The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a Kurdish-led militia allied with the United States, confirmed on Monday that a brief ceasefire with Turkish Islamist proxies in the country had collapsed due to Turkey's intransigence.
The ongoing fighting between the SDF and the Syrian National Army (SNA), an Islamist coalition that evolved from the Free Syrian Army (FSA) into an unofficial Turkish proxy force, is the last remaining fighting in Syria after more than a decade. is part of. civil war. The SDF is an essential ally for the United States in eliminating the threat of Islamic State and dismantling the “caliphate” in Raqqa, but it faces attacks from Islamist strongman Recep's SNA-style militias and the Turkish military itself. I have been facing this for many years. President Tayyip Erdogan considers the Kurds a terrorist threat.
The main fighting in Syria's civil war between Bashar al-Assad's regime in Damascus and various Syrian opposition groups has seen Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a breakaway jihadist terrorist group from al-Qaeda, attack several major cities. It ended in early December. and eventually captured Damascus in a relatively bloodless struggle. President Assad fled the country on December 7 and is believed to have fallen into the hands of terrorists, but a letter purporting to be from Assad released on Monday also strangely states that Assad has resigned from office. He claimed that he had never decided to flee.
After HTS captured Aleppo, the country's second-largest city, in late November, the SNA launched a campaign called Operation Dawn of Freedom to evict Kurdish communities living along the border with Turkey. The SDF is primarily made up of the Syrian Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG/YPJ), which Turkey claims are allied with and often indistinguishable from the Marxist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK). I am doing it. Although the PKK is a US-designated terrorist organization, the US often works with the YPG to counter the threat of Islamic State. The SDF is also in charge of several prisons that house Islamic State terrorists, whose home countries typically refuse to take them back.
Neither HTS nor the former Assad regime were meaningfully involved in the conflict between the SDF and SNA. The Turkish government vowed in 2016 to “end the rule of tyrant Assad,” but focused primarily on eliminating the Kurdish population along Turkey's border. Meanwhile, the HTS has not made any meaningful movements in the region since occupying the country, and the SDF claims to have friendly communications with the militia.
Secretary of State Antony Blinken traveled to Ankara last week to try to prevent America's NATO allies from supporting such an attack on a key U.S. partner force. The SDF announced on December 11 that Washington had mediated the war. ceasefire The SDF has been in control of the northern city of Manbij since it was liberated from Islamic State in 2017.
“Our goal is to reach a ceasefire across Syria and start a political process for the future of the country,” SDF commander Mazloum Abdi said at the time.
By Monday, the SDF had declared an end to the ceasefire and directly blamed the Turkish government for the developments.
SDF Spokesperson Farhad Shami said in a social media statement that “US-led mediation efforts to declare a permanent ceasefire in the Manbij and Kobani regions have failed due to Turkey's approach to mediation efforts and avoidance of acceptance of key points. It ended in failure.” According to Kurdish media Ludo. Shami claimed that Turkey was preventing civilians from evacuating Manbij to avoid jihadist rule. Turkish government is currently active in Manbij, Turkish state news agency Anadolu Confirmed.
An unidentified “Syrian opposition source” told Reuters on Monday. said Turkey said it did not fully support the ceasefire because it “prefers to maintain maximum pressure on the SDF.”
In Ankara on Friday after the ceasefire was announced, Blinken thanked Turkey for its “insight” on Syria and its help in stabilizing the country, but did not mention the U.S. ally Kurdish by name. However, Turkish Foreign Ministry official Hakan Fidan made sure to mention that Turkey was interested in discussing the containment of Kurdish forces.
“Of course, one of our priorities is to take steps to ensure stability in Syria as soon as possible and prevent terrorism from gaining a foothold,” Fidan said alongside Blinken. “We talked about what will be done against these issues, what will be done against terrorists – DAESH [ISIS] and the PKK are taking action to prevent them from exploiting the situation. ”
President Joe Biden's outgoing administration has engaged in what it calls anti-Islamic State operations in Syria since the fall of the Assad regime, mostly airstrikes on areas targeted by ISIS. On Monday, Pentagon spokesman Air Force Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder said: Confirmed Airstrikes on unspecified locations in Syria “targeting ISIS camps and operatives.” The airstrike is believed to have killed 12 terrorists.
“Concerns that the fall of President Bashar al-Assad's regime in Syria on December 8th could ostensibly lead to attempts by ISIS to release captive fighters from prisoner-of-war camps in the region. “is within the Department of Defense,” the Department of Defense said. “The Pentagon said it is working with the Syrian Democratic Forces to prevent the situation from escalating,” Ryder said in a statement.
“[The prison camp situation] This presents a significant security concern in the sense that if ISIS was able to influence the breach of any detention facility, it would be a significant setback and very worrying. “We are doing so,” Ryder said.
SDF Commander Abdi told Sky News on December 11 that all SDF efforts to fight ISIS have been “suspended” due to the need to protect against Turkish proxies, and to contain ISIS terrorists. He said the prison he was in was under serious threat.
“In general, when we focus on protecting civilians and communities, the effectiveness of our military and the coalition against ISIS decreases as efforts are directed toward the ongoing conflict,” he explained. “This is why I say that if the fighting continues and intensifies, it will play into the hands of ISIS.”
“Frankly, there is currently a serious threat to the security of these detention centers,” Abdi added.
“What I want to emphasize is that if these [SNA] “If the attacks continue, joint operations will continue to be suspended,” he asserted.
In the absence of meaningful support from the Biden administration, the SDF has turned to HTS, an al-Qaeda offshoot. Kurdish leaders reportedly began raising the flag of the anti-Assad resistance movement in Rojava, Syrian Kurdistan, last week, and Prime Minister Abdi said the SDF would send a delegation to Damascus as soon as possible to meet with HTS leaders. I confirmed that I was preparing a group.
“At the beginning of the incident, HTS told us that our territory was not their target,” Abdi said. said He spoke in an interview with Kurdish broadcaster Ronahi TV on Thursday. Ludo. “We have an agreement with HTS regarding Aleppo and Deir Ezzor.”
