power station in al-Darbasiyah, which feeds the Ras al-Ain and Tal Abyad regions.
  • "We demanded several times that Alouk station come under international auspices and that a UN flag be raised on it in order [for it] not to be bombarded and interrupted," Sarhan said. "The conflict between Turkey, Russia, the SDF and Assad should not be at the expense of vulnerable people."
  • “Our concerns are not about the spread of cholera within cities, but its spread within the camps, which are an incubator environment for infectious diseases due to the weak humanitarian response in them,”
Ed Webb

The Trump administration's mixed messages on Syria - Axios - 0 views

www.axios.com/e7-4f96-9bc8-caf0bdde9cf7.html

Syria US USA military diplomacy

shared by Ed Webb on 29 Mar 18 - No Cached
  • President Trump, the Pentagon, and the State Department made conflicting statements about U.S. involvement in Syria on Thursday
  • President Trump: "We'll be coming out of Syria like, very soon. Let the other people take care of it now. Very soon, very soon we're coming out."Pentagon: "Important work remains to ensure the lasting defeat these violent extremists....We cannot allow our focus to deviate from the most important task of eliminating ISIS from the region...We will continue to support the SDF." State Department: Spokeswoman Heather Nauert said she is unaware of any plans to pull the U.S. out of Syria. Former Secretary Rex Tillerson said at the beginning of the year that the U.S. should have a long-term military presence in the region.
Ed Webb

The Kurds Are Officially Ready to Partner With Assad and Putin - 0 views

foreignpolicy.com/...a-russia-putin-turkey-genocide

Syria Turkey war opinion Kurds US USA Russia Iran diplomacy civil_war

shared by Ed Webb on 15 Oct 19 - Cached
  • The SDF has 70,000 soldiers who have fought against jihadi extremism, ethnic hatred, and the oppression of women since 2015. They have become a very disciplined, professional fighting force. They never fired a single bullet toward Turkey. U.S. soldiers and officers now know us well and always praise our effectiveness and skill.
  • The jihadi terrorists of the Islamic State came to Syria from all over the world. We are the ones who should fight them, because they have occupied our lands, looted our villages, killed our children, and enslaved our women.
  • Amid the lawlessness of war, we always stuck with our ethics and discipline, unlike many other nonstate actors. We defeated al Qaeda, we eradicated the Islamic State, and, at the same time, we built a system of good governance based on small government, pluralism, and diversity. We provided services through local governing authorities for Arabs, Kurds, and Syriac Christians. We called on a pluralistic Syrian national identity that is inclusive for all. This is our vision for Syria’s political future: decentralized federalism, with religious freedom and respect for mutual differences.
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  • We guard more than 12,000 Islamic State terrorist prisoners and bear the burden of their radicalized wives and children. We also protect this part of Syria from Iranian militias.
  • At Washington’s request, we agreed to withdraw our heavy weapons from the border area with Turkey, destroy our defensive fortifications, and pull back our most seasoned fighters. Turkey would never attack us so long as the U.S. government was true to its word with us.
  • We, however, are not asking for American soldiers to be in combat. We know that the United States is not the world police. But we do want the United States to acknowledge its important role in achieving a political solution for Syria. We are sure that Washington has sufficient leverage to mediate a sustainable peace between us and Turkey.
  • light of the invasion by Turkey and the existential threat its attack poses for our people, we may have to reconsider our alliances. The Russians and the Syrian regime have made proposals that could save the lives of millions of people who live under our protection. We do not trust their promises. To be honest, it is hard to know whom to trust.
  • We know that we would have to make painful compromises with Moscow and Bashar al-Assad if we go down the road of working with them. But if we have to choose between compromises and the genocide of our people, we will surely choose life for our people.
  • The reason we allied ourselves with the United States is our core belief in democracy. We are disappointed and frustrated by the current crisis. Our people are under attack, and their safety is our paramount concern. Two questions remain: How can we best protect our people? And is the United States still our ally?
Ed Webb

Pentagon to stay in Islamic State fight from Iraq - 0 views

www.al-monitor.com/...t-islamic-state-from-iraq.html

Syria Iraq Turkey US USA military Kurds diplomacy ISIS

shared by Ed Webb on 16 Oct 19 - Cached
  • The Pentagon expects to fight the Islamic State from Iraq, a senior defense official said today, as American troops are set to leave northern Syria under pressure from a Turkish offensive probing deeper into the war-torn country than the Defense Department anticipated.
  • The US Central Command is still planning the details of how to remotely wage the campaign, which has leaned heavily on a Kurdish troops that have struck a deal for protection with the Bashar al-Assad regime under intense military duress from Turkey’s three-pronged drive into the country.
  • it was not immediately clear how the US would be able to win back the trust of the Kurdish People’s Protection units and the SDF, who have called the Donald Trump administration’s move to allow a Turkish incursion into the so-called security mechanism zone a “betrayal.”
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  • Though Turkey has “committed” that it will have control of its military and proxy forces, the Pentagon has seen Free Syrian Army units releasing IS prisoners as Kurdish guards have left, another defense official told Al-Monitor on Monday.
  • Any effort to convince Iraq to take on more US troops would face significant political headwinds. The country has been rocked by nearly two weeks of protests, with young Iraqis pouring into the streets to demonstrate against corruption and poor living conditions, posing a threat to Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi's political future. A growing number of parliamentarians have already called for American forces to leave the country this year. US troop levels in Iraq, currently over 5,000, are capped under so-called "force management levels," though the Pentagon can rotate in more units on shorter missions.
  • The Pentagon’s top policy official will join Vice President Mike Pence's delegation set to urge Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to cease the Turkish offensive. Undersecretary of Defense John Rood will head to Ankara from within the region to join national security adviser Robert O’Brien and Jim Jeffrey, the special representative for Syria engagement, for the talks. According to a statement, Pence will tell Erdogan that US sanctions on top Turkish officials will remain in place until a cease-fire deal is reached. The Turkish president said on Tuesday that Turkey would “never” agree to stop the assault. 
Ed Webb

Turkish Arrests Reveal Washington's False Assumptions in Syria | Wilson Center - 0 views

www.wilsoncenter.org/...ngtons-false-assumptions-syria

US USA diplomacy analysis opinion Turkey Syria Kurds

shared by Ed Webb on 05 Jun 20 - Cached
  • On May 14, 2020, the Turkish government carried out another wave of arrests against Kurdish mayors in the country’s southeast; using politically motivated terrorism charges to replace them with government chosen appointees. Of the 65 cities in the country that elected mayors from the predominantly Kurdish Peoples’ Democratic Party (the HDP) last year, only 14 are still led by the candidate their people chose. The other cities have all seen their elected mayors either jailed, replaced, or simply never allowed to take office at all.[i]
  • as the Turkish government continues to arrest mayors based on their political party’s relationship with the PKK, it should be clear that Ankara does not see the threat it is facing in narrow security terms. Rather it sees itself as locked in a multi-front confrontation with the PKK-aligned Kurdish nationalist movement in the region. From Ankara’s point of view, the YPG’s success in winning international support and building a semi-autonomous administration in Syria was part of the same strategic challenge as the HDP’s success in winning mayoral races and managing cities across southeastern Anatolia
  • Turkey’s deepening authoritarianism went hand in hand with the breakdown of U.S.-Turkish relations, and, ultimately, the end of America’s anti-ISIS policy
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  • as long as Erdogan and his nationalist partners saw the PKK, YPG and HDP as a single, unified threat to their country’s security and their own hold on power, pursuing such a policy would have proven difficult. Moreover, Washington did not try. Instead, both the Obama and Trump administrations sought to offer Turkey military and intelligence support in its fight against the PKK while turning a blind eye to Turkey’s domestic repression of the HDP in order to assuage Turkish anger over U.S. cooperation with the YPG
  • Ankara’s goal was never border security. Rather it was to undermine the YPG’s political project in its entirety
  • Currently, the State Department’s Syria team is pushing for reconciliation between the YPG and rival Kurdish factions that Ankara views as more politically palatable. The logic, as reported by Al Monitor’s Amberin Zaman, is that such a deal would “weaken Turkey’s argument that the autonomous administration is a ‘PKK terror state” and “end Turkey’s objections to the U.S.-SDF partnership, shielding the northeast from further Turkish attacks…”[iv]  But from Ankara’s point of view, a YPG led government given time to consolidate itself by co-opting rival Kurdish factions, might well prove even more threatening – still a “PKK terror state” in Ankara’s eyes, only now a more powerful one.
  • Where U.S. officials sought to show Ankara that the YPG had become a multi-ethnic rather than purely Kurdish force, Ankara saw a force that was still Kurdish-led but now had a newfound capacity to expand into predominantly Arab regions.
  • Washington should use its remaining influence in Syria to help the YPG preserve as much autonomy as possible in its dealings with the Damascus government
Ed Webb

The Halkbank Case Should Be a Very Big Deal - Lawfare - 0 views

www.lawfareblog.com/k-case-should-be-very-big-deal

US USA Trump election politics analysis Syria Turkey KSA Saudi corruption Erdogan Iran sanctions

shared by Ed Webb on 31 Oct 20 - Cached
  • If the New York Times’s story about the Justice Department’s handling of the case of  Turkish bank—and President Trump’s interference in that case—had broken any other week, it would be a very big deal. A week before the election, the country inured to the president’s propensity to abuse law enforcement power, it has barely merited a yawn.  The case is worth your time.
  • Berman’s bizarre firing may have been related to a pressure campaign by Barr and the White House to frustrate a high-profile investigation by Berman’s office. The story of Trump and Barr’s efforts to hamstring the investigation into the Turkish bank, Halkbank, says a great deal about Trump’s abuses of law enforcement, his financial entanglements abroad and his susceptibility to foreign influence.
  • an alleged scheme on the part of the state-owned Turkish bank to evade U.S. sanctions on Iran
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  • The investigation was of great interest to Turkish strongman Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who has sought since 2016 to quash the probe. According to the Times, Erdogan may have come close to succeeding.
  • a meeting between Trump and Erdogan in 2018, during which Trump declared Halkbank to be innocent and told Erdogan he would, in Bolton’s words, “take care of things.” He then asked Bolton to reach out to then-Acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker on the matter. Later in 2018, after Trump and Erdogan spoke again, the Times reports that the White House told the southern district that the attorney general, the treasury security and the secretary of state would all become more involved in the case. 
  • Mnuchin had already reached out to the Justice Department seeking to scale down the potential fine paid by Halkbank in any settlement, following direct outreach by Erdogan’s son-in-law
  • Whitaker ordered Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein to shut down the Halkbank case—stating, confusingly, that an indictment of the bank could pose risks to U.S. forces in Syria. Department officials opted to simply ignore Whitaker’s request. But after Barr was confirmed as attorney general, he too put pressure on the southern district, pushing prosecutors to allow Halkbank to walk away with only a fine and a limited acknowledgment of wrongdoing—a proposal that Berman reportedly described as “completely wrong.”
  • The first and more nefarious possibility is that the president pressured the Department of Justice to go easy on Halkbank and Erdogan’s cronies in order to protect his own sizable financial interests in Turkey. The second possibility is less horrible, but it’s not exactly reassuring. Perhaps Trump was swayed by Erdogan’s influence to make policy decisions that cut against the prosecutorial interests of his own government
  • no plausible benign explanations for Trump’s conduct here
  • in December 2018, following a call with Erdogan, Trump suddenly reversed course and ordered the complete withdrawal of U.S. troops—a move so unexpected that it ultimately led Secretary of Defense James Mattis and other senior officials to resign in protest. After another intervention by Trump in October 2019, following another call with Erdogan, Turkey was left in control of a broad swathe of Syria’s northern border, including Kurdish areas important to SDF allies of the United States.
  • efforts have continued both through direct engagement between Turkish and American officials and through the hiring of individuals close to the president himself—including, inevitably, his personal lawyer, Rudy Giuliani
  • Trump certainly appears to have come to value what he sees as a personal relationship with Erdogan, lauding Erdogan as “a hell of a leader” and bragging that he is “the only one [Erdogan] will listen to” among NATO allies
  • Trump even invited Erdogan to a meeting at the White House in November 2019, just weeks after slapping (and then removing) sanctions on Turkey for its offensive into northern Syria
  • Trump has a long record of puzzling policy interventions when it comes to Turkey
  • it was just before Trump’s December 2018 Syria withdrawal order that Whitaker suggested that failing to drop the investigation against Halkbank might result to threats to U.S. forces in Syria—an argument that might have channeled threats that Erdogan’s regime was publicly making at the time.
  • he made a cursory review of Erdogan’s memo offering a thin legal theory about US sanctions and impulsively sided with the authoritarian leader over the prosecutors of the southern district
  • The Trump administration has almost entirely declined to criticize Erdogan’s bad-and-worsening record on human rights, as he and his regime have engaged in politically motivated investigations and prosecutions at home and turned a blind eye to atrocities in those parts of Syria under its control
  • The Trump administration has also refused to impose statutorily-required sanctions on Turkey for its purchase of a prohibited Russian missile system, without explanation and despite congressional pressure to do so. 
  • What exactly Trump has gotten in exchange for these positions is far from clear
  • Erdogan’s consistent ability to come out on top in Trump’s policy deliberations is, to say the least, impressive. And here it’s impossible to ignore Trump’s financial interests in the country: according to the Times’s review of Trump’s tax documents, he received profits of at least $2.6 million from business operations in Turkey between 2015 and 2018. And earlier reporting by the Times on Trump’s taxes describes how the Turkish government and business community “have not hesitated to leverage various Trump enterprises to their advantage,” strategically booking Trump properties to host events in efforts to curry favor with the president. 
  • If the president was motivated, in whole or in part, by a desire to curry favor with Erdogan in order to benefit his personal finances, that would be a grave abuse of office and plainly impeachable conduct
  • Trump has already been impeached for abusing his office for private campaign benefit; abuse of office for personal financial enrichment would be even worse.
  • this is the type of complex policy decision where it is nearly impossible to establish conclusively improper motives
  • The Halkbank situation is exactly why presidents are expected to abide by ethics rules—including divesting from business interests—and why Trump’s refusal to adhere to the norms of good governance presented serious national security implications from the outset
  • Having taken no effort to avoid the conflict, Trump isn’t entitled to the benefit of the doubt. And notably, those privy to Trump’s actual decisionmaking with respect to Turkey aren’t extending that benefit.
  • brazen financial corruption
  • If he wasn’t seeking financial benefit, then Trump has somehow been persuaded by Erdogan to take actions that contravene his own stated policy goals. A president who is so easily outwitted and susceptible to improper influence is a frightening thing
  • Saudi Arabia and its allies have conducted their own charm offensive, engaging lobbyists and cultivating a notoriously close relationship between Saudi Arabia’s Crown Prince Mohammad bin Salman and Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.
  • it is concerning for a president to be so willing to dictate major aspects of U.S. foreign policy on the basis of his personal preferences, often without even checking them against the views of his advisors or coordinating them through the broader government bureaucracy
  • Turkish officials hired soon-to-be National Security Advisor Michael Flynn to lobby the incoming administration for the extradition of dissident Turkish preacher Fethullah Gulen, whose followers Erdogan blames for the 2016 coup attempt against his regime
  • Berman refused to go along with Barr’s proposed settlement, which he considered to be unethical. Months later, Barr fired Berman—and then lied about the circumstances and reasons why
  • Once again, the president is intervening in an investigation and a prosecutorial decision in a fashion that appears self-interested, appears to cut against stated U.S. policy to the benefit of an authoritarian leader and his interests, and appears influenced by the president’s own business concerns.
Ed Webb

A New Path For Syria's Kurds - War on the Rocks - 0 views

warontherocks.com/...a-new-path-for-syrias-kurds

Syria military US USA analysis opinion politics diplomacy Turkey Kurds SDF

shared by Ed Webb on 13 Mar 23 - Cached
  • in a dramatic reversal in its foreign policy, Ankara is now looking to normalize relations with Damascus
  • Ankara has long supported the opposition and anti-regime forces in Syria and controls a huge chunk of Syrian territory in the north. For the United States and European powers, Turkish-Syrian normalization would represent a dramatic shift, fundamentally altering the strategic calculus in Syria and directly threatening the position of U.S.-backed Syrian Kurds — given that both Ankara and Damascus want to see their territorial control and autonomous governing curtailed or brought under the auspices of a centralized Syrian government. 
  • The right approach is not arming Kurds or offering them the false promise of U.S. military backing to counter a Syrian-Turkish front but supporting them politically to secure a modus vivendi with the governments in Ankara and Damascus. To survive, Kurds need to reach an agreement with both. This will necessitate supporting the Kurds in their political dialogue with Damascus and pushing the Kurdistan Workers’ Party — the U.S.- and Turkish-designated terrorist group — to declare a ceasefire inside Turkey ahead of the June 2023 elections, easing the pressure on Syrian Kurds. This could open up the possibility of a political softening on the Turkish-Kurdish front, remove a major irritant in the U.S.-Turkish relationship, and preserve some Western influence inside Syria. 
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  • the Turkish president has formed an alliance with ultra-nationalists to secure his power — and the continuation of the war against the Kurdistan Worker’s Party and its Syrian offshoot, the Syrian Democratic Forces, has served as a lubricant in this partnership
  • Erdogan is no doubt calculating that an agreement with Damascus would secure a greenlight from Russia to launch a new incursion or coordinated action with Damascus against the Kurds ahead of the June 2023 elections, helping rally Turkish voters around the flag
  • a rapprochement with Syria helps Turkey manage its relationship with Moscow at a time when Erdogan needs Russia’s consent for action in Syria and money to help prop up the country’s collapsing economy. Turkey and Russia have a complicated relationship which simultaneously involves competition and cooperation, often at the expense of Western influence in Syria, Libya, and the Caucasus
  • the fragile peace in the northeast, where an estimated 900 U.S. troops are stationed alongside the Syrian Democratic Forces
  • Syria has also become an arena of great power projection for Russia and a site of proxy warfare within the broader great power rivalry with the United States. Putin might eventually choose to greenlight a limited Turkish incursion or coordinate a joint Turkish-Syrian pincer movement against the Kurds, knowing that this could keep Ankara happy ahead of the elections and would create a crisis inside NATO. He also knows that Turkish-Syrian normalization would put immense pressure on the residual U.S. position in Syria.
  • With the Assad regime, the Kurds should be aiming for an agreement that guarantees more autonomy than Damascus is currently willing to give but recognize they will have to accept less than what they want
  • Russia and the regime lack the resources to rebuild Syria and restore legitimacy to its government
  • There is already speculation that the ruling Justice and Development Party is looking for ways to secure conservative Kurdish electoral support or to peel Kurds away from the opposition block
  • A precipitous withdrawal would create a public humiliation like Afghanistan and a free-for-all which would likely leave the Kurds devastated and the region raked by new instability — which, in turn, could well be exploited by ISIL in a manner that eventually pulls the United States back to Syria for a counter-terrorism campaign
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