SYRIA UPDATES
International anarchist and leftists declare their support for SDF
From MedyaNews
December 5, 2024
International anarchist and leftist groups rally behind the Syrian Democratic Forces as Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and Turkish-backed factions escalate their offensives, deepening the region’s humanitarian crisis.
The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have received significant support from international groups, as they face a renewed offensive by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and Turkish-backed forces. This conflict, characterised by widespread displacement and suffering, has increased instability in the region and drawn international condemnation.
The Syrian conflict has escalated as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), alongside Turkish-backed Syrian National Army (SNA) forces, launched a major offensive in northern Syria, seizing parts of Aleppo and deepening the humanitarian crisis. More than 200,000 people have been displaced, with many taking refuge in improvised shelters along the Euphrates River. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) have mobilised reinforcements to protect key areas, particularly Kurdish neighbourhoods in Aleppo and refugee camps in the Shahba region.
The offensive, coordinated between HTS and SNA forces, comes amid wider regional instability. The International League of Peoples’ Struggle and the anarchist group Tekoşina Anarşist (Anarchist Struggle) have expressed strong support for the SDF. Both groups condemned the offensive, with the League criticising what it called a “genocidal war” waged by imperialist forces. Tekoşina Anarşist warned of a possible resurgence of ISIS-style atrocities, highlighting HTS alliance with former jihadist fighters and urging international solidarity with the SDF.
“We, as anarchists and as internationalists in Rojava, will play our role in these challenging times. We will fight alongside the SDF to defend and spread the revolutionary project, building a stateless society where the principles of democratic confederalism, pluralism and women’s revolution prevail. We call for all anarchist and other revolutionary forces, now more than ever, to defend Rojava!”, wrote Tekoşina Anarşist.
“This renewed aggression targets the same communities displaced by Turkey’s 2018 invasion of Afrin,” an SDF spokesman said, highlighting the dire humanitarian conditions,” they wrote.
Meanwhile, ILPF accused the US, Turkey and Israel of pursuing imperialist agendas, noting that Turkey’s support for HTS aims to exploit regional chaos for its own geopolitical gain.
The escalation of the conflict also affects Syria’s geopolitical alliances. Israel’s ongoing conflict with Hezbollah and the violence in Gaza have strained Iran’s ability to support Syria, while Russia, preoccupied with the war in Ukraine, has scaled back its ground operations, focusing instead on heavy airstrikes on Idlib and Aleppo. Western media have been criticised for portraying HTS as a ‘revolutionary opposition’, while critics point to the group’s extremist roots and ambitions to establish a hardline Islamic state.
Despite these challenges, the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria remains steadfast. “The Rojava revolution is a beacon of hope for a democratic, stateless society,” wrote Tekoşina Anarşist, urging global support for the SDF’s efforts. Both groups have called for international solidarity to counter what they see as a genocidal onslaught that threatens the future of the region.
As the Syrian Democratic Forces continue to resist the HTS and Turkish-backed offensive, international support from internationalist and anarchist movements underlines the wider ideological struggle unfolding in Syria. The outcome of this conflict could reshape the political landscape of the region, with implications beyond Syria’s borders.
We are not afraid of ruins!
From Têkoşîna Anarşîst, December 3, 2024
More than five years ago SDF brought the caliphate of ISIS to an end. Now, with the new offensive of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, we risk a rebirth of their atrocities. HTS has united many jihadist groups with ex-fighters of the caliphate in their ranks. Recently they started a big offensive, breaking through the seige of Idlib and making the Syrian Arab Army collapse. Aleppo has been the first big city they captured, seizing big amounts of advanced weapons left behind by regime soldiers.
SDF reacted fast, sending reinforcements to protect the kurdish neigborhood of Sheh Maqsoud in Aleppo as well as the refugee camps of the Sheba region. But the proxy forces of the turkish army, SNA, started a new offensive coordinated with HTS, invading that same region of Sheba. The refugees displaced by the Turkish invasion of Afrin in 2018 are, once again, forced to leave their homes at a point of a gun. More than 100.000 people are now looking for shelter in improvised tents on the shores of the Euphrates river, still threatened by further advances of jihadist groups.
These new developments aggravate the instability of middle east, and should be observed together with other conflicts ongoing on the region. The Israeli occupation of Gaza, together with their attacks against hezbollah, weakened Iran’s position in Syria, limiting their hability to support the SAA. Russian troops, also weakened after almost three years of war in Ukraine, abandoned several ground positions and are brutally bombing Idlib and Aleppo from the sky. The US tries to keep outside of the conflict, knowing that Trump may push to withdraw their troops from Syrian soil. Turkish soldiers are not openly involved for now, but Turkish state is pulling the strings of SNA to continue their genocidal policies against kurdish people. Assad is trying to rally some international support from other arab countries, and Iran already started to send reinforcements for a combined counter-offensive with the SAA. In between this chaos, the Rojava Revolution and the Kurdish Liberation Movement resist as the main hope for revolutionaries in middle east.
The largest realignment of forces in Syria in the past five years is under way, and it may have implications we can not yet forsee. It is a complex situation, and we see how many journalist are stuggling to grasp it. Many western media have been encouraged by the march of HTS, even calling them a revolutionary opposition, «rebels» against the dictatorship of Assad. We also wish for the fall of the regime, but HTS and their «salvation goverment» is not a liberatory solution. Their aim is to replace the Assad dynasty with sharia laws and a islamic state, little different from what the Taliban are doing in Afganistan or what the Islamic Republic of Iran have done since 1979. This is not a future we can accept, and many syrians won’t accept it either.
We, as anarchists and as internationalists in Rojava, will play our role in these challenging times. We will fight alongside the SDF to defend and spread the revolutionary project, building a stateless society where the principles of democratic confederalism, pluralism and women’s revolution prevail. We call for all anarchist and other revolutionary forces, now more than ever, to defend Rojava!
We know that war brings suffering and destruction, but it can also open opportunities of free life for those who are ready. We saw what the victory over ISIS made possible here, and we are ready to continue fighting for a better future. Because we are not afraid of ruins!
Several comrades are asking:
What can I do to support the revolution?
– Traveling to NES is not possible right now, the borders are closed. But you can make sure that what is happening in Syria is known, writing articles, making interviews, podcasts, organizing talks and events in coordination with already existing solidarity commitees.
– If there are solidarity demonstrations in your region, join and support! if not, maybe you can start them!
– You can also provide economical support to those in more need, since the current humanitarian crisis is critical and needs our attention. For that, Heyva Sor is an independent organization already working to support and provide to those affected by the war in north-east Syria.
This is far from over, keep in touch and get ready for further steps!
Contextualizing Freedom Struggles in Kurdistan
Aliza Marcus's late 2000s book on the history of the PKK. (English title, Blood and Belief; Türkçe, Kan ve İnanç.)
Razan Ghazzawi, Decolonising Syria’s so-called ‘queer liberation’, August 2017.
Reflections on the Antisemitic Content in Öcalan’s The Sociology of Freedom, July 2021.
Iranian Anarchists on Protests In Response to the Police Murder of Mahsa Amini, September 2022.
Meghan Bodette, "Jin, jiyan, azadi” is not a hashtag: The deep roots of the iconic slogan in the Kurdish women's struggle. (Castellano, Deutsch, Português, Türkçe.) October 2022.
Chaia Heller, Questioning Öcalan’s Jewish Question, 2023.
Dan Fischer, An Ambiguous Paradise Built in Hell, January 2023. (Review of The Kurdish Women’s Movement: History, Theory, Practice.)
HBDH [Halkların Birleşik Devrim Hareketi] Executive Committee: “Palestine, Rojava and All Oppressed Peoples Will Win!”, October 2023.
Amnesty International, Syria: tens of thousands marooned in detention camps and facilities where death, torture and disease are rife, April 2024.
Other compilations
Ravenwood, Critical Notes & Sources on Rojava/AANES.
Why Iran can’t Stand up for the al-Assad Government: Russia isn’t Offering Air Support
“Running Away,” Digital, Dream / Dreamland v3, 202
The strategic situation in Syria is dire for the Baathist government of Bashar al-Assad. Typically in military history, if an invader takes the capital of the other country, it secures its victory.
Damascus is the prize.
Damascus has an Achilles heel. It is landlocked, deep in the south of the country, and far from the port of Latakia that supplies it.
The other nearby port, Beirut in Lebanon, is a shadow of its former self, and the Lebanese government has closed the borders with Syria. You could get some things in from Iraq by truck, but the Kurdish-led, U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces have taken all of Deir al-Zor province and the checkpoint of Al-Bukamal on the Syrian side of the Syria-Iraq border has fallen to the SDF.
Food, weapons and ammunition have to come from Latakia. The truck route from Latakia down to Damascus passes through Homs.
The fundamentalist Sunni Arab militia, the HTS (Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham or the Levant Liberation Council), led by a former al-Qaeda affiliate, had Idlib. In the past week it has taken Aleppo and then moved south to take Hama. (These territories are green in the below map from “X”.)
Homs is next. If the Tahrir al-Sham takes Homs, it can cut Damascus off from resupply.
Game over.
In 2012-2013, when the fundamentalist Sunni rebels, including al-Qaeda, had taken Homs, they were pushed back out by the intervention of Iran and the Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah militia alongside the remnants of the Syrian Arab Army. The fundamentalist hopes of cutting off Damascus were dashed.
In 2015, the Sunni fundamentalists in Idlib in the north of Syria tried out a Plan B, which was simply to take Latakia itself. That would also cut off Damascus from resupply.
Iran and Hezbollah could not muster the sheer manpower to stop this from happening. The Sunni fundamentalists were getting backing from Turkey and the Gulf, and the Syrian Arab Army had seen two-thirds of its troops (mostly themselves Sunni) desert. Hezbollah probably only really has 25,000 fighters despite exaggerated claims, and they were spread thin in Syria and in Lebanon itself. (Lebanon is a small country of maybe 4.5 million citizens, and only a third or so are Shiites, and only half of Shiites support Hezbollah. So it just isn’t that large an organization).
So it is alleged that in the summer of 2015, the head of Iran’s Qods Force, the special operations unit of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, flew to Moscow and informed Russian President Vladimir Putin that Iran had done all it could. If Russia did not want to see Syria fall to the Sunni fundamentalists led by al-Qaeda — with all its implications for nearby Russian Muslim-majority areas such as Chechnya — then Putin would have to intervene.
On September 30, 2015, Russia started flying air support missions in Syria for the Syrian Arab Army, Hezbollah, and Iraqi Shiite militias, against the Sunni fundamentalists. This combination of ground forces and Russian air support succeeded in defeating the rebels and bottling them up in Idlib in the north.
Therefore, in some ways the fate of the al-Assad government was sealed when President Putin invaded Ukraine on February 24, 2022. The Russian Aerospace Forces became bogged down in the Ukraine War and were simply not available in the same way for deployment in Syria.
The Russian Federation is pulling up stakes and leaving Syria. The embassy in Damascus said on Telegram Friday that owing to the “difficult” military and political situation in Syria, Russian citizens living in the Syrian Arab Republic were encouraged to take the next commercial flight out of the country. (H/t BBC Monitoring). BBC Monitoring also reports that Russian military bloggers had warned this week that if Homs fell, Russia would lose its military bases in Syria.
Homs fell.
Now veteran Iran correspondent Farnaz Fassihi reports at NYT that Iran is withdrawing from Syria.
I suggest that Tehran has no choice but to leave Syria. Without Russian air support, the couple thousand Revolutionary Guards and the remnants of the Hezbollah forces in the country, along with the tattered Syrian Arab Army, cannot hope to defeat the rebels now any more than they could in 2015. The situation is even worse than in in the summer of 2015, since Hezbollah’s forces have been devastated by the recent war with Israel, which saw their commanders blinded or crippled by Israeli booby traps and many of their tactical personnel killed or wounded in battle. Moreover, if Hezbollah attempted to deploy in a big way in Syria now, without Russian air support, Israel would hit them. Russia had offered them their only air defense umbrella, and then only as long as they were doing Russian bidding in targeting the Sunni fundamentalists.
Russian air power made the difference then. Without it, the Syrian government and its few allies are doomed.
Juan Cole
Juan R. I. Cole is Richard P. Mitchell Collegiate Professor of History at the University of Michigan. For three and a half decades, he has sought to put the relationship of the West and the Muslim world in historical context, and he has written widely about Egypt, Iran, Iraq, and South Asia. His books include Muhammad: Prophet of Peace Amid the Clash of Empires; The New Arabs: How the Millennial Generation is Changing the Middle East; Engaging the Muslim World; and Napoleon’s Egypt: Invading the Middle East.
Success of rebel groups in Syria advances Turkish agenda
International report
RFI
Issued on: 07/12/2024 -
The capture of Syria's major cities by rebel groups Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and the Syrian National Army, fighting against the forces of President Bashar al-Assad, offers Turkey the opportunity to achieve its strategic goals in the country.
The lightning offensive of Islamist militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army, which has seen the rebels capture several major Syrian cities in less than two weeks, gives Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan leverage over his Syrian counterpart President Bashar al-Assad.
"Turkey can easily stop both [rebel] entities and start a process. Turkey does have this strength, and Assad is well aware of it," said Murat Aslan of the SETA Foundation for Political, Economic and Social Research, a Turkish pro-government think tank.
Until now, Assad has rejected Erdogan's overtures for dialogue to end the civil war peacefully. "The Turkish intention politically is not to escalate in Syria [but to] start a political, diplomatic engagement with the Assad regime, and come to the terms of a normal state, and that all Syrians safely return to their homes," Aslan noted.
Syrian rebels surround Hama 'from three sides', monitor says
Syrian refugees an issue
Erdogan is seeking to return many of the estimated 4 million Syrian refugees living in Turkey, amid growing public unease over their presence in the country.
"According to the opinion polls here, yes, the Syrian refugees [are] an issue. For any government, it would be a wonderful win to see these Syrians going back to Syria of their own will," explained Aydin Selcen, a former senior Turkish diplomat who served in the region and is now a foreign policy analyst for Turkey's Medyascope news outlet.
However, Moscow has a lot to lose in Syria, as a key military backer of Assad, who in turn has granted Russia use of a key Syrian naval base. "For Moscow, it's of crucial importance that the personality of Assad remains in power," said Zaur Gasimov, a professor of history and a Russia specialist at the University of Bonn.
Syria rebel leader says goal is to overthrow Assad
Gasimov warns that Turkey could be facing another humanitarian crisis. "Russia would definitely use the military force of its aerospace forces, that can cause a huge number of casualties among civilians. Which means a new wave of migrants towards Turkish eastern Anatolia."
With more than a million Syrian refugees camped just across the Turkish border in the rebel-controlled Syrian Idlib province, analysts warn a new exodus into Turkey is a red line for Ankara.
"If they refresh their attacks on the captured areas by indiscriminate targeting... well [we can] expect further escalations in the region," warned Aslan of the pro-government SETA think tank. "And for sure there is a line that Turkey will not remain as it is, and if there is a development directly threatening the interests or security of Turkey, then Turkey will intervene."
Pushing back the YPG
With the Syrian rebel offensive also making territorial gains against the US-backed Kurdish militant group, the YPG, Ankara is poised to secure another strategic goal in Syria. Ankara accuses the YPG of having ties to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which is fighting the Turkish state.
"Without putting up a fight, and without getting directly involved, they [Ankara] have achieved one of their goals – for YPG to pull back from the Turkish frontier towards the south," explained Selcen. "I think Ankara now is closer to that goal."
With Syrian rebel successes appearing to advance Ankara's goals in Syria, some analysts are urging caution, given the rebels' links to radical Islamist groups. "The crashing down of the Assad regime is not in the interest of Turkey, because there will be chaos," warned international relations professor Huseyin Bagci, of Ankara's Middle East Technical University.
"Who is going to rule? What type of [governing] structure are we going to have?" he asked. "They are radicals, and another Daesh-style territory would not be in the interest of Turkey – in Turkish prisons, there are thousands of Daesh people."
Syrian rebel assault widens as Assad races to defend Homs, Damascus
Reuters
Syrian rebels pressed their lightning advance on Saturday, saying they had seized most of the south, as government forces dug in to defend the key central city of Homs to try to save President Bashar al-Assad’s 24-year rule.
Since the rebels’ sweep into Aleppo a week ago, government defences have crumbled across the country at a dizzying speed as insurgents seized a string of major cities and rose up in places where the rebellion had long seemed over.
Besides capturing Aleppo in the north, Hama in the centre and Deir al-Zor in the east, rebels said they have taken southern Quneitra, Deraa and Suweida and advanced to within 50 kilometres of the capital.
Government defences were focused on Homs, with state television and Syrian military sources reporting massive air strikes on rebel positions and a wave of reinforcements arriving to dig in around the city.
Meanwhile, the rebels extended their control to almost the entire southwest and said they had captured Sanamayn on the main highway from Damascus to Jordan. The Syrian military said it was repositioning, without acknowledging territorial losses.
The pace of events has stunned Arab capitals and raised fears of a fresh wave of regional instability, with Qatar saying on Saturday it threatened Syria’s territorial integrity.
Syria’s civil war, which erupted in 2011 as an uprising against Assad’s rule, dragged in big outside powers, created space for militants to plot attacks around the world and sent millions of refugees into neighbouring states.
On Saturday, anti-government protesters toppled a statue of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s late father Hafez in the mostly Druze and Christian Damascus suburb of Jaramana on Saturday, witnesses told AFP.
A witness said by phone that he saw “dozens of protesters” tearing down the statue in a main square in Jaramana, which bears the former president’s name.
Another witness said the statue had been smashed when he went by the square later. Video footage circulating online and verified by AFP showed young men toppling the statue and chanting anti-Assad slogans.
Western officials say the Syrian military is in a difficult situation, unable to halt rebel gains and forced into retreat.
Assad had long relied on allies to subdue the rebels, with Russian warplanes bombing from the skies while Iran sent allied forces, including Lebanon’s Hezbollah and Iraqi militia, to bolster the Syrian military and storm insurgent strongholds.
But Russia has been focused on the war in Ukraine since 2022 and Hezbollah’s leadership has been decimated this year in its own gruelling conflict with Israel.
Russia on Friday urged its nationals to leave the country. Iran evacuated families of diplomats from Syria, an Iranian official said.
Hezbollah has sent some “supervising forces” to Homs on Friday but any significant deployment would risk exposure to Israeli airstrikes, Western officials said.
Israel attacked two Lebanon-Syria border crossings on Friday, Lebanon said.
Iran-backed Iraqi militias are on high alert, with thousands of heavily armed fighters ready to deploy to Syria, many of them amassed near the border. But they have not yet been ordered to cross, two of their commanders said.
Iraq does not seek military intervention in Syria, a government spokesman said on Friday.
Iran, Russia, and Turkiye, which are the main foreign supporters of the rebels, will meet on Saturday to discuss the crisis in Syria.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi told Iranian television: “No specific decisions have been made regarding a horizon for Syria’s future.”
He said his meetings in Doha were focused on preserving Syria’s territorial integrity and preventing “potential consequences” in the region.
Battle for Homs
The rebels said they were “at the walls” of Homs after taking the last village on its northern outskirts late on Friday, a day after seizing nearby Hama following a brief battle outside the city.
Inside Homs, a resident said the situation had felt normal until Friday, but had grown more tense with the sound of airstrikes and gunfire clearly audible and pro-Assad militia groups setting up checkpoints.
“They are sending a message to people to keep in line and that they should not get excited and not expect Homs to go easily,” the resident said.
Seizing Homs, a key crossroads between the capital and the Mediterranean, would cut off Damascus from the coastal stronghold of Assad’s minority Alawite sect, and from a naval base and air base of his Russian allies there.
Rebels outside Homs came under intense bombardment overnight and the military and its allies were attempting to dig in for a defence of the city, both sides said.
A Syrian military officer said there was a lull in fighting on Saturday morning after a night of intense airstrikes on the rebels.
A coalition of rebel factions that include the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group made a last call on forces loyal to Assad’s government in Homs to defect.
Ahead of the rebel advance, thousands of people fled Homs towards the coastal regions of Latakia and Tartus, strongholds of the government, residents and witnesses said.
“Homs is the key. It will be very hard for Assad to make a stand but if Homs should fall, the main highway from Damascus to Tartus and the coast will be closed, cutting the capital off from the Alawite Mountains,” said Jonathan Landis, a Syria specialist at the University of Oklahoma.
“But the Syrian army won’t fight. No one wants to die for Assad and his regime,” he added.
Taking Deraa and Suweida in the south could allow a concerted assault on the capital, the seat of Assad’s power, military sources said.
Rebel sources said on Friday the military had agreed to make an orderly withdrawal from Deraa under a deal giving army officials safe passage to the capital Damascus, about 100 kilometres north.
Deraa, which had a population of more than 100,000 before the civil war began 13 years ago, holds symbolic importance as the cradle of the uprising. It is the capital of a province of about one million people, bordering Jordan.
In the east, a US-backed alliance led by Syrian Kurdish fighters captured Deir el-Zor, the government’s main foothold in the vast desert, on Friday, three Syrian sources told Reuters, jeopardising Assad’s land connection to allies in Iraq.
Meanwhile, Anadolu reported that the US-backed Syrian Free Army on Saturday took control of Palmyra in the eastern countryside of Homs province after clashes with regime forces.
The Syrian Free Army, which operates in the Al-Tanf region at the crossroads of Syria, Iraq and Jordan, has made significant advances against regime forces in the eastern countryside of Homs, local sources said on Saturday.
After clashes with regime forces, the opposition group took control of the town of Sukne between Homs and Deir el-Zor, the village of Karyetin, and the strategically located Mount Gurab around the road between Damascus and Homs.
Connecting the Dots Behind the Chaos in Syria
Lebanese journalist Ghadi Francis joins for the first half of the stream to reveal the truth about Israel’s agreement to a ceasefire and the condition of Hezbollah following the weeks of ground war with the IDF. Syrian journalist Kevork Almassian joins in the second half of the program to break down the ongoing situation on the Syria front as Aleppo and Northwestern Syria faces reinvasion directly after the IDF’s embarrassing defeat.
Follow Kevork on YouTube: @syrianaanalysis
Follow Ghadi on X: https://x.com/ghadifrancis
Veteran journalist and geopolitical analyst Pepe Escobar unpacks the geopolitical strategy of the foreign powers instigating the resurgence of violence in Syria.
As Civil War Heats Back Up, U.S. Troops Are Still Deployed in Syria
American troops are in Syria on questionable legal grounds. They continue to get attacked, according to new Pentagon data. Pentagon stats obtained by The Intercept record over 100 attacks on U.S. forces this past year. Now U.S. proxies are on the march.
U.S. soldiers at the Al-Tanf U.S. military base in Syria (Photo by Staff Sgt. William Howard, Public domain)
A rebel blitzkrieg against President Bashar al-Assad’s forces in northwestern Syria reignited that nation’s dormant civil war last week, when a coalition of militant groups united behind Hayat Tahrir al-Sham — a former Al Qaeda affiliate known as the Al Nusra Front that the U.S. considers a terrorist group — and captured Syria’s largest city, Aleppo. The rebel army, which include Turkish-backed forces, have since pushed government troops out of Hama, another major metropolis.
For years, Syria’s complicated battlefields have been populated by shifting groups of militants battling a range of enemies, including each other, and proxies backed by outside powers. Iran and Russia have propped up the autocratic Assad regime for more than a decade, while Turkey and the United States have troops on the ground in areas outside government control, and each support local proxies.
News reports and videos posted on social media indicate U.S.-backed rebels, supported by American airstrikes, may now be battling Syrian government forces as part of renewed fighting in the east.
That U.S. backing means boots on the ground. Around 900 U.S. troops are deployed in Syria alongside private military contractors, in what one expert calls “arguably the most expansive abuse” of the war powers granted to the executive branch in the wake of 9/11 — and those troops have, on average, come under fire multiple times each week since last October, according to new Pentagon statistics obtained by The Intercept.
Since the war in Gaza began last year, U.S. forces have been under sustained attack by Iran-backed militants across the Middle East, with the Pentagon’s Syrian bases being the hardest hit. Since October 18, 2023, there have been at least 127 attacks on U.S. forces in Syria, according to Lt. Cmdr. Patricia Kreuzberger, a Pentagon spokesperson, and information supplied by U.S. Central Command, or CENTCOM. On average, that’s about one attack every three days.
“Why are U.S. troops in Syria? What is the mission? What is the endgame? And is this legally authorized?”
Mission Support Site Conoco — also known as Mission Support Site Euphrates — located near a gas field in northeastern Syria, has been attacked about 40 times since last October, according to a “defense official” who would only agree to speak on background using that moniker.
Another Pentagon source confirmed that several U.S. troops are currently being evaluated for potential traumatic brain injuries after incoming mortar rounds landed near that base in eastern Deir Ezzor on Tuesday.
Documents provided by another Pentagon official, on the condition of anonymity, show that still another U.S. base, Mission Support Site Green Village, has been attacked at least 28 times. Last month, U.S. troops came under rocket attack at Patrol Base Shaddadi, one of at least 22 attacks on the small outpost since last October. There have also been at least 11 attacks on al-Tanf, a small garrison near the Iraq and Jordanian borders in southeast Syria.
Brian Finucane, a former State Department lawyer now with the International Crisis Group, said the ongoing bombardment of U.S. bases should prompt hard questions in America’s halls of power. “Why are U.S. troops in Syria? What is the mission? What is the endgame? And is this legally authorized?” are the questions that need answers, he said. “The administration doesn’t want to have that debate. Congress also seems perfectly fine avoiding it. And so, the legislative and executive branches are content to muddle along, avoiding their constitutional responsibilities — the need for congressional authorization — and really debate the merits of this conflict.”
The U.S. military has been conducting operations in Syria since 2014. America’s bases there and in neighboring Iraq ostensibly exist to conduct “counter-ISIS missions,” despite the fact that the Pentagon concluded in 2021 that the Islamic State in Syria “probably lacks the capability to target the U.S. homeland.”
Around 900 U.S. troops — including commandos from Combined Special Operations Joint Task Force-Levant — and an undisclosed number of private military contractors are operating in Syria. In 2022, The Intercept revealed the existence of a low-profile 127-echo counterterrorism program in Syria targeting Islamist militants. Under the 127e authority, U.S. Special Operations forces arm, train, and provide intelligence to small groups of elite foreign troops. But unlike traditional foreign assistance programs, which are primarily intended to build local capacity, 127e partners are dispatched on U.S.-directed missions, targeting U.S. enemies to achieve U.S. aims.
The Syrian Democratic Forces, a Kurdish-led militant group based in the country’s northeast is America’s main proxy force in Syria. While the SDF fights Islamist extremists with U.S. support, it also battles Turkey and Turkish-backed militants. Turkey, America’s longtime NATO ally, opposes the SDF due to that group’s ties to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, a Kurdish nationalist militant group that both the Turkish and U.S. governments, among others, have designated a terrorist group.
For many years, the SDF has been implicated in widespread human rights violations. The most recent State Department report on human rights in Syria notes that members of the group have been involved in “abuses involving attacks striking residential areas, physical abuse, unjust detention, recruitment or use of child soldiers, restrictions on expression and assembly, and destruction and demolition of homes.”
In the last week, the SDF appears to have also launched an offensive against Syrian government troops. Pentagon Press Secretary Maj. Gen. Pat Ryder announced that the United States was “in no way involved in the operations you see playing out in and around Aleppo in northwestern Syria.” What’s less clear is whether the U.S. is aiding an opportunistic SDF offensive in the east of the country. This week, in a press release, the SDF announced efforts to safeguard a number of villages around the town of Deir Ezzor “in light of the serious security situation arising from recent developments in western Syria.” Videos also emerged on social media showing purported U.S. airstrikes in Deir Ezzor supporting SDF ground forces battling Assad regime troops.
“[F]ighters from a U.S.-backed, Kurdish-led coalition battled government forces in the northeast, both sides said, opening a new front along a vital supply route,” according to Reuters.
The Pentagon did not respond to The Intercept’s repeated requests for comment on such reports.
The future of America’s escalating war in Syria may face renewed scrutiny early next year. President-elect Donald Trump showed antipathy to the U.S. war in Syria and withdrew U.S. forces from the north of the country in 2019, opening the door to a Turkish invasion.
“When Trump ordered the removal of U.S. forces from Syria in late 2018, there was a scramble within the government to try to figure out what that meant and whether there were ways to walk it back,” said Finucane, the former State Department lawyer. “The Pentagon was fine to pull out U.S. troops from al Tanf because there was really no counter-ISIS mission. But in his memoir, [Trump’s national security adviser] John Bolton said he wanted to keep troops there to counter Iran.”
For four years, experts say the Biden administration has continued this shadow effort aimed at Iran under the guise of a counter-ISIS mission, fending off several congressional efforts to force the removal of U.S. troops from Syria. Last year, a bid by Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., to compel the withdrawal of all U.S. troops from Syria within 30 days also failed. “The American people have had enough of endless wars in the Middle East,” Paul told The Intercept at the time. “Yet, 900 U.S. troops remain in Syria with no vital U.S. interest at stake, no definition of victory, no exit strategy, and no congressional authorization to be there.” Those troops may be increasingly drawn into the Syrian civil war in support of their SDF allies.
“This is arguably the most expansive abuse of the 2001 AUMF in the history of the law,” said Erik Sperling of Just Foreign Policy, an advocacy group critical of mainstream Washington foreign policy, referring to the 2001 Authorization for Use of Military Force, enacted in the wake of the September 11 attacks. “We know from Biden administration leaks that the U.S. presence in Syria was part of an anti-Iran proxy war strategy but after Congress started voting to remove troops, they cracked down on those leaks and they said it’s only about terrorism.”
Ryder, the Pentagon press secretary, reiterated this talking point on Monday, following a U.S. strike on a “hostile target” supposedly threatening U.S. and coalition forces at Mission Support Site Euphrates, noting that U.S. forces in Syria are “singularly focused on the enduring defeat of ISIS.”
Following an attack on U.S. personnel in Syria on November 25, the U.S. responded in typical fashion: with a strike against an Iranian-backed militia group, along with tough talk. “As previously stated, we will not tolerate any attacks on our personnel and coalition partners. We are committed to taking all necessary actions to ensure their protection,” said CENTCOM commander Gen. Michael Erik Kurilla.
U.S. troops have, however, been relentlessly attacked across the Middle East since last October. There have been at least 208 attacks against U.S. forces in the region — two in Jordan, 79 in Iraq, and 127 in Syria — according to Kreuzberger and CENTCOM. In addition to coming under fire about once every other day, U.S. troops have been killed or seriously injured in these attacks. In January, three U.S. soldiers were killed and more than 40 other personnel were injured in an attack on a base in Jordan near the Syrian border. Eight U.S. troops also suffered traumatic brain injuries and smoke inhalation from an August 9 drone attack on the Rumalyn Landing Zone in northeastern Syria.
“There were deliberations within the Biden administration prior to October 2023 about redeploying some of the U.S. forces in Syria, particularly from al Tanf,” said Finucane. “But once U.S. troops started taking fire, the deliberations came to a halt because the U.S. doesn’t want to be perceived as removing troops because they were under attack.”
Keeping military personnel in harm’s way for the sake of foreign policy credibility has become increasingly risky with the Gaza war and the flare-up of the Syrian civil war.
“As the U.S. and Israel have escalated conflicts in the region, it’s put U.S. troops in Syria in further danger.”
“It’s clear that as the U.S. and Israel have escalated conflicts in the region, it’s put U.S. troops in Syria in further danger. They are sitting ducks for U.S. ‘adversaries,’” said Sperling, a former congressional staffer who has worked on Syria policy for over a decade. “There are times when it’s worth it for U. S. service members’ lives to be put at risk. That’s why you have a military. But that’s also the reason that the framers of the Constitution said that Congress has the power to declare war. There needs to be a debate and vote.”
Trump has signaled he wants to withdraw U.S. troops from northern Syria, according to Robert F. Kennedy Jr., whom Trump has tapped to be his secretary of health and human services. “Get them out!” Trump reportedly said.
“The Biden administration never put the war in Syria up for debate because they know the American people don’t want another war in the Middle East. They know there is no popular support for putting U.S. troops at risk for this. That’s extremely undemocratic and immoral,” said Sperling, who noted that the president-elect has an opportunity to change course. “Many of Trump’s advisors will try to drag him deeper into this regional conflict in the Middle East. His legacy is going to hinge on whether he keeps his campaign promise to be an anti-war president. He can start with Syria.”
Nick Turse is the managing editor of TomDispatch and a fellow at the Type Media Center. He is the author most recently of Next Time They’ll Come to Count the Dead: War and Survival in South Sudan and of the bestselling Kill Anything That Moves.
