KURDISTAN
From Assad’s frying pan to Erdoğan’s fire – Turkey in Syria
Assad’s fall should be celebrated – but we should be now be very concerned about the plight of the Kurds, argues Sarah Glynn.
I wish I could be optimistic about Syria’s future. Even as we celebrate the fall of a dictator who ruled Syria through brutal oppression, we cannot welcome those who are taking his place. Especially not if we care about the Kurds, and about the island of multi-ethnic peace and women’s freedom that now goes under the unwieldy name of the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, but which people still know as Rojava.
Kurds were especially oppressed under the version of Arab nationalism practised by Bashar al-Assad and his father Hafez; but now, even as Kurds celebrate the regime’s downfall, their future in Syria again hangs in the balance. Their security is on high alert for attacks by a resurgent ISIS. Tens of thousands of twice-displaced Kurdish families are fleeing from areas overrun by Turkey’s violent mercenaries, who combine a twisted Islamism with sadistic gang violence. And the Autonomous Administration’s Manbij canton – which is majority Arab but home to many different ethnic groups and was liberated from ISIS by Kurdish forces in 2016 – is being attacked by these same Turkish-backed gangs, and pounded by Turkish warplanes.
What is happening in Syria cannot be understood separately from the mass upheavals that followed America’s war on terror, or from America and Israel’s war against Iran, but this is not simply another American project. America has intervened in Syria – they always intervene – but they intervene through their support or otherwise for the different forces acting on the ground. In the case of Syria, the most dangerous and negative force has been, and continues to be, Turkey. Turkey’s actions are dictated by Turkey’s – or rather, President Erdoğan’s – interests, and are facilitated by the US and their allies, according to what they perceive to be their own state interests, though events may turn out very differently from anticipated. Turkey continues to prove a dangerous threat for the Kurds, but also for the whole region and beyond.
What Turkey wants
Turkey’s actions in Syria are the product of an aggressive and intolerant ethno-nationalism that was built into the Turkish Republic at its inception, a century ago. This feeds revanchist dreams of Turkish aggrandisement, and thrives on hatred of non-Turkish minorities, especially the Kurds who make up one-fifth of Turkey’s population. Repression of Kurdish identity has been a constant, and the existence of an autonomous administration in Kurdish areas across the border is deemed intolerable.
The only way that the Autonomous Administration actually threatens Turkey is by proving the possibility of a different form of society that respects minority differences and prioritises local control; but Erdoğan claims that their destruction is necessary for Turkish security. He has talked about establishing a so-called ‘safe zone’ across the north of Syria, which would appropriate most of the Kurdish towns and cities and the best agricultural land. He even showed the UN General Assembly a map of this zone, before occupying part of it in 2019. Turkey’s occupation of these areas brings them closer to realising the greater Turkey envisaged by the 1920 National Pact (Misak-ı Millî), which was overtaken by the Treaty of Lausanne, which set Turkey’s borders in 1923.
Turkey’s actions in Syria are dictated by the dual aims of increasing Turkish power and control, and destroying any hope of Kurdish autonomy. Erdoğan also wants to secure an area to which he can ‘return’ the 3 ½ million Syrian refugees currently living in Turkey, and so diffuse popular resentment against the government for allowing the refugees in. His aim had been to use the refugees, from all parts of Syria, to replace the Kurdish population in his ‘safe zones’.
Turkey against the Kurds
In Turkey, anti-Kurdish racism is used to promote Turkish unity and win popular support. It is promoted from the top and pervades every level of Turkish society, and it has become the driving force behind Turkey’s interactions with their neighbours. In Iraq, Turkey has contained Kurdish autonomy by appealing to the personal ambitions of the Barzani family, who dominate the politics of the Kurdistan Region, and turning them into de facto vassals of the Turkish state. But in North and East Syria, these tactics wouldn’t work. Instead, Turkey has tried to destroy the Autonomous Administration since its conception. They have tried to do this through direct attacks by their own military, and also by supporting the Islamist militias that have thrived in the wake of the Iraq war and the chaos of Syria’s civil war – including ISIS.
Turkey expressed no concerns about security at their southern border when it was ISIS on the other side, and allowed thousands of foreign fighters to pass through to join ISIS in Syria. They have been, and still are, accused of providing ISIS with tactical support. Other violent Islamist groups, they have supported more openly and more directly. In the early stages of Syria’s civil war, they were not alone in this. The United States poured billions of dollars into supporting Islamist opposition militias before deciding that these were not capable of achieving regime change and that the immediate danger came from ISIS. US support for the Kurds, as they repeatedly underline, is only as a force against ISIS.
Although Turkey signed up to the Global Coalition to defeat ISIS, their interventions in Syria have been almost entirely directed against the Kurds and the multi-ethnic Autonomous Administration. Turkey’s first invasion into Syria, in 2016, was undertaken with American support to ensure that it was Turkey and not the Kurds that liberated Jarablus from ISIS, so destroying the Autonomous Administration’s hopes of linking their western canton of Afrîn with the rest of their region. Turkey invaded and occupied Afrîn itself in 2018, after a green light from Russia, and the northern strip between Serê Kaniyê (Ras al-Ain) and Girê Spî (Tal Abyad) after President Trump’s partial withdrawal of US forces in 2019.
To carry out these invasions, Turkey used the Islamist militias, at first under the banner of the Free Syrian Army and then of the Syrian National Army (SNA). The militias were transformed from fighting Assad to become mercenaries for Turkey against the Kurds and the Autonomous Administration (as well as against each other). They acted as Turkey’s ground troops and were put in day-to-day charge of the occupied areas.
Many of the residents of these areas fled, but those who remained have faced a hell of looting, kidnapping, arbitrary arrests, and extreme sadistic and misogynistic violence. This has been combined with forced Turkification, including in the schools, by the Turkish state, which is in overall control. In place of the Kurds and other former residents, Turkey has built settlements for the families of their mercenaries who include people from many different countries and especially from places with Turkic roots, such as Uzbeks and Uyghurs.
The only thing stopping Turkey invading Syria again, was the presence of Russian and American troops, but that did not prevent them from carrying out constant smaller attacks – calculated to drive people away from border villages – and targeted drone assassinations. Nor did it stop Turkey from undertaking major air attacks targeted at basic infrastructure, which have knocked out much of the region’s electricity supply and devastated the economy. In their attempt to undermine the Autonomous Administration, Turkey has caused serious water shortages by reducing the flow in the Euphrates and the Tigris, and by cutting the connection from the Alouk water pumping station that they captured in 2019, leaving a million people to rely on water brought by tanker. And they have repeatedly set fire to crops before harvest.
In recent years, Erdoğan moved from trying to oust Assad to trying to make a deal with him. In exchange for normalising relations, he wanted Assad to join with him in the destruction of the Autonomous Administration; but Erdoğan’s proposals didn’t include the withdrawal of Turkish troops, and Assad wouldn’t agree.
Turkey and Hayʼat Tahrir al-Sham
Hayʼat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the group that spearheaded the operation that ended Assad’s rule, is not under direct Turkish control like the mercenary militias, but they owe Turkey their existence. They were dependent on Turkey for protection against Russia and the Syrian Government Forces, and, while Turkey may not have supplied them directly with weapons, they supplied weapons to militias that worked closely with them.
HTS managed to absorb or destroy rival militias so as to gain almost complete control of Idlib, the northwest Syrian province to which Islamist opposition groups retreated or were evacuated when Russia reversed their initial advances against Assad. There, their Islamist Syrian Salvation Government came to rule over three to four million people, and provided a rival ‘opposition’ to Turkey’s Syrian Intermediate Government. Under Turkish protection, HTS were able to develop a formidable and disciplined fighting force and their own weapon production. In the last couple of years, they extended their influence into Turkish occupied areas, and Turkey became increasingly reliant on them as a much more disciplined force than their own mercenaries. However, Turkey has built up a power that they cannot control.
Nevertheless, there is no real doubt that Turkey was behind the HTS-led operation launched on 27th November. It is thought that no one expected it to go so far, and that the original aim was to force Assad’s hand to make a deal. Erdoğan was still trying to make a deal until the very last moment before Assad’s fall.
Turkey’s other military operation
While HTS had their eyes on the main prize, and everyone was focused on Aleppo and the future of Assad, a second operation was launched by Turkey’s SNA, with the aim of destroying the Autonomous Administration. Their first attack was on the district of Shahba and its city of Tel Rifat, which provided a temporary home to over 100,000 people displaced from Afrîn. Shahba was geographically separate from the rest of the Autonomous Administration, and, after failing to forge a link, the Administration and their Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) concluded that the only way to save lives was to evacuate the population. Most have been brought to relative safety, but there have been numerous accounts of murder, kidnapping, and theft by the attacking militias, and large numbers of people are still missing. The displaced families are struggling in the winter cold with shortages of everything, including basic shelter.
The SNA’s main focus of attack then turned to Manbij, which they have just captured after fierce resistance. Since the Kurds liberated the city from ISIS, they worked hard to bring together its different ethnic groups and to incorporate them into their system of local administration. Manbij is home to around 30,000 Kurds, but is not a Kurdish city. It was an important example of the peaceful coexistence that all who care about the future of Syria’s people want to see, and was run by, and defended by, the people of different ethnicities that make up its population. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights report that SNA factions executed dozens of wounded soldiers in a military hospital north of Manbij city after blocking their evacuation, and that they have carried out identity-based killings of Kurds as well as looting and burning Kurdish property. SNA fighters have shared videos of themselves murdering men in the hospital and capturing Manbij women. The future looks grim. The SNA on the ground were supported by Turkish planes and drones.
Turkish drones and shelling in other areas controlled by the Autonomous Administration killed nineteen civilians on Monday, thirteen of them children.
The power vacuum left by departing government and Iran-backed troops has allowed an ISIS resurgence in Syria’s central desert, and in North and East Syria, fears are also focused on the prisons holding ISIS fighters and the camps holding their families, which no international institutions will take responsibility for. These have long been described as a ticking time bomb. Turkey has been accused of helping inmates organise in the camps and plan escapes, and the Autonomous Administration emphasises that every attack on their region makes it harder for them to guard the prisons and camps.
The Kurdish neighbourhoods in Aleppo – Sheikh Maqsoud and al Ashrafiyeh – have also been run autonomously since 2016, though physically separated from the rest of the Autonomous Administration. HTS are now in control of Aleppo, having excluded the SNA. There has been communication between HTS and the Administration’s SDF, and there have been no significant attacks on these neighbourhoods, but they are under blockade, with shortages of water, electricity and flour, and it is unclear what the future may hold now that the initial focus on removing Assad is over.
International neglect
There has been very little coverage of the situation facing the Kurds. When they are mentioned at all, they tend to be portrayed as US allies, although – as the Kurds are only too aware – America is only interested in them and their homeland as dispensable assets in the fight against ISIS, and a base from which to contain Iran. Many politicians and journalists have repeated, unquestioningly, Turkish claims that they need to control a ‘buffer zone’ to protect themselves from Syrian Kurdish aggression, though, as the SDF has made clear, they have never attacked Turkey and have no intention of doing so. The aggression is all from the Turkish side.
Following David Lammy’s statement in the House of Commons on Monday, former MP Lloyd Russell-Moyle tweeted: “I was concerned that Foreign Secretary didn’t mention our Kurdish led allies @SDF_Syria by name and seemed to suggest Turkey’s bombing of them was legitimate.”
Turkey’s geostrategic importance, NATO membership, European trade, and the deal to keep immigrants out of the European Union all make Western politicians resistant to putting any blocks in the way of the Turkish Government. Rather than see Turkey as one of the biggest obstacles to Middle Eastern peace and as a promoter of violent Islamism and gangsterism, politicians bathe in self-deception, treating Turkey as a potential solution to the ongoing crisis and not a significant cause.
Meanwhile, the achievements of the Kurds and their allies in creating a harmonious and peaceful system that they have long put forward as a model for a future Syria are left to the mercy of Turkey’s proxies and rarely even alluded to.
Sarah Glynn is a writer and activist – check her website and follow her on Twitteror bluesky. She writes a weekly review of Kurdish news for Medya News.
Practical help for IDPs who have escaped the aggression of Turkey’s Islamist mercenaries can be made through the German office of the Kurdish Red Crescent, Heyva Sora Kurdistanê.
Rojava Information Centre provides useful background and updates from the region.
Image: The destruction of a statue of Hafez al-Assad, Qamishlo., c/o Rojava Information Centre
Syria: “We carry a new world In our hearts!”
From Têkoşîna Anarşîst
December 7, 2024
The regime has fallen, the war continues.
The revolutionary dreams of millions of Syrians that flooded the streets in 2011 has finally become reality: the regime has fallen. After decades of Assad’s dynasty, today we woke up in a Syria without functional central government. The Syrian State has collapsed.
We, as anarchist and as revolutionaries, can’t do anything else than to celebrate one tyrant less. Cheers for that! But after more than 7 years of living in the revolution, we learned an unpopular lesson: victory is just a first step to the social transformation we need. Because every victory is simply a step to the next fight.
Luckily, the Kurdish Liberation Movement has decades of experience in their pockets, and they are more than happy to share it with us. And not just that, they also have 12 years of hands-on lessons leading a revolutionary society in north-east Syria, with women liberation, social ecology and confederation of local governments as their compass to build libertarian socialism. Not without shortcomings, not without mistakes, but it is already more than many other libertarian revolutions ever achieved.
At the same time, the military successes of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) against the regime, as well as their authoritarian islamist governance in Idlib, opened an opportunity for their leader to influence the headlines of world news agencies. The information society of the 21st century forgets as fast as they scroll down their screen, so we may have to refresh your memory. Today, who remembers the liberation of Manbij from the claws of ISIS? Who talks about the jihadists who kidnapped and trafficked yazidi women from Sengal all over the salafist world? And who remembers the women who declared SDF’s victory over Raqqa, once the capital of the caliphate?
For those who forgot, we remind you that YPJ is still fighting, leading the front of the women’s revolution in Rojava. A front that is once again under attack by proxy forces of the Turkish State, rallied under the ironic name of Syrian National Army (SNA), a Turkish-controlled coalition of criminal gangs. Today they threaten the multicultural city of Manbij, a great example of pluralism and local governance integrated in the system of the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North East Syria (DAANES).
Rojava’s revolution is not only reaching for kurds but for arabs, as well as armenians, assyrians, syriacs, turkmens, circassians, and many other ethnic groups present here. The arab forces of the Deir Ezzor Military Council were cheered on by local population when entering the city of Deir Ezzor, taking over the security vacuum that the fleeing regime soldiers left behind. The confederal system of North East Syria is a tested blue print that can serve as a foundation for a revolutionary Syria. Omar Aziz, a prominent anarchist from Damascus, worked for a confederal alliance of local councils, proposing them as a backbone of the Syrian revolution. He was arrested and died in the prisons of the Assad regime in february 2013. We have not forgotten him, and we treasure his words and experience as anarchist and as a revolutionary here, in Syria.
All revolutionary Syrians in exile, arabs, kurds and many others, bear the responsibility to make sure that their revolution succeeds. Also anarchists, communists, feminists, ecologists and other internationalist revolutionaries must feel responsible to defend it. We have a beautiful opportunity to set an example for revolutionary movements all around the world, from Kurdistan to Myanmar, from Chiapas to Palestine. Nation-States are the cornerstone of capitalist modernity, and only a worldwide confederation of popular revolutionary movements can challenge it. The alternative is a descent to authoritarianism, imperialist occupation and fundamentalist hate. We won’t let that happen.
Towards a new Syrian revolution!
As anarchists, we must also give answers to the question of nation-State. While calling for the end of states and borders, we need to push forward not just our criticisms, but also our proposals and solutions. We have to do this not only in theory, but in practice, organizing with local communities and social movements to build popular power.
Authoritarian forces, like HTS or Erdogan’s turkey, will always use force to impose their control in times of instability. The only way to counter it is popular organization, a strong ethical and political civil society, building people’s self-defense and a revolutionary culture. With international solidarity, to challenge the nationalism and chauvinism that divides us, and that deceivingly serves to legitimize the nation-state system of capitalist modernity. With local governance and confederal models, to challenge the centralized systems and borders of nation-states, that only breed oppression and violence on diversity. With women and queer organizing at the front, to challenge the patriarchal oppression from where all authoritarian models stem.
Since the arab spring of 2011 we have seen many revolutionary attempts in the middle east, but non of them succeed in achieving a libratory solution, sinking again and again in new tyrannical forms of oppression. What do we do after the fall of a tyrant to prevent another one from replacing him? There is a small window of opportunity when a regime collapses. A brief revolutionary time, where the people can take the power back in their hands, preventing a new centralized authority from imposing itself. We have to be ready to seize those opportunities when they come.
Let’s make sure that the Syrian revolution, as well as the kurdish liberation movement that has been spearheading a democratic resistance in the region, become an example for many more revolutions to come! Let’s fight together to build the new world we carry in our hearts!
Têkoşîna Anarşîst media center,
December 7th 2024
What can you do?
– Join your local rojava solidarity organizing.
– Write in the media, draw attention to the IDP crisis, as well as presenting a more accurate picture of all the forces involved in the fighting. This applies especially if you are someone already working in media with access to bigger publications.
– Create art and visuals that can be spread around. Try to connect them to brochures, writings, solidarity campaigns, etc.
– Organize and join demonstrations, hold public speeches.
– Prepare campaigns against turkish airlines and for closing airspace over Syria. In the past attacks from the air have been the biggest problem for SDF, if it comes to that it will be a significant factor again.
– Donate to Heyva Sor.
– The Semalka border is open for journalists. Come to Rojava!
– If possible, gather with your comrades/friends/family and do the points mentioned above together. Form your own groups or join existing ones.
The Syrian Democratic Forces’ stance towards HTS is not hard to predict (plus statements from Rojavan and Kurdish organisations)
First published at Medya News.
The dictator has fallen! Incredible scenes of prisoners being released, statues being toppled, people happy in the streets. In the Autonomous region [of North and East Syria] too, people are happy, though more wary of the future. Parts of their cities, their villages are still under brutal Turkish occupation. But also: What will Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) bring? And how will the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) navigate the situation?
Much is unclear, but not the principles of the SDF and the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), so that helps us a lot in making an educated guess. They have had very clear goals and core tasks from the very beginning of the Autonomous Administration in 2012, at the time defended by the People’s Protection Units (YPG) and the Women’s Protection Units (YPJ), which now form the backbone of the SDF. In short, they are implementing and defending their project of grassroots democracy.
Everything the YPG and YPJ, and later the SDF has been doing, can be understood through that lens. Everything they will do, will fit those objectives as well. You can clearly see that, when you follow the press statements of the SDF leadership. The reaction of SDF general commander Mazlum Abdi to the fall of the Assad regime, is spot on: “In Syria, we are living through historic moments as we witness the fall of the authoritarian regime in Damascus. This change presents an opportunity to build a new Syria based on democracy and justice, that guarantees the rights of all Syrians.”
They are of course willing to talk to HTS to try to push its leader Jolani to keep his promise of respect for Syria’s ethnic and religious diversity. Kurds are, of course, very cautious, as they have had their share of assorted gangs suppressing them. And don’t forget: The regime areas are Assad-free now, SDF areas have been free for many years, but there are lands under Turkish occupation and the occupation is, like any occupation, brutal. How will HTS deal with the Turkish-backed SNA? How will it deal with the occupation?
Vacuum
The regime still had some presence in SDF areas, more specifically in Deir ez-Zor (Dêrazor), Hasakah (Hesekê) and Qamishli (Qamişlo). They have all surrendered to the SDF. Great scenes in Qamishli, where the important airport is now in SDF hands. In a message on X after capturing Deir ez-Zor, the SDF’s Mazlum Abdi said: “We declare a general amnesty, without exception, in those areas. We count on the role of the people and the tribes to prevent chaos and to protect the region. Our forces are your support.”
Violence has commenced in Manbij, a predominantly Arab region under SDF control since 2016 when they kicked ISIS out. Turkey wants ISIS back in, you could say: The ‘Syrian National Army’ (SNA) may have a different name, but their radicalism and brutality, and being Turkey’s darling, tells you all you need to know. The SNA has launched an offensive against Manbij, and reportedly, the fighting is intensifying.
The SDF was unable to hold on to Shahba (Şehba) in the northwest because the small area was isolated and not directly connected to other SDF territories, and has troops too limited to withstand the SNA. Manbij is another story though: there are plenty of troops, and Manbij is not a pocket but part of the core territory of the SDF. The SDF will do what it can to make sure the SNA doesn’t lay its dirty fingers on the people under their protection.
Aleppo
How different is HTS from the SNA, and why are the SDF and the Autonomous Administration willing to talk to HTS, but not to the SNA? Well, they’d talk to Turkey (read: the SNA) too if Turkey were interested, and Mazlum Abdi has explicitly said he is open to talks, but Turkey never is. Is HTS different? HTS may have distanced itself from jihadists, but actions speak louder than words. In that sense, their willingness to engage with the SDF or not will be telling. That the SDF is still in charge in the Kurdish neighbourhoods of Aleppo could be a good sign, but then again, maybe it isn’t. Maybe HTS was just focusing on Damascus and trying to get goodwill abroad by not instantly getting into fights with others than the regime’s army.
What will possible talks with HTS focus on? On the most fundamental issue of the SDF: democratisation. It was the same with the regime, and it is always the core of any talks the SDF holds. Assad was, surprise, surprise, never interested, so the SDF merely kept the lines of conversation open. Whether they can afford to be as persistent in negotiations with HTS as they were in those with the regime, is uncertain. Assad’s army, as we see clearly now, is weak and fully demoralised, while HTS seems well organised and very dedicated, so the risks are higher.
What is also an unknown, is to what extent Turkey will keep supporting HTS, and how much rivalry there will turn out to be between the SNA and HTS. And will HTS want Turkey to end the occupation of Syrian lands?
The list of questions and unknowns in this chaos may be endless, the SDF is a factor we do know, through both actions and words. May they stand strong.
Fréderike Geerdink is an independent journalist. Follow her on Bluesky (or X) or subscribe to her acclaimed weekly newsletter Expert Kurdistan.
Will Kurds Survive in the New Syria?
The overthrow of Bashar al-Assad was met with widespread celebrations in Syria. But the situation is full of unknowns for the Kurdish population, with Turkish-backed militias massively expanding their presence in the country.
The twenty-first century’s worst humanitarian and military crisis has reached a historic turning point. This weekend, Syrians rejoiced after Bashar al-Assad was finally toppled in a shock reversal spearheaded by al-Qaeda offshoot Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). The region’s Kurds joined the celebrations, flooding into formerly Assadist-held areas and tearing down statues of the hated dictator. But like all Syrians, the Kurds have suffered enough turmoil during the past thirteen years of mass violence, displacement, proxy warfare, and ethnic cleansing to know the path toward peace remains long and hard.
When Turkey displaced two hundred thousand Syrian Kurdish civilians in a 2018 cross-border operation, many locals remained as close as possible to their bombed-out homes, now occupied by a ragtag collection of Sunni Arab and Turkmen militias. Tens of thousands stayed clinging to hopes of return in scattered, scarcely defended camps in the neighboring Shehba (Tel Rifaat) region, weathering Turkish shells. But as HTS launched the ten-day offensive that culminated in Assad’s overthrow, Turkey and its militias took advantage, seizing even these windblown refugee camps and displacing their residents once again. Hussein Maamo, an official Syrian Kurdish representative stationed in London, tells Jacobin: “The Turkey-linked factions aim to legitimize their assaults on Kurdish areas, framing their attacks as attacks against regime forces.”
Muhammed Sheikho, who is cochair of a regional council under the Kurdish-led Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (DAANES), led thousands of Kurds, Arabs, and local minorities out of the camps to safety in distant regions under DAANES control. But more were left behind. “Hundreds of our people were stranded, and couldn’t leave,” he tells Jacobin by phone from Syria. “Some were killed, some were tortured, some were captured and their fate is unclear.” Footage shows Turkish-backed fighters abusing and trampling on male and female Kurdish captives.
The DAANES project has offered a safe haven to millions of Syrians and claims to offer a model for a future Syrian settlement based on community governance, women’s autonomy, and minority representation. HTS’s relatively pragmatic approach could even open the door to future coordination between the Kurdish movement and other opposition actors, with DAANES’ military wing itself seizing territory from Assadist forces in the country’s east. But with Turkey seeking to exploit the crisis to occupy more swathes of Syrian territory and displace millions of Kurds along its border, the latest developments leave the Kurdish-led project and Syria as a whole facing a profoundly uncertain future.
Enemies of Enemies
If the adage “my enemy’s enemy is my friend” held true, the Syrian Kurds would be the most beloved people in the Middle East. But there wasn’t much time to celebrate Assad’s departure to Moscow before fresh waves of violence broke out against the Kurds and their Arab allies. As analyst Sinan Ciddi, an adjunct professor at Georgetown University, tells Jacobin, Assad’s long-awaited defeat will likely result in “a situation whereby Syria is either governed by a Salafi-jihadist organization . . . or becomes an ungoverned space with a gaping power vacuum.”
There is no reason for the Kurds or anyone else to mourn Assad, who is responsible for the bulk of civilian deaths in Syria and persistently sought to undermine the Kurdish-led DAANES, which now governs over a third of Syrian territory. “The [DAANES] maintained a pragmatic but fragile relationship with the Assad regime . . . defined by limited coordination against common threats,” analyst Yusuf Can, of the Wilson Center, tells Jacobin. “However, the Assad regime opposed [DAANES’] aspirations for further autonomy.”Assad’s defeat should be good news for the Kurdish-led DAANES — but HTS imposes its own, deeply authoritarian Islamist rule.
In theory, therefore, Assad’s defeat should be good news for the DAANES. But HTS, which has itself governed millions of Syrians in the northwestern city of Idlib, imposes its own, deeply authoritarian Islamist rule. Human Rights Watch has documented consistent arbitrary detention and torture of thousands of journalists, opposition figures, and civil society activists who sought to document HTS abuses or protest their authority. Though the organization has moderated its approach in recent years as part of a bid for legitimacy, HTS has reportedly conducted morality patrols, arresting young women for failing to follow religious dress codes; arrested young men for shaving or listening to music; and conducted public executions for witchcraft and heresy.
HTS is also known for its relatively effective service provision, in what’s been called a “technocratic Islamism,” and its fighters are indeed disciplined in their pursuit of a new Islamic state in Syria. This approach helped HTS achieve its initial victory by seizing Syria’s second-largest city, Aleppo, with the exception of around a hundred thousand Kurds currently besieged in two inner-city neighborhoods now surrounded by HTS fighters. Locals report food shortages and electricity blackouts.
“We don’t know how the situation will turn out, because these forces all impose Islam through violence,” says Hamude, a media activist in HTS-besieged Sheikh Maqsud, which has retained Kurdish-led autonomy since the outset of the Syrian conflict despite suffering siege by Assad, alleged chemical weapons attacks by Islamist opposition groups, and indiscriminate shelling amounting to war crimes.Kurdish representatives remain deeply cautious of the HTS leadership’s supposed turn toward inclusive pluralism, while the Islamist force may well opt to side with Turkey in pursuit of international legitimacy.
“In Aleppo, there are Kurds, Christians, Yezidis, and many ethnic and religious groups,” Hamude says. “These groups face severe danger. HTS doesn’t accept these minorities, and force women to cover their heads.” HTS fighters have reportedly killed at least two of the latter minority group, which suffered genocide at ISIS’ hands, as they attempted to flee Aleppo. An Armenian Christian, speaking anonymously for fear of reprisal, describes scenes of recrimination and adds: “As soon as [HTS] entered Aleppo, they destroyed a Christmas tree [as a symbol of the Christian community]. They are assuring us that they will not harm us, but we are lost. We don’t know what to do.”
Anti-Kurdish Agenda
Women, minorities, and all those seeking a secular, democratic future face a deeply troubling future under HTS governance. But the Islamist force has nonetheless achieved a remarkable defeat of Assad, while generally refraining from both looting against civilians and unnecessary conflict with the Kurds. By contrast, many of the Turkish-backed militiamen who nominally joined the offensive have never fired a shot in anger against Assad’s forces. Instead, they have once again focused on retributive violence against Kurdish civilians and lining their own pockets, leading even HTS to arrest Turkish-backed commanders.
The militias Turkey has united under the banner of the Syrian National Army (SNA) have long been accused of war crimes by the United Nations and Amnesty International, including raping women, mass killings against Kurdish civilians, torturing, electrocuting, executing, and parading caged civilians in the streets as a human shield. During prior Turkish military campaigns, these militias killed hundreds — and displaced hundreds of thousands — of civilians.
Those who survived have faced summary rule by Turkish-backed militias kidnapping, torturing, and executing civilians, along with an ongoing policy of forcible demographic change in regions formerly populated by Kurds, Yazidis, and Christian minorities. At the time of writing, these militias are focusing on hunting down Kurdish civilians trapped by the rapid developments while executing fresh military operations against regions under the Kurdish-led DAANES. Turkish air strikes have killed Kurdish children and targeted civilian DAANES buildings: none have targeted Assad’s crumbling army.
Meanwhile, the precise extent of HTS’s cooperation with Turkey is a matter of some debate. Officially, Turkey lists HTS as a “terror group” and denies any advance knowledge of the latest operations, and unlike other militias, HTS is powerful enough to act unilaterally within Syria. Certainly, Ankara has been taken aback by the speed of Assad’s collapse. Yet the Turkish leadership and HTS have long coordinated through joint operation rooms; the SNA militias that joined the latest operation are bankrolled, trained, and directed by Turkey; and Turkish flags flew over the citadel in Aleppo following its capture, as ultranationalist Turkish politicians harked back to its former status as a jewel in the Ottoman crown. One thing is for sure, says analyst Can: Turkey will “use whatever actual gains it has” against the Kurds, both domestically and abroad.Officially, Turkey lists HTS as a ‘terror group’ and denies any advance knowledge of the latest operations. Yet the Turkish leadership and HTS have long coordinated their operations.
Turkey’s key objective in Syria is simple: liquidating multiethnic, Kurdish-led governance along its border, and pushing the Kurdish population back into the Syrian desert by establishing a twenty-mile-deep “safe zone.” There, it will also resettle Syrian refugees in formerly Kurdish settlements as a way of both satisfying domestic anti-refugee sentiment and entrenching ethnic change along its border.
Turkey has achieved this objective at points along the frontier. Yet, despite several close calls, it had been prevented from eradicating the DAANES by the Assad government’s intransigence in negotiations over the border zone, and by the presence of Russian and US troops in DAANES territory. While allowing Turkey to rain down air strikes, wiping out the region’s water, electricity, and humanitarian infrastructure, both these powers ultimately preferred to retain a foothold in the north alongside dependable Kurdish forces rather than witness further chaotic violence and a power shift in favor of Ankara.
Multipolar Conflict
Turkey was seeking the green light for a final operation from either Moscow or Washington: unexpectedly, it was HTS who provided it. As HTS surged toward Damascus, an already weakened and distracted Russia washed its hands of its former client Assad. Iran, which has long partnered with Assad to brutalize Syrians and use the country as a staging-ground for Hezbollah and its own militias, was unable or unwilling to intervene after a year of punishing blows dealt by Israel.
Indeed, Israel has profited from the chaos to expand its own long-term occupation deeper into Syrian territory in the south. But it has also destroyed former Syrian Army equipment with air strikes sooner than see it fall into HTS’s hands, viewing the Salafist organization as an existential threat. Meanwhile, the US response to both HTS gains and Turkish threats against the Kurds was initially milquetoast. The DAANES’ military wing has now moved to seize territory formerly controlled by Assad and Iranian militias, operating under the justification of their anti-ISIS partnership with the United States while establishing beachheads across the Euphrates in the face of further anticipated assaults inspired by Turkey.
The US leadership said it will continue its anti-ISIS mission in the country’s east. Still, it remains unclear how far this can protect the DAANES from Turkish violence, or how the United States will interact with either HTS or the broader coalition of opposition forces throughout southern Syria — even before we consider the wild card of Donald Trump’s arrival in the White House.
Given these complex realities, it would be misguided to view either key NATO member Turkey’s violence against the nominally US-allied Kurds, or HTS’s surge against Assad, as a simple West-East proxy conflict. But one thing is clear: it’s Turkey that is now on the front foot, seeking to establish a new status quo throughout northern Syria which will freeze out both Assad allies and Iran and the dwindling Western presence in the region, leaving Turkey (NATO’s second-largest army) as the key player on the ground.Turkey is now on the front foot, seeking to establish a new status quo throughout northern Syria which will freeze out both Assad allies and Iran and the dwindling Western presence in the region.
Following the ongoing and anticipated expulsion of Kurdish civilians from their exclaves in the north-west— ethnic cleansing occurring without a word of protest from the Kurds’ nominal allies — Turkey’s eyes are turning eastward. Around a hundred thousand internally displaced persons (IDPs) have already arrived in contiguous DAANES territory, in dire humanitarian circumstances, with several elderly people and infants freezing to death as thousands sleep outside for lack of shelter. “There is no room for the people here,” says Kurdish official Sheikho, speaking to me by phone as he watches refugees pour into a makeshift reception center in the city’s sports stadium. “Some of the elderly are succumbing to the cold. All DAANES hospitals have been directed to offer care for free, but there remains an urgent need for medical support.”
Instead, these regions, and particularly multiethnic, Arab-majority city Manbij, are next in Turkey’s firing line. With Iran and Russia out of the game and the West wrong-footed, Turkey will be the dominant player in a new, Islamist Syria. Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, who has long profited from a middleman status as the enemy’s enemy stationed between Moscow and Washington, seems to hold all the cards at last.
A Future Syria
“Hope and fear can go hand in hand when thinking about Syria’s future,” says analyst Can. “It’s great to see oppressed people gaining freedom, but there are plenty of reasons to stay cautious — whether it’s the risk of Islamist radicals, other extremist groups, or foreign powers with their own agendas.” In theory, the Kurdish movement must play a crucial role in any productive future settlement for Syria. The DAANES has long signaled its pragmatic willingness to work with a reformed Damascus administration, should it demonstrate genuine commitment to devolution and to women’s and minority rights. Hussein Maamo, the Syrian Kurdish official in London, tells Jacobin he wants to see “all Syrians involved in the decision-making process to establish a democratic, pluralistic, and secular state that remains neutral regarding religion, sects, ethnicity, and political opinion.”
Unexpectedly, there are tentative signals of de-escalation between HTS and DAANES, with each preferring to avoid conflict, to variously focus on battling Assad and fending off Turkey. HTS has issued reassurances to Aleppo’s Kurds and facilitated withdrawal agreements for Kurdish civilians. DAANES representatives are currently negotiating with HTS over the future of the neighborhoods, a long-term safe haven whose population has already been swelled by IDPs fleeing the latest violence, in a potential bellwether of their future relations.
The DAANES’ military wing has made gains in formerly government-controlled territory, suggesting the distant possibility of a post-Assad Syria divided between the authoritarian-Islamist HTS and pluralist, democratic DAANES — a prospect that would have sounded utterly implausible just a week ago. But representatives remain deeply cautious of the HTS leadership’s supposed turn toward inclusive pluralism, while the Islamist force may well opt to side with Turkey in pursuit of international legitimacy. However the extraordinary crisis plays out, Turkish-backed violence against Kurds, women, and minorities will continue to imperil ordinary Syrians’ hopes for a truly democratic future.
Syrian Democratic Council: ‘The overthrow of Assad marks the start of a brighter future’
Published by Syrian Democratic Council on December 8.
We, as members of the Syrian Democratic Council (SDC), greet our great Syrian people with joy and pride as we witness a historic moment: the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad, a symbol of tyranny.
This significant victory has been achieved through your steadfast commitment to liberty, dignity, and equality, despite long years of oppression and persecution.
Your courageous resistance against an oppressive regime has been marked by immense hardship. The sacrifices of martyrs, the suffering of detainees, and the plight of the displaced people have all contributed to this momentous triumph. Through your unwavering determination, we have overcome fear and injustice.
The SDC extends its heartfelt congratulations to the Syrian people on this significant occasion. It pledges to continue working to establish a democratic and pluralistic state that guarantees equality, justice, and respect for diverse components of the Syrian society.
We believe that this pivotal moment marks the beginning of a new path. Additionally, we all have a crucial opportunity to reconstruct our nation, draft a constitution that embodies the aspirations of our people, and pursue transitional justice to address past injustices.
We will collaborate with all Syrian national, cultural, and societal powers through engaging in the national dialogue and assuming our responsibility to establish a new Syria that is inclusive of all its citizens. These citizens should be embraced regardless of their diverse national, religious, and sectarian backgrounds, without any marginalization. This new era marks the beginning of a brighter future, where the will of the Syrian people will prevail. We will harness the experience gained from past events to create a more equitable society and better future for all Syrians.
Long live a free, united, and democratic Syria!
December 8, 2024
Syrian Democratic Council
Democratic Union Party (PYD): ‘Build a new Syria where freedom, democracy and justice prevail’
Published by the PYD on December 8.
On this historic day, the people of Syria are witnessing the fall of a tyrannical regime that practised all forms of abuse and oppression on all components of Syria, with all its national and religious affiliations, for seven decades. This is the fall of centralised despotism and dictatorship.
We in the General Council of the Democratic Union Party PYD are keen that the days we are witnessing involve a flexible transition of power and that Syrians be able to manage themselves and their own affairs in a new Syria, as the Syrian homeland is our homeland with all its cultures and beliefs. We wish our people to maintain calm and rationality in this transitional phase.
We hope that Syrian forces will act according to the sensitivity of the phase that Syria is going through.
We call on all Syrians to embrace a culture of tolerance, enable the language of dialogue and reject hate speech in order to build a new Syria where freedom, democracy and justice prevail among all its components. In this context, we express our readiness for dialogue and cooperation with all Syrian forces that work for the Syrian homeland, and we express our readiness for dialogue and cooperation with all Syrian forces that work for the sake of the Syrian homeland.
Together towards a new Syria on a new day.
General Council of the Democratic Union Party (PYD)
8 December 2024
Kurdish National Congress: The Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria has laid the groundwork for a democratic Syria
Published by KNK on December 8.
Syria stands at a historic crossroads. The collapse of the dictatorial Ba’ath regime of Bashar al-Assad offers a unique opportunity to redefine the nation’s future. Now, more than ever, there is an urgent need to create a new Syria—a Syria that embraces its diverse national, religious, and cultural identities while fostering democracy, justice, and equality for all its peoples.
Since 2012, the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (DAANES) has been laying the groundwork for this vision of a democratic Syria. In this region, women, various ethnic groups and religious communities have united to fight against the so-called Islamic State (ISIS) and other jihadist groups and build a self-governing model which gives all of its peoples a voice. Throughout this journey, DAANES has consistently emphasized its commitment to being an integral part of Syria.
This democratic model—shaped through the collective efforts of Kurds, Arabs, Armenians, Assyrians, Turkmens, and Circassians, Sunnis, Shi’ites, Alawites, Christians, Druze, Yazidis, and other Syrians—has faced relentless attacks by the Turkish state. Even as Syrians celebrate liberation from the Assad regime, the Turkish state exploits the nation’s instability to target DAANES regions. Turkish aggression, including airstrikes and the mobilization of their jihadist proxy militias, poses a severe threat to the progress achieved by DAANES, to the future of Syria as a whole, and the security of the broader Middle East.
While various parties inside Syria and worldwide are speaking out for a political solution for the war-torn country, the Turkish state has intensified is its war against DAANES because does not want to promote stability or coexistence in Syria. Immediately after the fall of the Syrian Ba’ath regime, the Turkish army, in coordination with its proxy militias, launched an attack together against the multiethnic city of Manbij in northeast Syria.
A truly democratic Syria must uphold women’s rights, a central value of DAANES. Reports of Kurdish women, including members of the Women’s Protection Units (YPJ), being abducted by Turkish-backed proxies in the Shahba region highlight the urgent need for international action. Many of these women remain missing, while Kurdish civilians continue to face abduction, torture, and enforced disappearances at the hands of Turkish proxy militias. The United Nations must immediately investigate these atrocities.
Our demands
In light of recent developments and the critical situation in Syria, we call on the international community—including the UN, US, and EU—to take decisive action:
- Halt Turkish Aggression: Take immediate steps to stop Turkish military attacks, including airstrikes and shelling by the Turkish Armed Forces and actions carried out by Turkish-backed proxy militias and stand against Turkish military occupation efforts in Syria.
- Recognize DAANES: Provide formal recognition to DAANES and ensure that DAANES is included in all political and administrative decisions related to Syria’s future. The Kurds must be included in all debates and discussions about the future of Syria. The challenges facing Syria cannot be addressed without the participation of Syria’s Kurdish community.
- Provide Humanitarian Aid: Deliver urgent humanitarian assistance in collaboration with DAANES institutions to address the needs of displaced persons.
It is imperative that the global community acts swiftly to support DAANES and protect this model of a democratic, inclusive Syria at this pivotal time.
Executive Council of the KNK
8 December 2024
Kurdistan Democratic Communities Union: ‘The Democratic Nation Model is the Solution for Syria’
Published by KCK on December 9.
As a result of the developments in Syria in the last two weeks, the Baath regime has fallen, and the country has entered a new era. We hope that the new situation will lead to all the peoples of Syria living together freely and equally. For decades, the peoples of Syria have struggled hard for the creation of a democratic Syria and the development of a free, democratic, and equal life in Syria, and they have paid a high price for this cause. We are convinced that the Syrian people have the experience, consciousness, and wisdom to realize what they were aiming for for so many years. We hope that the longing of the Syrian people will be realized.
The collapse of the Baathist regime has once again proved what kind of an end the monist nation-state system will face. The nation-state system invented by capitalist modernity and exported to the Middle East is the main cause of the social problems that have been experienced in the Middle East in the past century, which have deepened and finally reached a dead end. The latest developments in the Middle East have once again clearly demonstrated that the nation-state model, which denies the differences, diversity, and pluralism in society and is based on monism, is the most contrary to human reality and the most harmful model for society. Rêber Apo1 analyzed the reality of the monist nation-state model in depth, revealing the contradiction of this system to the essence of human beings and society. He pointed out that society can no longer tolerate this system and that it will inevitably be overcome. This will pave the way for democratic transformation in the Middle East. The developments in Syria have endorsed this historical analysis of Rêber Apo. Despite all the developments in Syria throughout the last 14 years, the Baath regime failed to assess this reality; instead, it insisted on the monist nation-state system, did not start a democratic transformation, and ultimately has found its end.
As the KCK, we are in a constant effort to overcome the monist nation-state system in Syria and to develop democratic transformation. We have repeatedly conveyed this to the Syrian government. We have stated that the monist nation-state understanding should be abandoned in Syria and that steps should be taken to realize the democratic transformation that the country needs. We have attached great importance to this not being prolonged, for the peoples not to suffer more, and we have made intense efforts for this. The Kurdish people, through their struggle, have also desired the development of a democratic Syria and have developed the grounds for this. It is known that the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) is making efforts for the democratization of Syria. However, the Baath regime insisted on the monist nation-state, as a result of which the crisis in Syria deepened, the solution to the problems was postponed, and the peoples suffered more.
The most fundamental thing that the Syrian peoples long for is the development of a democratic Syria. Within a democratic Syria, all peoples with their different languages, people of all kinds of beliefs, and all the diverse cultures can live together, equally and freely. This is the solution to the problems in Syria. Kurds, Arabs, Druze, Turkmens, Assyrians, Êzidîs (Yazidis), Armenians, Alawites, Sunnis, and all the different peoples in Syria can build a new life on this basis, live together freely and equally, and build a new Syria where everyone’s rights are recognized. The development of this in Syria will have a positive impact on the entire Middle East and contribute greatly to the democratization of the Middle East. The Kurdish people have demonstrated with their struggle that they are the most dynamic force for this. As the KCK, we will continue our stance and struggle for the development of the model of the democratic nation that envisions such a life and is based on pluralism, diversity, and the co-existence of diversity in unity. To underline this fact once again, the alternative to the monist nation-state model, which is the source of all problems, is the model of the democratic nation in which the equal, democratic, and free co-existence of all peoples is ensured.
In this regard, it is also necessary to underline that the freedom of society can only be achieved through the liberation of women. Women’s liberation expresses the essence and meaning of society itself. The new Syria to be created can only be democratic and free through the development of women’s freedom. There can be no compromise, no step back in the struggle for women’s liberation.
The Turkish state is the biggest obstacle in front of the democratic, free Syria that the peoples long for. In order to prevent the development of a democratic and free life in Syria, it has been attacking and occupying Syria for many years. Despite the fall of the Baath regime, the Turkish state has not abandoned this attitude. The Turkish state, just like the Baath regime, has a monist nation-state mentality. What they are trying to achieve through their attacks and aggression is to maintain the understanding of rule and the monist system itself in Syria. The Turkish state does not only aim to genocide the Kurds; it wants to prevent democratic transformation in Syria, to ensure the continuation of the monist nation-state system and the despotic understanding of governance, and to ensure that the peoples of Syria live under genocide. With this intention, the Turkish state has established the so-called Syrian National Army (SNA). It is both attacking Syria itself and carrying out attacks through the SNA. With this approach, the Turkish state threatens the unity and integrity of Syria and threatens the developments in Syria. All Syrian peoples and forces in favor of a new Syria, a united, democratic, and free Syria, must not accept this approach of the Turkish state and must resist the attacks of the Turkish state and the SNA. They must stand with the resistance of the Kurdish people and the peoples of North and East Syria.
We call on the democratic forces of the world to take a stance against the invading, genocidal attacks of the Turkish state, to stand with the resisting Kurdish people and the Syrian peoples, and to develop a strong solidarity attitude.
All the peoples of North and Eastern Syria, especially the Kurdish people, must continue to strengthen their resistance against the attacks of the Turkish state and the SNA acting on behalf of the Turkish state. Our peoples must organize on the basis of the strategy of the Revolutionary People’s War and form their self-defense. By organizing on this basis, the resistance and struggle of the peoples against all kinds of aggression will triumph.
With the struggle it has developed, the Kurdish people have made a great contribution and played a decisive role in overcoming the monist nation-state system and the despotic understanding of governance in the Middle East. If the ground has been laid for the development of a new and democratic Syria, the struggle developed by the Kurdish people has a decisive role in this. It has a share in the emergence of such a development not only in Syria but also in the Middle East. There can be neither a Syria nor a Middle East in which the reality and the rights of the Kurdish people are not recognized. The Kurdish people will have a place in the new Syria and the Middle East.
In this regard, we congratulate all the peoples of Syria. We are convinced that the peoples will create an equal, democratic, and free Syria together. We call on everyone to act on this basis.
Co-Presidency
KCK Executive Council
- 1
Referring to peoples leader Abdullah Ocalan.
