How Many Arabs In The Syrian Democratic Forces Makeup

The Globe

Stuck in the Middle in Syria

The Syrian Kurds are trying to remind America of what it's leaving behind.

A female Kurdish fighter in uniform faces a row of women seated, wearing black veils. — Kurdish fighters watch over women in the Iraqi/Syrian section of the Kurdish-run al-Hol camp for the displaced in the al-Hasakeh governorate in northeastern Syria on Jan. 14. Delil Souleiman/AFP via Getty Images

In 2019, President Donald Trump made a controversial decision to withdraw U.S. troops from Northeast Syrian arab republic, substantially greenlighting a Turkish-led invasion of areas controlled past America's Kurdish allies. He recently downplayed the consequences of that determination. "They've been fighting like they have been for a thousand years, OK? Nothing'due south happened," the president insisted. Sinam Mohamad'southward job, equally the representative of the Syrian Democratic Council in the U.Due south., is to convince people in Washington that things are still happening, and that America has responsibleness for those things.

The SDC is the legislature of the Autonomous Administration of N and East Syria, the semiautonomous Kurdish-dominated state that since 2014 has controlled the region known in Kurdish as Rojava. (The political leadership in this region is often referred to in shorthand in the U.South. as the "Syrian Kurds," though its leaders stress that information technology is multiethnic.) Mohamad, who has worked on behalf of the SDC in Washington since tardily 2017, recently established a diplomatic function in Washington which is registered to antechamber the U.S. regime.

The relationship between the Syrian Kurds and the U.S. has always been a scrap awkward and contradictory. Rojava has been celebrated by U.S. politicians on the left and right as an contained, secular, and (by the region'south standards) democratic entity that has stood apart from the Assad regime and been the most constructive U.Due south. armed services ally in the fight against ISIS. But its ideological links with the PKK, a Kurdish separatist group in Turkey that the U.S. considers a terrorist organization, have been a sticking point in relations between the U.S. and Turkey, a fundamental regional histrion. Trump may take concluded concluding yr that keeping Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan happy was more important than protecting the fledgling pseudo-country in Northeast Syria, just Mohamad is seeking to make the instance that her government is notwithstanding a vital ally in need of war machine and financial support.

Mohamad faces the daunting job of coaxing back up from a land that'south weary of engagement with conflicts in the Middle Eastward. Trump is hardly the only one who is skeptical of U.Southward. deployments in the region. While Trump often says that he "brought our soldiers back home," about 600 U.S. troops remain in Syria, down from the ane,000 who were on the footing before his withdrawal order. More troops were recently deployed to the area after clashes with Russian forces patrolling the region. I asked Mohamad what would accept to take place for the remaining troops to be able to caput dwelling house.

"I think maybe if they want to withdraw, that will happen after there will be a settlement or a political solution in the region," she said. "I hope that they volition not withdraw from there unless there is civilization, unless we volition accept stability." As far as U.S. interests in the region, she pointed to the continuing threat of ISIS sleeper cells, the presence of Iranian proxies in the region, and the ongoing problem of displaced people.

"Every bit the consequences of this [Turkish] invasion of the region, we have a big number of displaced people. They left their houses, they left their homes, they left everything, and they are now living in the camps," she says. She claimed in that location are "man rights violations happening every day" in areas occupied by the Syrian National Regular army, the Turkish-backed rebel group at present occupying a number of formerly Kurdish-controlled areas, including her hometown of Afrin. "They kidnap the women, they rape them, and we don't know where are they now. In that location are many women now in the custody of Islamist groups who are backed by Turkey." A grim report recently submitted to the U.N. Human Rights Council alleged that these rebels "may accept committed state of war crimes in Afrin and surrounding areas in the north—including hostage-taking, torture and rape—along with killing and maiming scores of civilians." (The report likewise included allegations of the capricious detention of civilians and torture by the Syrian Autonomous Forces—the U.S.-backed armed wing of Mohamad's regime.)

Trump'south reversal also upended the political condition quo on the ground in northeast Syria. Kurds faced vicious repression under Bashar al-Assad'south rule, and there's little desire to render to the status quo before the democratic region was created.

Simply every bit U.Due south. troops withdrew, the Kurdish leadership reached a pact, brokered by Russia, with Assad's government that allowed Syrian armed forces troops to movement into areas that had been exterior the regime's control for years, in guild to preclude farther Turkish incursions. This puts them in the awkward position of being allies of both the Us and a government that the U.South. is still, on paper at to the lowest degree, committed to overthrowing—terminal month Trump confirmed Bob Woodward'southward merits that he had at one point considered killing Assad—and that is backed by Iran and Russian federation.

"This is i of the consequences of Mr. Trump'south decision to withdraw," says Mohamad. "Turkey attacked us, and at that time nosotros didn't have any way to protect our people, but to phone call the government."

Dissimilar its Kurdish counterparts in Iraq, the Autonomous Administration is not seeking full independence, but a futurity where "Syria would exist decentralized." Given that Assad's forces are tied in vicious fighting with rebels in northwestern Idlib, he's willing to tolerate the autonomous semistate in the northeast for the fourth dimension being. Merely in the long run, he's committed to recovering "every inch" of Syrian territory.

Mohamad says her government is "ready to accept dialogue with the Syrian regime to start the political process in Syria" but that "unfortunately, the Syrian government didn't change their mentality. They e'er want to have Syrian arab republic as it was before, in 2011. As if nothing has happened, as if none of these Syrian people had been killed. As if half of the Syrian territory has non been destroyed."

The Democratic Administration also makes a significant amount of its income selling oil and grain to the Assad regime, which has caused concerns that it could be subject to sanctions under the Caesar Human activity, a new U.S. law passed by Congress last year targeting the regime and entities that trade with information technology with sanctions. While the sanctions aren't meant to target the democratic region in Northeast Syria, Mohamad says her government is hoping for an explicit exemption.

There's currently but one edge crossing connecting Northeast Syria to international trade: the Semalka crossing with the Kurdish region of Iraq. Aid groups say the restrictions on aid from Damascus and from Republic of iraq have hampered efforts to fight COVID-nineteen in the region. Mohamad says the assistants has taken measures including endmost schools and disallowment gatherings but that "they take now many cases and increasing. … We are facing a lot of problems there with the lack of the humanitarian support and the lack of the water also."

While non anywhere near the scale of the Syrian regime of jihadi rebel groups, the military machine of Northeast Syrian arab republic have also been accused of human rights violations. According to the State Department'southward 2020 Trafficking in Persons Report, the YPG, the Kurdish rebel group that makes up the backbone of the U.South.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, "continued to recruit, railroad train, and utilize boys and girls as young equally 12 years old," despite efforts under a U.North.-mandated program to end the do. Mohamad told me: "We are trying to do it and to solve such problems. Because there is a commitment from the SDC leaders, from our forces in that location, not to recruit whatever children nether 18 years old."

The Syrian Kurds got another form of unwelcome attention recently over Turkish media reports that Erdogan had told Trump during a phone telephone call that "those behind the contempo violence and looting during protests in the U.S. are working with the YPG/PKK, a terrorist group operating in northern Syria." (The YPG has ideological—if not operational—links to the PKK, a insubordinate grouping operating in Turkey that a number of countries, including the U.Due south., consider a terrorist system. Turkey does non recognize any distinction between the two groups.) The Nation recently reported on a Department of Homeland Security intelligence report noting that some Americans who had fought with the YPG in Syrian arab republic had been agile with the antifa movement in the U.S.—inferring a link to foreign terrorism. Given that U.S. forces take been fighting alongside the YPG in Syria for years, this would theoretically brand the U.Due south. military machine antifa terrorists also.

"Our goal, all of the states, we accept the goal to end the terrorist groups in Syria," says Mohamad. "I think these people, whether they are antifa, whoever they are there, they came there to fight against the terrorist group, which is ISIS. For that, they were welcomed. We don't look at what they are, if they are antifa or if they are another group."

Rojava's success was always unlikely, as an entity inspired by a quasi-anarchist political philosophy trying to build a secular commonwealth—however imperfectly—in the midst of terrorism, absolutism, and civil war. When Trump appear the withdrawal last year, I—similar many others—assumed it was doomed. Simply the Kurds have held out, making some messy deals and assembling a coalition of strange bedfellows. What may accept started every bit an idealistic political experiment has had to suit to old-school realism and power politics.

"In that location is Russia, there is the Syrian government, at that place is the U.S., and even the other people like the U.Chiliad. and French republic. We are trying to keep these relations with all these chief players," says Mohamad. "Nosotros know that all of these players, they are there for their ain interest. We know that. Russian federation is in that location for its involvement, not for the Syrian people. Nosotros, in Syria, are in the heart."