DAMASCUS: The jihadist rebels who toppled Syrian President Bashar Assad say they want to build a unified, inclusive country. But after 14 years of civil war, putting that ideal into practice will not be easy. For Syria’s Kurdish minority, America’s closest ally in the country, the struggle for a new order is entering a potentially even more challenging phase.
Over the course of Syria’s civil war, Kurdish fighters have fended off an array of armed factions, partnered with the US to rout the Islamic State group and carved out a largely autonomous region in the country’s oil-rich east. But the gains of the non-Arab Kurds are now at risk. The ascendance of the Sunni Arab rebels who overthrew Assad — with vital help from Turkey, a longtime foe of the Kurds — will make it hard for the Kurds to find a place in the new Syria and could prolong the conflict.
The jihadist rebels who rode into Damascus over the weekend have made peaceful overtures to the Kurds. But the rebels violently drove Kurdish fighters out of the eastern city of Deir al-Zour days after government forces abandoned it. To the north, a separate opposition faction backed by Turkey that has been battling the Kurds for years seized the town of Manbij. And Turkey carried out airstrikes on a Kurdish convoy it said was carrying heavy weapons looted from government arsenals.
The Kurds have long counted on US aid in the face of such challenges. Around 900 American troops are in eastern Syria, where they partner with Kurdish forces to prevent an Islamic State resurgence. But the future of that mission will be thrown into doubt under president-elect Donald Trump, who has long been sceptical about US involvement in Syria.
Here’s a closer look at the predicament the Kurds find themselves in. Who are the US-allied Kurdish fighters in Syria? The Kurds are among the largest stateless ethnic groups in the world, with some 30 million concentrated in a territory straddling Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria. They are a minority in each country and have often suffered persecution, which has fueled armed Kurdish uprisings.
In Syria, they carved out an autonomous enclave early in the civil war, never fully siding with the Assad government or the rebels seeking to topple him. When the Islamic State group seized a third of the country in 2014, Kurdish fighters — who are secular and include women in their ranks — proved their mettle in early battles against the extremists, earning support from the U.S.-led coalition.
They formed a group known as the Syrian Democratic Forces, which also includes Arab fighters, and drove the Islamic State group out of large areas of Syria with help from U.S.-led airstrikes and American special forces. In 2017, the SDF captured Raqqa, the capital of the extremists’ self-styled caliphate.
Why is Turkey fighting the Kurds?
Turkey has long viewed the SDF as an extension of the decades-old Kurdish insurgency within its own borders. It considers the main Kurdish faction a terrorist group on par with IS and has said it should have no presence in the new Syria. In recent years, Turkey has trained and funded fighters known as the Syrian National Army, helping them wrest control of territory from the Kurds in northern Syria along the border with Turkey.
The SNA has portrayed itself as part of the opposition against Assad, but analysts say the fighters are largely driven by opportunism and hatred of the Kurds. With IS mostly defeated and an unspoken truce with Assad, the Kurds have been able to focus on battling the SNA in recent years. But the new leadership in Damascus, which also has longstanding ties to Turkey, could open another, much longer front.
How do the Syrian rebels view the Kurds? The main rebel faction is led by Ahmad al-Sharaa, formerly known as Abu Mohammed al-Golani, a former al-Qaida militant who cut ties with the group eight years ago and says he wants to build a new Syria free of dictatorship that will serve all its religious and ethnic communities.
Nawaf Khalil, head of the Germany-based Center for Kurdish Studies, said the early signs were positive. He said the rebels steered clear of two SDF-controlled enclaves of Aleppo when they stormed the city two weeks ago at the start of their rapid advance across the country. “It is also positive that they did not speak negatively about the Syrian Democratic Forces,” he said.
It remains to be seen if those sentiments will endure. After sweeping into Deir al-Zour this week, a fighter from al-Sharaa’s group posted a video saying they would soon advance toward Raqqa and other areas of eastern Syria, raising the possibility of further clashes with the Kurds. The rebels could still seek some kind of agreement with the Kurds to incorporate them into the post-Assad political order, but that would likely require accepting a degree of Kurdish autonomy in the east. It would also risk angering Turkey, which now appears to be the chief power broker in Syria.
Will the Trump administration support the Kurds? The top US military commander for the Middle East, Army Gen. Erik Kurilla, met with SDF forces in Syria on Tuesday, in a sign of the Biden administration’s commitment to the alliance post-Assad.
But things could change on January 20.
Trump has provided few details about his Middle East policy, aside from saying he wants to end the region’s wars and keep the United States out of them. In a social media post shortly before Assad was overthrown, Trump wrote that “Syria is a mess, but is not our friend; THE UNITED STATES SHOULD HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH IT. THIS IS NOT OUR FIGHT.” During his previous term, in 2019, Trump abandoned the Kurds ahead of a Turkish incursion, casting it as the fulfilment of a campaign promise to end US involvement in the region’s “endless wars.” The move prompted heavy criticism, including from prominent Republicans who accused him of betraying an ally. Trump backtracked weeks later, approving a wider mission to secure oil fields in the east.
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