Syrian Kurdistan's leaders this week called on the United States to provide protection forces and become more involved in preserving the peace in the face of a continued campaign by Turkish proxies to eradicate Kurdistan.
A senior official of the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (DAANES), which represents Syrian Kurdistan (Rojava), suggested that American forces with French support could “protect the entire border” between Turkey and Syria. .
Gen. Mazloum Abdi, the top commander of the U.S.-allied Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), also said in an interview Thursday that U.S. forces could be “key to stabilizing” northern Syria. said.
Syria endured a decade of civil war under ousted dictator Bashar al-Assad that began in 2011, reaching a point of apparent stagnation by the end of 2024. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a jihadist offshoot of al-Qaeda, launched a surprise attack on Aleppo in late November, shocking the Assad regime and delivering a series of victories as the Syrian army collapsed. By early December, HTS had arrived on the outskirts of Damascus. President Assad himself is believed to have fled the country between December 7th and 8th.
At the same time that HTS consolidated its control and became the de facto Syrian government, the Syrian National Army (SNA) launched an operation to destroy the SDF, dubbed Operation Dawn of Freedom. The SNA is a paramilitary group formerly known as the Free Syrian Army that is now primarily considered a proxy force for the Turkish government. The SDF is a Kurdish-led coalition with close ties to the United States that played a key role in dismantling the Syria-based Islamic State caliphate in 2017.
The Turkish government considers the Syrian People's Protection Units (YPG/YPJ), the core of the SDF, to be a terrorist organization indistinguishable from the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PPK), a US-designated terrorist organization. Disagreements over cooperation with Syria's Kurds have caused a rift that could put NATO allies Turkey and the United States at odds.
HTS maintains non-aggressive relations with both Türkiye and the Syrian Kurds. HTS officials have invited the SDF to integrate into the rebuilt Syrian army, but on the condition that it not seek to establish a sovereign Kurdistan carved out of Syrian territory. HTS has also turned to Turkey for support, and the Islamist government of strongman President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is calling on the world to lift terror sanctions against the militias now that they have taken control of Syria's government.
DAANES foreign affairs co-chair Elham Ahmad said in an interview Wednesday that the United States and France, another NATO ally, could help maintain peace between Turkish proxies and the Kurdish regime in northern Syria. He suggested that there was.
“We call on France to send troops to this border to help secure the demilitarized zone, protect this area and build good relations with Turkey,” Ahmad said. Ta. saidKurdish media outlet “Rudo'' reported.
“The United States and France will certainly be able to secure the entire border. We are ready for this military coalition to take on this responsibility,” Ahmad added.
Abdi, commander of the Self-Defense Forces, said: guardian Abdi said Thursday that to protect the Kurdish region from SNA attacks and from Islamic State, which he has consistently cited as a growing threat in interviews since the fall of Assad, He said he believes it is extremely important to have U.S. troops on the ground.
“The key to stabilizing the region is the U.S. presence on the ground,” Abdi said. affirmedpredicted that the Islamic State would re-emerge as a global threat if President-elect Donald Trump chooses to withdraw the estimated 2,000 US troops stationed in the country. Abdi suggested that without U.S. troops, Syria could fall into a “new chaotic situation” that could lead to a new civil war, as many factions threaten the Kurds.
Abdi said Trump would be reluctant to abandon Syria, both because of the rapid changes on the ground over the past two months and the deadly Islamic State attack on New Year's Eve that targeted New Orleans on U.S. soil. I predicted it.
In December, Mr. Abdi said in an interview with Western media that the SDF could not afford to focus on the Islamic State given the SNA attacks, and that the SDF would not allow a joint U.S. operation to contain the ISIS threat. “Stopped,” he said.
“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.”
Of greatest concern within Kurdish territory are the thousands of Islamic State terrorists and their families who have immigrated to or were born during the Caliphate to support construction activities. There are camps and prisons that house people. Abdi has repeatedly threatened that fighting between the SDF and SNA could lead to a prison break.
President Trump has expressed some reluctance to keep U.S. troops on the ground in Syria, exposing them to potentially deadly attacks from a variety of terrorist organizations, including HTS. At a press conference in December, President Trump described the fall of the Assad regime as an “unfriendly takeover” by Turkey and suggested that Turkey itself could pose a threat to U.S. forces in Syria.
“We have 5,000 troops along the border, and I asked several generals,” Trump said, recalling his decision to withdraw from Syria during his first term in office. “So we had 250,000 troops in Syria and you had 400,000 troops. They have much more than that. Turkey is a powerful country, by the way. Erdoğan is a great person to me. But he has a large military and is not war-weary.”
The generals reportedly told President Trump that his military would be “annihilated” and Trump “moved the troops.”
“They got too hot, so I moved them. And you know what happened? Nothing. Nothing. I saved a lot of lives,” Trump added. Ta.
Although President Trump has maintained his decision not to send ground reinforcements to the Kurds that are needed to protect American lives, representatives of the outgoing President Joe Biden administration said this week that lent credence to Turkey's claim that the attack was a terrorist threat.
John Bass, Acting U.S. Under Secretary of State said A press briefing on Friday said Biden recognized Turkey's warnings about “how foreign terrorists, including the PKK, are sometimes taking advantage of the situation inside Syria.”
“From this point of view, we must be very careful and make some adjustments to our presence and the activities of U.S. forces inside Syria to ensure that we do not increase the risk,” he said. “It's dangerous for people,” Basu argued.
President Erdogan and his officials threatened the SDF again on Friday, calling them “separatist terrorists” and threatening them with “bitter consequences.”
“They are trying to appeal to people who don't want stability in the region, while keeping an eye on imperialist powers that thrive on blood and tears,” he said. saidapparently referring to the United States and France, according to Türkiye's state-run Anadolu Agency. “But whatever they do, it's useless and pointless.”
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan declared “The end of the terrorist organization PKK and its affiliates in Syria is now in sight,” it said in a separate statement on Friday.
“We have said repeatedly: We cannot live with such threats (from the PKK/YPG). Either someone else takes action or we take action. ” he declared.
