US allies fight each other
The outbreak of fighting highlights the virtually impossible choices the United States faces in supporting forces that are mutually hostile, from among the Turks, the divided non-Islamist Syrian opposition, and the Kurds
The situation in Syria has taken a very strange and complex turn. Clashes between Syrian rebels and Kurdish-aligned forces, both backed by the United States, intensified in northern Syria on 28 August 2016, as the rebels seized villages from the Kurds and Turkish warplanes pounded Kurdish positions, killing dozens. Sad.
The fresh fighting suggested that Turkey and its Syrian proxies are increasingly focused on stopping Kurdish forces from gaining more territory in northern Syria, particularly along Turkey’s border, potentially signaling a widening of the conflict. And it threatens to divert resources and attention away from the campaign against Syria. At the same time, Turkey, a NATO ally, risks fueling friction with Washington, which views the Kurds and allies as the most effective US partners against the Islamic State.
The outbreak of fighting highlights the virtually impossible choices the United States faces in supporting forces that are mutually hostile, from among the Turks, the divided non-Islamist Syrian opposition, and the Kurds.
28th August: Clashes came a day after a rocket attack on two Turkish tanks killed a Turkish soldier and injured three others in northern Syria. Turkey, which is wrestling with Kurdish insurgents within its borders, blamed the attack on Kurdish forces. The casualties were Turkey’s first since it dispatched tanks and special forces units, backed by US and Turkish fighter jets, into Syria on Wednesday 24 August 2016, to oust official forces of Syria from the border town of Jarabulus.
Since then, Syrian rebels have been pushing westward, chasing the Islamic State, as well as southward into areas controlled by forces aligned with the US backed rebels calling themselves Syrian Democratic Forces. The alliance is largely dominated by the Syrian Kurdish People’s Protection Units, or the YPG, but also includes some Arabs. Turkey’s Syria offensive is as much about the Kurds as much against Syria.
Both Turkey and Syrian rebels say the YPG has been targeting their forces. They say the Kurds broke a pledge to move their forces east of the Euphrates River, which senior US officials also demanded, and are pressing for more terrain. The YPG insists that it has pulled back its forces. What is clear, though, is that its allies have not.
Shervan Derwish, a spokesman for a Kurdish-aligned military council in Manbij, 25 miles south of Jarabulus, said that the “battles are still ongoing.” At least 20 to 25 Turkish airstrikes have hit areas between Manbij and Jarabulus since 27 August. “Turkey didn’t come to fight Daesh, they came to fight us,” said Derwish, who is an ethnic Kurd and served last year as the spokesman for Kurdish forces in the Syrian town of Kobane.
Turkey’s concerns about Kurdish expansion grew after the Kurdish forces drove the Syrian forces from Manbij this month and then began pushing north toward Jarabulus. Turkey’s incursion last week, code-named Euphrates Shield, preempted the Kurds from seizing the town.
The Turkish government is worried that Kurdish aspirations for a corridor linking two Kurdish enclaves in northwestern Syria could lead to an independent Kurdish state along its borders. That, Turkey fears, could embolden Kurdish militants on its own soil, who for the last three-decades are struggling for political rights and self-determination.
US Special Operations forces are deployed with Syrian Kurds, who are trying to carve out an autonomous Kurdish zone in northern Syria, while US planes bomb on behalf of Turkey, which has sworn to prevent any such entity and wants to repopulate the region with Sunni Syrian refugees.
How does a peaceful and stable Syria emerge from these disparate initiatives? With less than five months remaining on its watch, the Obama White House appears to have interest in formulating an answer.
On the other side US commanders have been describing the “Syrian Democratic Forces” as the most capable anti-State ground force and have been counting on its members to participate in the liberation of Raqqa. Yet now those fighters are skirmishing not only with Turks but also with Free Syrian Army units that joined Ankara’s incursion and are also US-backed.
The US response to this has been to pressure both sides: Washington bluntly told the Kurds to withdraw their troops from an area west of the Euphrates River that Turkey wants to fold into its buffer zone.
This situation has forced Secretary of State John F. Kerry to negotiate with Russia about a ceasefire in Syria, a plan that would advance Moscow’s goal of strengthening and entrenching the Assad regime in Damascus.
What’s needed is a broader Turkish-Kurdish settlement, including Kurdish militants in Turkey whom Mr Erdogan once courted and now wars against, and a plan for a peaceful Syria, with Bashar al-Assad continuing as the president.
The task of a peaceful region should have been taken up by the United States earlier. If the conflict is not resolved, Mr Obama will leave chaos to his successor.
It’s a hard fact that Washington never let any country settle in peace, since long, specially after the debacle of Russia and the death of Hafiz al Assad, father of the present head of the state (Syria) the Washington was conspiring against Syria to help Israel to have a safe ground in the region. Because the only threat Israel had was from Syria. It is Washington’s strategy that has ruined the peace of Syria, killing more than 300,000 innocent citizens, claims itself the God of Human Rights.
The world thinks another Hitler is required to stop Washington from its misdoings and aggressive behaviour, which has destroyed the peace of the world in every region.
Now, as Russia is once again holding the ground and Putin is aggressive, Washington may have to negotiate and let the Syrians live in peace, once again. The peace they got deprived of by the Americans, for Israel’s, a decade back.