From Mogadishu to Minneapolis

The Trump administration’s crackdown on Somalis in Minnesota ignores a longer history: decades of US intervention that helped produce the violence and displacement Somalis fled.

By Elizabeth Schmidt

March 7, 2026

Source: Africa Is A Country

A street fair during Somali Week in Minneapolis, 2016. Image credit Fibonacci Blue via Flickr CC BY 2.0.

The Trump administration’s crackdown on Somali refugees, immigrants, and US citizens of Somali descent in Minneapolis, Minnesota, the home of some 80,000 people of Somali heritage, has been headline news in recent weeks—especially since the Immigration and Customs Enforcement killing of two American citizens—both white—who witnessed ICE brutality.

The presence of so many Somalis in Minneapolis and the special antipathy the Trump administration has for them has roots that go far deeper than the president’s hostility toward Minneapolis Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, one of his most forceful and outspoken critics. Rather, it has strong roots in the history of US intervention in Somalia from the Cold War to the “war on terror.”

Although Somalis are not the only people targeted by the Trump administration—which has a long list of “enemy” nations—they are a prominent group, a group that entered the US with refugee or Temporary Protected Status (TPS) as a result of the mayhem in their homeland, much of it sparked by US intervention.

President Trump has disparaged Somalis and other Africans since his first administration. In 2018, he notoriously referred to African nations as “shithole countries.” In December 2025, he upped the ante, making scathing, xenophobic remarks about Somali immigrants and their US-born descendants. Labeling them “garbage,” he told reporters that he wanted to expel Somalis from the country—and that they should go home and “fix” their problems. The dehumanization of targeted populations was a tactic employed by the Nazis in Hitler’s Germany to justify their murder.

In particular, Trump has villainized Congresswoman Ilhan Omar, a US citizen who was born in Somalia,  accusing her of “political crimes” and declaring that she should “go back and help fix the totally broken and crime-infested places from which [she] came.” Omar has been plagued by death threats since Trump began targeting her.

Subjected to a series of travel bans during the first Trump administration, Somalis have again been targeted during his second term. Following a tirade about Somalia’s inability to drive al-Qaeda and Islamic State elements from their country, Trump announced that he would end the TPS status of nearly 2,500 Somalis, who would then be subject to deportation.

What caused the turmoil in Somalia that drove so many people from their homes, and what role has the US played? Since an abortive US military mission to Somalia in the early 1990s, the country has most often been featured in the US mainstream media as a terrorist haven that launches attacks on neighboring countries or as the source of piratical raids on international shipping routes in the Indian Ocean and Gulf of Aden.

Much of this coverage gives readers the impression that Somalia’s problems are self-generated and that the rest of the world has been trying to save it. In reality, there is a protracted history of outside interference in Somali affairs that has worsened its long crisis. From the Cold War to the “war on terror,” the US has turned Somalia into a battleground for its geopolitical schemes, with profoundly destructive consequences for the Somali people.

Somalia’s early attempts at democracy ended in 1969, when its second president was assassinated and Major General Mohamed Siad Barre seized power. The next year, he announced that Somalia would pursue a scientific socialist agenda, beginning with a massive public works program. While the country made significant strides in mass literacy, primary education, public health, and economic development, the Siad Barre regime also suspended the constitution, banned political parties, and assassinated rivals.

Wary of Somalia’s socialist orientation, the US suspended economic aid and the Soviet Union became the country’s main source of military and economic assistance. By 1976, Somalia boasted one of the largest armies in sub-Saharan Africa. Cuban technicians trained Somali troops, while Soviet and East German agents strengthened the country’s repressive National Security Service.

Meanwhile, a revolution in Ethiopia ousted the feudal regime of Haile Selassie, a staunch ally of the West. It was replaced by a military dictatorship that described itself as Marxist-Leninist. Viewing Ethiopia’s Marxist credentials as stronger than Somalia’s, Moscow initially embraced both governments. However, in 1977, when Somalia invaded Ethiopia in an attempt to claim land occupied by ethnic Somalis, the Soviet Union threw its full support to Ethiopia.

In 1978, without Soviet assistance, Somalia was forced to withdraw. The US resumed its support, and by 1986, Mogadishu was one of the largest recipients of US military aid in sub-Saharan Africa. This aid notwithstanding, Somalia was in dire straits by the mid-1980s. The cost of the Ethiopian war, along with corruption and mismanagement, had run the economy into the ground. Onerous taxes stimulated rural unrest, which was brutally suppressed. Government critics were drafted or killed. Members of Barre’s own clan increasingly dominated the regime. By 1989, clans that had suffered from harassment or discrimination had united in their opposition to Siad Barre’s rule, as had Islamists, whom the dictatorship had also repressed.

The Mogadishu government’s resettlement of hundreds of thousands of war refugees in Somalia’s semi-autonomous region of Somaliland threatened the economic interests of the indigenous population. In the early 1980s, the Somali National Movement, backed by Ethiopia, instigated an insurgency in the region. In response, Somali military planes, piloted by white South African and former Rhodesian mercenaries, bombed the northern capital of Hargeisa. Tens of thousands of people were killed.

By the late 1980s, the Soviet Union was weakening politically and economically. The US, no longer needing a regional policeman, expressed newfound concern for Siad Barre’s human rights abuses and again suspended military and economic aid.

Without US support, the Siad Barre government was an easy target. In January 1991, warlords and their clan-based militias overthrew his regime. Conflict between competing warlords destroyed much of Mogadishu. State institutions and basic services crumbled, the formal economy ceased to function, and southern Somalia disintegrated into fiefdoms ruled by rival warlords and their militias, which clashed with a resurgent Islamist movement.

As the fighting intensified in 1991, war-induced famine, compounded by drought, threatened much of the population. Massive population displacement, the theft of food and livestock by marauding soldiers and militia members, and crop failure rendered 4.5 million people at risk of starvation. By late 1992, some 300,000 Somalis had died from starvation and war-related disease and violence, while two million people had fled their homes.

Concerned about instability in this strategic region, the US, backed by the United Nations, launched a multinational military intervention in 1992. Its mission was to ensure the delivery of humanitarian relief. In 1993, another UN mission permitted US-led forces to disarm and arrest Somali warlords and militia members. As a result, the United States took sides in what had become a civil war—favoring one warlord (Ali Mahdi Muhammad) and opposing another (Mohamed Farah Aidid). Civilians were caught in the crossfire. Many were killed in US airstrikes, eliciting a furious backlash from the population. US troops, in turn, increasingly regarded Somali civilians as hostile actors.

Although the delivery of food aid had been the priority of the US military in early 1993, it was not the objective eight months later. From late August to early October, the US armed forces were bent on capturing or killing Aidid and his top lieutenants. The final raid took place in October 1993, when US Army Rangers and Delta Force troops attempted to capture key leaders of Aidid’s militia in Mogadishu. Aidid’s forces shot down two Black Hawk helicopters, which crashed into children in the streets below. Angry crowds attacked the surviving soldiers and their rescuers. Eighteen American soldiers and hundreds of Somali men, women, and children were killed in the ensuing violence.

In 1994, having stirred up a hornet’s nest, the US hastily withdrew from Somalia. However, the emergence of al-Qaeda elsewhere in East Africa sparked new US concerns about violence in the Horn. The bombing of US embassies in Kenya and Tanzania in 1998, followed by the 9/11 attacks in 2001, led to increased US collaboration with the post-Marxist government in Ethiopia.

Meanwhile, Islamist groups had gained significant popular support in Somalia by offering essential social services no longer provided by the government, including schools, health clinics, and courts that brought some semblance of order to the war zone. Ignoring the reasons for the appeal of Islamism, Washington set out on a violent campaign to stamp it out.

Worried that Somalia could become an al-Qaeda outpost, Washington joined Somali warlords and the Ethiopian government in opposing Islamist advances, imposing an ineffectual government in 2004. Two years later, Washington supported an Ethiopian invasion and occupation that lasted until 2009.

Foreign intervention precipitated a domestic insurgency led by al-Shabaab, originally a youth militia organized to defend the Islamic courts. Provoked by outside meddling, it had transformed into a violent jihadist organization. By 2007, al-Shabaab had taken control of large swaths of central and southern Somalia, prompting the UN, the African Union, and neighboring countries to intervene. In 2012, the youth militia affiliated with al-Qaeda.

The US worked in the shadows, launching low-intensity warfare against al-Shabaab operatives, deploying both private contractors and Special Operations Forces to train and accompany Somali and African Union troops in combat operations. US drones and airstrikes killed key al-Shabaab leaders, who were rapidly replaced by others.

In 2012, outside forces again imposed a new political dispensation that was mediated by the UN, backed by the international community, and disavowed by large segments of Somali civil society, which had had little input in the process. Al-Shabaab was again diminished, but not defeated. A decade and a half later, al-Shabaab maintains its powerful foothold in Somalia, and the central government still cannot provide basic services, law, order, and justice.

Meanwhile, the US has continued to wage a shadow war. Reducing the number of American feet on the ground, the Obama administration escalated the use of drones and airstrikes to kill al-Shabaab insurgents. While this method diminished the number of US deaths, it slaughtered hundreds of Somali civilians. The first Trump administration withdrew most US forces, but carried out 219 air strikes in Somalia. The Biden administration increased the number of US Special Operations Forces whose job was to train and assist Somali forces in counterterrorism operations focused on killing extremist leaders deemed a threat to the US, its interests, and its allies.

In its first year, the second Trump administration oversaw more air strikes than the number carried out by the George W. Bush, Barack Obama, and Joe Biden administrations combined. A top US Navy admiral described a February 2025 strike as the “largest air strike in the history of the world.” The US military has refused to provide information on civilian casualties.

In 1991, when Siad Barre was ousted and the central government disintegrated, Somaliland, the semi-autonomous region in the north that had been brutalized by the central government, declared independence. The region is strategically located along the Gulf of Aden—the gateway to Europe for Middle Eastern oil. The city of Berbera is home to a port and one of the longest landing strips in Africa, both coveted by the Trump administration. Access to these facilities would offer the US a strong presence on the oil shipping route and enable it to monitor conflicts in the region. Moreover, new studies have shown that Somaliland has numerous deposits of rare earth minerals that have not yet been claimed or exploited.

In a letter to Trump in March 2025, the Somali president offered the US exclusive control of two air bases and two ports, including the air base and port in Berbera. Trump hopes that the addition of military facilities in Somaliland, one of the few African governments that recognizes Taiwan, rather than Beijing, will weaken China’s stronghold on the continent. In December 2025, the Netanyahu government in Israel, a staunch US ally, became the first country to recognize Somaliland as an independent state. News reports claim that Israel hopes to resettle Palestinians from Gaza in Somaliland—a forced relocation, which is in clear violation of international law.

How has foreign meddling shaped the Somalia of today? It has internationalized what had been a local conflict, strengthening violent extremist factions and precipitating al-Qaeda involvement. Far from containing the bloodshed, external intervention increased it, provoking internal actors to affiliate with al-Qaeda and the Islamic State, establishing extremist outposts where none had been before.

This, President Trump, is the country the Somalis of Minnesota fled—a country that has been brutalized by both the US and violent extremists provoked by the actions of outsiders. This is the mayhem that qualified Somalis for refugee and Temporary Protected Status in the United States. And yes, Mr. President, it is this population and its US-born descendants who have been targeted by ICE for incarceration and deportation. Shame on the United States of America.

Russia/Africa

When Russia draws its cannon fodder from Africa

Tuesday 3 March 2026, by Paul Martial

Victims of propaganda, many young Africans in search of a better life go to Russia. Yet they find only the violence of war — and too often, death. To compensate for the lack of soldiers, the Russian authorities set up recruitment campaigns in Africa, first through Wagner mercenaries, before these networks diversified.

Networks in the hands of a crooked elite

Recruitment targets two types of profiles. Young women are recruited to provide labour for the Alabuga military-industrial complex in the Tatarstan Republic. They are promised training and a good salary. Advertising campaigns carefully hide the fact that it is a question of working in factories manufacturing drones intended for the conflict, sometimes exposed to Ukrainian shelling.

A more discreet recruitment targets men sent to the front. The promises of employment evoke non-combatant jobs — drivers, nurses or cooks — but the reality is quite different. These networks, which are very lucrative, are run by businessmen and politicians. In Uganda, for example, MP Edson Rugumayo, a member of the ruling party and youth delegate, plays a key role. In South Africa, businesswoman Lebogang Zulu, her country’s representative to the BRICS Women’s Business Alliance, is also involved, as is one of the daughters of former president Jacob Zuma, whose party, the MK, has openly pro-Russian positions.

The most emblematic case remains that of Kenya, where William Ruto’s government is actively encouraging young people to emigrate. Alfred Mutua, Minister of Labour, encouraged young people to go and work in Russia as part of the labour mobility programme, helping to legitimize the idea that the country was a safe destination. This is how hundreds of
Kenyans found themselves on the front.

From hope to hell

For young women, living and working conditions are particularly difficult. The real salary is much lower than what they were promised. Surveillance is constant, they cannot go out freely and live confined in dormitories. They handle toxic products without any protection.

As for the young men, as soon as they arrive at the airport, their passports are confiscated. They sign a contract in Russian, which they do not understand, then undergo a two-week basic marksmanship training before being sent to the front, often in the most dangerous areas. Their regiments are mainly made up of foreigners, but also Russians who have been released from prison or are addicted to drugs. Sometimes the only way out is to intentionally injure yourself or try to cross Ukrainian lines. Without a passport, their repatriation becomes almost impossible.

The mobilizations of the families have helped to highlight this human trafficking, made possible by the duplicity of an African elite complicit in a criminal Russian military hierarchy.

19 February 2026

Translated by International Viewpoint from l’Anticapitaliste.

Attached documents

• when-russia-draws-its-cannon-fodder-from-africa_a9434.pdf (PDF - 1 MiB)
  Extraction PDF [->article9434]

• Paul Martial

  Paul Martial is a correspondent for International Viewpoint. He is editor of Afriques en Lutte and a member of the Fourth International in France.

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THE ORIGIN OF THE STATE

Life After Mencho: A Shifting Landscape Of Organized Crime In Mexico – Analysis

Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes (aka “el Mencho”). Image: Grok

March 4, 2026 
Geopolitical Monitor
By Jose Miguel Alonso-Trabanco

As a phenomenon whose behavior is driven by long-range impersonal forces rather than whimsical vicissitudes, the evolution of organized crime in Mexico has proved to be quite dynamic and ductile. The latest progression of this fast-paced trajectory is the Mexican military operation in which Nemesio Oseguera Cervantes (aka “el Mencho”), nominal leader of the New Generation Jalisco Cartel (CJNG), was killed. As retaliation, his henchmen targeted private businesses, state-owned banks and security personnel. Cartel hitmen also disrupted transit through roadblocks in various highways, urban centers, rural communities and tourist spots across Mexico. Everyday economic cycles and recreational activities came to a halt in nearly half of the country, even in regions far away from the epicenter of these events.

This episode and its immediate aftermath have gone viral on a global scale through both mainstream channels and social media. As the dust is settling after the initial backlash wave, an atmosphere of tense calm prevails, at least for the time being, but the ghost of “el Mencho” is now haunting Mexico. To keep things in perspective, this man was no ordinary street thug. While his centrality had diminished due to ailing health, he had become Mexico’s most powerful and ruthless criminal warlord. Under his leadership, the New Generation Jalisco Cartel (CJNG) had risen —especially after the recent partition of the Sinaloa Cartel— as one of the world’s largest criminal empires. For the Mexican state, this operation represents a Zeitenwende which, after a hiatus of suspicious unresponsiveness, highlights both the material ability and the political will to engage nonstate antagonists, even if this confrontation comes with meaningful risks and costs. Once again, the gloves are off.
Profile of the New Generation Jalisco Cartel

The New Generation Jalisco Cartel was born as an offshoot of cells once tied to the Sinaloa Cartel, which later absorbed both minor regional groups from Western Mexico and paramilitary squads established to exterminate the so-called “Knights Templar.” These remnants joined forces to transform a second-rate subnational nonstate actor into a major criminal multinational empire with branches in most of Mexico, the US, Latin America, Europe, Asia, and even Africa.

The cartel’s governance model is a hybrid that integrates corporate and paramilitary components. Not unlike the diversification of the Japanese keiretsu, the CJNG was involved in various profitable operations, including drug trafficking (especially fentanyl), clandestine mining of industrial and precious metals, extortion rackets, cybercrime, fuel contraband, human trafficking, the control of cash crops, and the systematic predation of all sorts of businesses, as well as money laundering schemes. This spatial and economic expansion was facilitated by a strategy which enabled the integration of smaller surrogates. Therefore, rather than a vertical hierarchical pyramid, the CJNG is semi-decentralized network or constellation of criminal satrapies. This confederation has been strengthened through mergers, contractual partnerships and franchises. On the other hand, the CJNG has achieved substantive firepower, underpinned by the acquisition of assault rifles, RPGs, landmines, unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), anti-aircraft guns, and improvised explosive devices (IEDs). In the hands of assassins trained by military defectors and foreign mercenaries with experience in overseas warzones such as Colombia and Ukraine, these weapons have been wielded to orchestrate attacks against the Mexican armed forces, law enforcement, rival groups, and even unarmed civilians. The cartel is also notorious for embracing technological innovations such as AI, cryptocurrencies, and social media platforms.


Although it exists primarily as a money-making machine, this organization has followed an operational playbook that borrows the asymmetric tactics of nonstate militias such as terrorists, separatists, and insurgents. In this particular arena, the CJNG shares more common denominators with the Colombian FARC, Hezbollah, Blackwater, the Wagner Group and African nonstate militias than with old-school Italian mafias, Chinese triads or the Japanese Yakuza. Through the proliferation of armed violence and psychological warfare, the growth of this group has weakened the ability of the Mexican state to ensure the monopoly of force and the full-fledged control of the country’s territorial hinterland. Based on a zero-sum logic, such development represents a threat for both national security and the Westphalian sovereignty of Mexico. Finally, the hitherto unchecked metastasis of this problem would not have been possible without the organic complicity of elite political and economic enablers. As is known, the growth of organized crime necessarily requires the secretive collaboration of “friends in high places.”
Domestic Fallout from El Mencho’s Death

The fate of the New Generation Jalisco Cartel is unclear because the governance structure of organized crime is a fertile ground for a chronic backstabbing disorder. Considering existing precedents, strategic foresight suggests that four scenarios can be envisaged: 1) a smooth consensual succession, 2) a hostile takeover, 3) a bitter power struggle followed by violent balkanization or 4) a gradual disintegration.


What is certain is that the beheading of a large-scale criminal syndicate does not mean that the metaphorical hydra has been dismantled. After all, the removal of a CEO does not mean that the company he used to run has been extinguished. In the short term, the so-called “kingpin strategy” is useful to destabilize criminal networks and to restore deterrence through the demarcation of red lines. However, the Mexican state can leverage this turning point to undermine the cartel’s hidden financial infrastructure, introduce stricter customs enforcement mechanisms and go after the group’s “fellow travelers.”

In the long run, these measures could further the decline and fall of this particular criminal enterprise. Nonetheless, as serious security professionals know, the complete structural eradication of organized crime is unlikely because there are powerful incentives that guarantee the survival of this underworld ecosystem. In the case of Mexico, these include the gravitational pull of market forces, a dispersed geographical configuration, and a flourishing cultural industry that promotes the aspirational attractiveness of the narco lifestyle for young men and women through narratives, songs, fashion, Netflix productions, Instagram influencers, and even semi-religious rituals.

Yet the dismemberment of large organizations could de facto reshuffle the balance of power in a manner that favors the authority of the Mexican government. In the long run, the degradation and fragmentation of large criminal consortiums would make the problem more manageable through state-sanctioned coercion, containment strategies, backchannel negotiations, and informal agreements for the ordered redistribution of spheres of influence. The point is that the state can turn the tables with the ability to permanently keep in check these partially de-fanged criminal rings. Although kosher solutions (i.e. the rule of law, better policing, community crime prevention) are preferable in principle, the testament of history and Machiavellian wisdom teach that an expedient and effective pacification requires unsavory decisions. Bad must begin so that worse remains behind.

For the Mexican government, the elimination of “el Mencho” is a game-changing political triumph. This milestone represents a “clean break” from the puzzling policy of “hugs, not bullets,” followed by President Sheinbaum’s predecessor. Although the precise details remain obscure, the rationale behind the previous approach has been attributed to neglect, détente, and even transactional Faustian pacts. The liquidation of this “high-value target” is also helpful to restore the socio-political legitimacy and professional reputation of the country’s military and civilian security services.


Nevertheless, meaningful risks persist, including the prospect of asymmetric retaliatory attacks calculated to sabotage governance, public order, political stability, and economic exchanges. Military headquarters, senior policymakers, governmental facilities, foreign interests, corporate nerve centers, tourist attractions, symbolic sites, power plants, crowded entertainment venues and infrastructure projects could be targeted. The upcoming organization of three matches of the 2026 FIFA World Cup in Mexican cities opens windows of opportunity for such malicious purposes. The materialization of these hypothetical threats would lead to the loss of political capital, diplomatic credibility, economic benefits and “soft power.”

For an organization like the CJNG, the narco-terrorist attacks launched by Pablo Escobar against Colombian government officials and civilians are perhaps precedents worth replicating, especially considering its state-of-the-art expertise in kamikaze drones and targeted assassinations. In addition, the high-profile political associates of this cartel, who are being gradually sidelined by the current Mexican government, also have incentives to seek revenge. Readiness is therefore a major challenge for Mexican intelligence services, armed forces and law enforcement. On the other hand, the removal of a senior drug lord is expected to facilitate the progress of trade negotiations and the renewal of the North American geoeconomic bloc as a strong trilateral partnership conditionally undergirded by the securitization of strategic industries, supply chains, and critical minerals. For Mexican economic statecraft, access to the US consumer market as an engine of dynamism, manufacturing productiveness, industrial policies, technology transfers, and strategic-grade “nearshoring” investments remains an imperative.
International Dimension

Based on the new prescriptive strategic guidelines for national security and defense presented by the second Trump administration, the US geopolitical perimeter in the American hemisphere is now regarded in DC as a major priority. This redefinition is not just simply a new theoretical innovation masterminded by the US strategic community. Such perception is reflected in the recent capture of Venezuelan strongman Nicolás Maduro, the attempt to control Greenland and a hawkish foreign policy approach towards pivotal regional states with varying profiles, such as Panama, Colombia, Cuba and even Canada.

This strategic conception diagnoses that, in contemporary security environments (shaped by complex interdependence), resurgent interstate geopolitical tensions and emerging vectors of nonstate threats are increasingly entwined. In this view, Mexico is well positioned as a scalable bridge of interconnectedness through which problematic flows —synthetic opioids, illegal immigrants, triangulated Chinese goods, agents of foreign powers or nonstate actors— are infiltrating the US for hostile purposes. As US thinkers like Samuel Huntington and George Friedman have argued, the US and Mexico will likely collide due to diverging demographic and territorial interests. From this perspective, although a bit of chaos in Mexico is tolerable, a black hole of anarchy in a neighboring state with so many overlapping ties to the US is unacceptable. Washington cannot afford to let Mexico become a failed state because it fears the effects of potentially contagious spillovers, power voids and harmful externalities.

This is the context in which the official reclassification of fentanyl as a “weapon of mass destruction” and of Mexican criminal syndicates as “foreign terrorist organizations” must be understood. Under intermittent US diplomatic pressure and threats of both unilateral military interventions and coercive tariffs, the Mexican government has set aside ideological preferences and embraced a policy that blends strategic acquiescence, bilateral security collaboration, and appeasement. Out of pragmatism, the days in which there was little cooperation in the fields of defense, security, and intelligence are behind. Symbolically, the CJNG leader’s head on a silver platter is a better “sacrificial offering” than the meta-legal rendition of second-rate drug lords and has-beens. This accomplishment of this operation performatively telegraphs the US security establishment that Mexico is willing to do what is needed to restore its bona fide credentials as a reliable security partner. Furthermore, as an operational success comparable to the targeted assassinations of both Osama bin Laden or IRGC General Qassem Soleimani, the neutralization of the most wanted Mexican drug lord is a boost for the political ambitions of President Donald Trump and Secretary of State Marco Rubio. As the architects of the Trump corollary to the Monroe Doctrine, these senior GOP figures can leverage the incremental success of this new hemispheric security agenda to further their political projects.


Nevertheless, triumphalism on both sides of the border may be premature because things can get worse before they get any better. Mexican criminal organizations have proved to be exceedingly resilient. The downfall of major syndicates is usually followed by the rise of direct or indirect heirs, especially in faraway peripheral regions with a prohibitive topology. Moreover, as great powers scramble to advance their preferred versions of world order, the resulting security competition brings yet another layer of volatility and even encourages the emergence of wild cards. For example, if a regime change in Cuba occurs via a messy collapse rather than through a controlled demolition or a Richelovian deal, former regime personnel —including military and intelligence officers— may be recruited by Mexican criminal groups. Their experience with grey-zone tactics and irregular conflict in the operational theatres of contested flashpoints across the Global South (hardly transferable to legitimate business) makes them highly attractive. Aside from the self-evident economic benefits of choosing a lucrative workstream that handsomely rewards their tradecraft, there is also an incentive to join forces against the US as a common enemy.

In the worst-case scenario, such shadow symbiosis has the potential to generate a FARC-like hybrid threat in which the distinction between organized crime businesses and militant “anti-imperialist” struggle is blurred. With the firepower and cash of Mexican criminal syndicates and the Cubans’ expertise in all sorts of covert shenanigans, involvement in shady businesses and clandestine international connections, this nonstate “red menace” would be a force to be reckoned with.

For the most hardline and ideologically charged factions of the ruling coalition, increasingly alienated by the “impure” pragmatism of the Mexican head of state and the alignment of her administration to Washington’s orbit, the rise of this golem would be a good opportunity for revanchism. For extra-regional great powers interested in challenging the Americans, this revolutionary joint venture would mean a chance to fuel agitation in the most relevant state for US homeland security. This criminal mutation, under the theatrical facade of “popular resistance”, would deepen Mexico’s security crisis with a counterinsurgency nightmare. It is in Mexico’s best interest that the State Department and the upper echelons of the Cuban military apparatus manage to achieve a deal that ensures hemispheric security and regional stability.

This article was published by the Geopolitical Monitor.com

Geopoliticalmonitor.com is an open-source intelligence collection and forecasting service, providing research, analysis and up to date coverage on situations and events that have a substantive impact on political, military and economic affairs.

 

(Video) Syria’s new power map: Inside the SDF–Damascus deal (plus global intellectuals call to defend Rojava’s democratic experiment)

By Mazloum Abdi & Various

Published date 19 February, 2026

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First published at The Amargi.

For the first time in history, the commander who defeated ISIS in Kobani is sitting at the table with world leaders in Munich — not as a militia chief, but as a political actor shaping Syria’s future. At the margins of the Munich Security Conference, The Amargi’s Editor-in-Chief Kamal Chomani sat down with General Mazloum Abdi, Commander-in-Chief of the Syrian Democratic Forces. 

In this exclusive interview, Abdi discusses: why the international community’s stance toward Rojava has changed, the details behind the January 29 agreement with Damascus, whether the U.S. betrayed the Kurds, the role of Abdullah Öcalan in reaching a ceasefire, France’s diplomatic involvement and President Macron’s direct role, the future integration of the SDF into the Syrian army, and Kurdish unity and representation in Syria’s new political order. 

From war with the Syrian army just weeks ago to joint diplomacy in Europe — this conversation reveals how fast Syria’s political map is shifting. 

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Renowned global intellectuals call to defend Rojava’s democratic experiment

First published at The Amargi.

A group of prominent world intellectuals, academics, activists and public figures have issued a joint statement urging governments and civil society to defend Rojava, the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (DAANES), warning that the region’s democratic and feminist experiment faces “grave danger.”

In a statement titled “Defend Rojava: We Stand with North-East Syria’s Democratic, Feminist Revolution”, the signatories describe Rojava as “a living example for how a multiethnic society can exist peacefully in a country torn by sectarian violence, religious fundamentalism and colonial devastation.”

For nearly 14 years, the region has pursued a system rooted in democratic confederalism, women’s leadership, minority rights, ecological values, worker-run cooperatives and restorative justice. According to the statement, this political project – often referred to as the Rojava revolution – has offered a rare alternative model in a war-torn Middle East.

However, the signatories warn that recent developments threaten to dismantle those achievements. Following the breakdown of negotiations between the Syrian transitional government and DAANES, Syrian military operations in Kurdish-majority neighborhoods in Aleppo reportedly led to mass displacement and civilian casualties. The statement further alleges that advances in northeast Syria were supported by Turkish drones and allied armed groups, resulting in severe human rights violations.

The authors argue that Western governments bear responsibility for enabling these developments, citing diplomatic engagements and financial pledges to Damascus while civilian suffering in Kurdish areas continues. They also raise concerns about the ongoing siege of Kobane and the fragility of the January 30 ceasefire agreement.

Framing the issue beyond regional politics, the statement asserts that the Rojava experiment represents a broader struggle over democratic alternatives in a time of rising authoritarianism, misogyny and ecological crisis. “If we fail to stand with them now, history will remember our silence,” the text concludes.

Among the signatories are internationally recognized figures such as Slavoj Žižek, professor of philosophy at the European Graduate School; Silvia Federici, professor emerita at Hofstra University; David Wengrow, professor at University College London; George Monbiot, journalist and environmental activist; V (formerly Eve Ensler), playwright and activist; and David Adler, general coordinator of Progressive International, alongside dozens of other academics and activists from universities and movements across Europe, North America and Latin America.

The signatories call on democratic governments to legally and politically recognize DAANES, condemn attacks on northeast Syria, insist on constitutional recognition of Kurdish rights and self-government, and pressure Turkey to end the siege on Kobane.

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Defend Rojava: We stand with north-east Syria’s democratic, feminist revolution

For nearly 14 years, an unlikely societal experiment in North-East Syria has shown how a multiethnic society can coexist amid one of the world’s most devastating wars. Today, following Western betrayal and Syrian government advances, that project faces grave danger. The world must stand with them.

In the midst of the immense suffering of the Syrian war, the people of north-east Syria built a remarkable political project rooted in bottom-up democratic confederalism, women’s leadership, minority rights, restorative justice, worker’s run cooperatives and ecological values. Through councils and assemblies and guided by one of the world’s most progressive constitutions, the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (DAANES) has offered a living example for how a multiethnic society can exist peacefully in a country torn by sectarian violence, religious fundamentalism and colonial devastation. Although imperfect, DAANES – otherwise known as Rojava — embodies a rare and crucial vision of collective liberation for the people of Syria and possibly the wider region.

Unsurprisingly, the people of Rojava needed to defend their revolution against reckless persecution from the very beginning. In 2014, the female Kurdish fighters resisting the deadly onslaught of Da’esh (“ISIL”) in the besieged town of Kobane became a worldwide icon in the fight against fascism. Rojava’s heroic resistance, at a huge human cost, was vital for defeating Da’esh in 2019.

Right now, however, both this victory and the achievements of the Rojava revolution are being undone while the world looks away.

The breakdown of negotiations between the Syrian transitional government (STG) and DAANES at the end of last year was followed by Syrian army attacks on majority-Kurdish civilian neighbourhoods in Aleppo starting on January 6. At least 150,000 civilians were forcibly displaced while some reports claim casualty figures as high as 1200 people. Consequent STG military advances on north-east Syria, aided by Turkish drones and mercenaries, involved severe violations against civilians including massacres, beheadings, disappearances, arbitrary arrests, sexual violence, desecration of deceased bodies, attacks on civilian infrastructure and blocking food, water and fuel from Kobane, according to human rights organisations and local monitors. To prevent genocide against local populations, DAANES leaders agreed to far-reaching concessions in a January 30 ceasefire agreement with Damascus that leaves the future of its autonomy and self-government structures hanging in the balance. Yet despite the ceasefire, attacks on Rojava’s local communities have continued, as has the deadly siege of Kobane, highlighting the risks of more widespread violence.

We must not forget the continuities between the Syrian transitional government, Da’esh, al-Qaeda and similar groups. President al-Sharaa himself was an al-Qaeda leader who has never apologized for his atrocious actions, but instead continued them as Syria’s leader. Under his watch, thousands of civilians have been killed, including under torture and in massacres reminiscent of Da’esh. Yet, Western governments are enthusiastically backing al-Sharaa who has shown extensive willingness to open up Syria’s resources to Western corporations.

The recent military advances by Syrian government forces in north-east Syria would not have been possible without Western support. The fact that, on the day that the STG began its

operation in Aleppo, the United States facilitated a mutual understanding between the al-Sharaa government and Israel, points towards shifts in priority. A few days later, EU leaders Von der Leyen and Costa met with al-Sharaa in Damascus and pledged substantial financial support for reconstruction and stabilisation, while voicing little concern for civilian suffering in Aleppo.

International coverage of these events has been uneven and sometimes included anti-Rojava misinformation, undermining the possibility of solidarity across different anti-colonial struggles.

This is hardly a coincidence. The Rojava revolution poses an existential threat to all those upholding capitalism, patriarchy and nationalism by showing how millions of people can live together well outside these violent systems. As much as capitalist modernity pretends to be without alternatives, its “real power,” the imprisoned Kurdish leader Abdullah Öcalan writes, lies in “its ability to suffocate all utopias […] with its liberalism.” And, if need be, with brute force.

But those who are writing off the Rojava revolution as a thing of the past underestimate the resilience and resistance of the local communities that have built the world’s largest post-capitalist experiment under enormous sacrifices. In one way or another, their movement will continue to fight for democratic self-government, women’s liberation and an ecological society. Their prospects will also depend on the active solidarity of all those around the world who care for these same values.

That is why we call on all feminist, ecological, progressive and revolutionary movements around the world to stand with and mobilize for the people of Rojava. We urge all democratic governments, international institutions and civil society to legally and politically recognise DAANES; to unequivocally condemn the attacks on north-east Syria; to insist on constitutional recognition of Kurdish identity, language and local self-government; to demand concrete protections for civilians and all minorities; and to withhold financial, military, political support to the STG and Turkey as long as those demands are not met. Most immediately, Turkey must be pressured to end its siege on Kobane which threatens the lives of hundreds of thousands of civilians who have been without electricity, reliable water, and medicines for more than two weeks.

At a time of rising fascism, misogynist violence, ecological breakdown, neocolonial assaults and unprecedented inequities, defending the Rojava revolution is about more than the future of Syria and of the Kurdish people alone. What is at stake here is whether humanity is able to build and defend viable democratic alternatives to our current civilisational crisis before it is too late. If we can support our friends in Rojava to defend their revolution, collective liberation will be likelier in other parts of the world too. If we fail to stand with them now, history will remember our silence.

David Adler General Coordinator, Progressive International

Lina Alvarez Associate professor, Universidad de los Andes, Bogotá

Gail Bradbrook Co-founder, Extinction Rebellion

Debbie Bookchin Journalist & co-founding member, Emergency Committee for Rojava

John Cox Director, Center for Holocaust, Genocide & Human Rights Studies, Univ. of North Carolina Charlotte

Emek Ergun Associate Professor of Global Studies, University of North Carolina at Charlotte

Ana Cecilia Dinerstein, Department of Social and Policy Science, University of Bath

Silvia Federici Professor Emerita, Hofstra University, Hempstead, New York

Harry Halpin Researcher, Vrije Universiteit Brussels

John Holloway Professor, Benemérita Universidad Autónoma de Puebla, Mexico

Nilüfer Koç International relations spokesperson, Kurdistan National Congress

Ferat Koçak Member of the German Pparliament

Nicholas Mirzoeff Professor of media, culture, and communication, NYU

George Monbiot Journalist & environmental activist

Kumi Naidoo Co-Founding Director,

Riky Rick Foundation for the Promotion of Artivism

Joshua M. Price Professor, Department of Criminology, Toronto Metropolitan University

Vasna Ramasar Associate Professor Human Ecology, Lund University

Katharina Richter Lecturer in Climate Change Politics, University of Bristol, UK

Douglas Rushkoff Author & professor, City University of New York

Tina Shull PhD, Associate Professor of History, University of North Carolina Charlotte, United States

Marina Sitrin Chair, Department of Sociology, State University of New York Binghamton

V (formerly Eve Ensler) Playwright & activist

David Wengrow Professor, University College London

Martin Winiecki Activist & writer

Slavoj Žižek Professor of philosophy, European Graduate School

Israel’s Illegal Occupation of

Southwestern Syria

Sam Kimball

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February 20, 2026

Read Sam’s full report here, funded by the CounterPunch Investigative Fund.

Sam Kimball is an independent journalist who has covered culture, war and politics throughout the Middle East and North Africa. He currently focuses on Iraq, Tunisia and Libya.

Supporting the Kurdish Cause, Not Despotic Nationalist Parties

The Global Left's Responsibility

By Rezgar Akrawi

February 19, 2026

Source: Originally published by Z. Feel free to share widely.

"To achieve “xwebun” is to be yourself, to be a comrade with women, to be harmonious with your society, identity and a free life." - Çiğdem Doğu | Image via Academy of Democratic Modernity

A critique of the Left’s unconditional solidarity with ruling Kurdish parties, and a call for class-based solidarity that sides with workers and the alternative project: the democratic citizenship state.

1. Introduction

The global Left faces a complex challenge: how can it defend the legitimate rights of the Kurdish people in the context of existential conflicts, while maintaining consistent critical standards toward all ruling authorities without exception? This balance is a fundamental condition for the credibility of internationalist solidarity itself.

Solidarity with the oppressed Kurdish people, with other oppressed peoples, and with the toiling masses is a foundational principled position of the global Left. This position is grounded in internationalist values that reject national oppression, class exploitation, and all forms of discrimination based on ethnicity, religion, language, or gender. 

The Kurdish people have been subjected to historical and ongoing national oppression in several countries across the region, encompassing genocide, forced displacement, denial of cultural and linguistic rights, and political repression. This reality imposes on left and progressive forces a clear stance in support of their legitimate rights and just struggles.

Yet this position, which genuinely serves the cause over the long term, does not rest on unconditional alignment. It must be grounded in reliable sources and the reports of international human rights organizations. It also rests on a clear distinction between supporting the Kurdish people’s rights to dignity, equality, cultural and linguistic rights, and the right to self-determination, and granting absolute endorsement to the practices of specific Kurdish nationalist parties that have been documented as complicit in serious human rights violations.

The essence of this solidarity must be directed toward supporting the project of a citizenship state, a state founded on full equality among all citizens regardless of nationality, religion, language, or gender. A state that guarantees social justice and individual and collective rights through accountable deliberative democratic institutions. Defending national rights does not mean transforming identity into a basis for power, but rather ensuring those rights within a just legal framework that encompasses everyone.

Some left currents around the world have at times treated certain Kurdish nationalist parties as the exclusive expression of an oppressed people’s cause. They have extended unconditional solidarity without adequate accountability, despite these parties lacking genuine democratic representational legitimacy for the Kurdish people as a whole. 

Despite the complexity of circumstances, these parties did not come to power through free, fair, and transparent elections under independent international oversight. They imposed their dominance through armed force, militias, money, security control, and military and political deals with regional governments or with regional and international powers.

Documents and sources from numerous credible human rights organizations indicate that some of these ruling Kurdish nationalist forces are implicated in serious human rights violations. Throughout their history, they have carried out political assassinations, arbitrary detentions, enforced disappearances, and torture against their opponents, many of whom came from the ranks of left forces. This conflation of solidarity with the people and support for party authority may harm the cause itself. It transforms solidarity from a principled humanitarian stance into a narrow ideological alignment that may undermine the Left’s moral and political credibility.

This pattern of engagement with the causes of oppressed peoples is not new in the history of the global Left. In the early 1990s, when I arrived in Europe as a refugee, many left forces were rightly condemning the unjust economic blockade imposed on the Iraqi people following the First Gulf War. 

Some of those same forces simultaneously refused to acknowledge or condemn the crimes of Saddam Hussein’s nationalist regime (1968 to 2003), on the grounds that it was a progressive, anti-imperialist regime, or that the timing was not right and that focus should be exclusively on lifting the blockade.

This position is being repeated today with the Kurdish question in different forms. This is by no means a comparison between the savage crimes of the Ba’athist nationalist regime in Iraq and the human rights violations committed by ruling Kurdish nationalist parties. 

The underlying logic is similar in both cases: reluctance to criticize documented violations under the pretext of exceptional circumstances, inappropriate timing, or other political priorities.

2. Documented Positive Aspects

According to reports from international human rights organizations and humanitarian bodies, there are positive aspects that must be noted objectively when assessing the situation in Kurdish-majority areas.

In the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, international reports have documented the region’s hosting of large numbers of displaced persons and refugees from various Iraqi and Syrian communities, providing camps and humanitarian assistance under difficult economic conditions. 

Reports have noted a relatively higher level of social, religious, and cultural freedoms compared to some surrounding areas, with a considerable degree of security and relative religious and ethnic diversity. The region played a documented role in protecting certain minorities from the threat of genocide during the rise of ISIS, providing a safe haven for thousands of displaced people.

In northern and eastern Syria, international reports documented the effective military role of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in fighting the terrorist organization ISIS, with American and Western support. They contributed to liberating vast areas from the organization’s control and paid a heavy toll in lives. 

There have been attempts to build an administrative model under exceptional wartime conditions and ongoing siege, with efforts to manage the region’s ethnic and religious diversity. 

Reports documented relative progress in women’s participation, particularly in military and administrative spheres, something relatively rare in the regional context. Despite human rights violations, the administration of dozens of displacement camps housing tens of thousands of people under difficult and complex humanitarian conditions was noted, amid limited resources and international support.

3. Documented Violations in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq

Despite these positive aspects, reports from international human rights organizations have documented serious violations in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, which is jointly governed by the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) and the Patriotic Union of Kurdistan (PUK). 

In practice, the region is divided into two zones with separate party and security administrations, each with its own apparatus, forces, and sphere of influence. A hereditary family rule pattern is entrenched within both parties, with key decision-making positions passed within the Barzani and Talabani families, deepening the monopolization of power and undermining the institutional and democratic foundations of governance.

Reports have documented increasing restrictions on freedom of expression in the region, including the arrest, mistreatment, and in some cases torture of journalists and human rights defenders. Significant gaps exist in protecting women and girls from domestic violence and crimes committed against them. Widespread repressive practices continue against political opponents and civil society activists, including arbitrary detention, torture, and suppression of freedom of expression and peaceful assembly.

Documented violations also include the suppression of peaceful demonstrations that emerged in protest against unemployment, corruption, and unpaid salaries. In many instances, security forces used live ammunition against protesters, resulting in deaths and injuries. Dozens of activists and journalists were arrested. Independent media outlets that covered the protests were targeted.

The security apparatus affiliated with both parties exercises broad surveillance over society. Direct criticism of the ruling families who control power through hereditary succession may expose the critic to security prosecution and worse.

Documented Violations in Northern and Eastern Syria

In northern and eastern Syria, reports from neutral international human rights organizations have documented widespread and systematic violations committed by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). These include restrictions on fundamental freedoms such as freedom of expression and peaceful assembly, suppression of political opponents and civil society activists, and the forced recruitment of children under the age of eighteen, a serious and documented violation of the International Convention on the Rights of the Child, as well as widespread arbitrary detentions without fair trials and systematic torture in detention centers.

In its report on the situation in Syria, Human Rights Watch clearly documented the SDF’s continued recruitment of children of both sexes, and the detention of tens of thousands of people, including women and children, under difficult conditions in camps such as Al-Hol and Al-Roj and others, under American supervision. 

The UN Secretary-General’s report on children and armed conflict contained official documentation of multiple cases of child recruitment by Kurdish People’s Protection Forces in Syria, despite the forces’ repeated and publicly declared commitments to end this practice.

International reports documented the suppression of peaceful demonstrations in several cities, protesting deteriorating services or security practices, through the use of force and arrests. They also documented cases of forced displacement of Arab residents from their villages after liberation from ISIS under security pretexts, raising concerns about demographic engineering. 

Additionally, restrictions on press freedom and freedom of expression were noted, along with the closure of media offices and civil society organizations that criticized the Autonomous Administration’s policies.

These violations are not isolated incidents. They reflect an authoritarian structure in need of fundamental reform. The war on terrorism and genuine security threats are used as justifications for suppressing opposition and restricting freedoms in ways that go beyond security necessity.

4. The Gap Between Progressive Discourse and Authoritarian Practice

It must be noted that a significant segment of the global Left is drawn to the concept of “Democratic Confederalism” and the theories of Abdullah Öcalan, the imprisoned leader of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) in Turkey, adopted by the “Autonomous Administration” in northern and eastern Syria as an alternative to the centralized nation-state. However, a critical reading of actual practice on the ground reveals a sharp paradox: while talk of “communes” and grassroots democracy abounds, real power and military and financial decision-making are concentrated in the hands of unelected Kurdish party cadres operating with rigid centralist logic.

The use of progressive concepts such as ecology, feminism, and statelessness as a rhetorical shield that lends progressive legitimacy to a unilateral military authority, one that has consistently cooperated closely with American military and security institutions and received funding from them, before Western public opinion does not serve left thought. Rather, it hollows it out and transforms it into a “public relations” tool to cover for a nationalist system of rule that exercises single-party authority and political repression in the areas under its control.

The documented role of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in fighting the terrorist organization ISIS cannot be ignored. Yet this military role, despite its importance, does not negate the need to assess the military, political, and economic structure that took shape under international alliances. When movements that present themselves as revolutionary or liberatory come to depend on American and allied financial and military capabilities, this does not remain a passing tactical matter, but rather gradually reshapes their internal nature. 

As the center of gravity shifts from autonomous popular mobilization to external dependency, funding, and support, the movement transforms from a social force rooted in a popular base into a paid military force.

This transformation weakens the voluntary and revolutionary spirit and reorganizes the internal structure according to the logic of external dependency. Over time, the survival of these movements becomes tied to the continuation of international support rather than to the stability of their socio-popular base. When this support stops or its priorities shift, the structural fragility becomes evident, either through a rapid decline in political and military capacity, or through acceptance of the supporting party’s conditions for the sake of survival.

This structural contradiction becomes clear when SDF leadership accepted, as a fait accompli, the role of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) as the primary Kurdish national reference point, despite the family-tribal nature of its governance and its associated corruption, despotism, hereditary power, and the dominance of conservative patriarchal values. This positioning reveals the subordination of proclaimed progressive principles to narrow nationalist calculations.

We also witnessed the withdrawal of most non-Kurdish components from the SDF, the decline of popular support for the project, and the shift in international arrangements as the United States distanced itself and moved toward coordination with the Syrian government, all revealing signs of a deep crisis.

This contradiction is further confirmed by the recent agreement between the Syrian government and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), with American support and the blessing of the Kurdistan Democratic Party (KDP) in Iraq. While it is a positive step that reduces the likelihood of war and spares the region’s populations of various nationalities further destruction, the agreement contained no clause concerning women’s rights, state secularism, halting privatization, protecting the public sector, the rights of workers, or holding democratic elections to elect all officials, nor any other basic left demands. All of this reflects a clear gap between the progressive theoretical discourse and actual practice on the ground.

Accordingly, what is occurring cannot be characterized as a struggle between the Left and forces of authoritarianism, but is rather, in its essence, a struggle between competing national classes and elites over power, dominance, and spheres of influence.

5. Left Forces Must Clarify Their Position: Which Class of the Kurdish People Do They Stand With?

Despite the accumulated and independent international documentation of repression and human rights violations referenced briefly above, an influential segment of the global left discourse has continued to classify certain Kurdish nationalist forces within the category of the progressive Left or national liberation movements, without serious accountability for their practices. The historical national oppression suffered by the Kurdish people is treated as if it grants immunity from criticism to forces that claim to represent them, even when those forces engage in repression.

Here, the global and local Left must resolve its position from a clear class perspective. Peoples are not homogeneous blocs. They are class formations in which national contradictions intersect with class contradictions, and no people or ethnicity is free of internal class struggle. It is not sufficient for the Left to declare abstract solidarity with “the Kurdish people” without clearly specifying exactly with whom it is standing in solidarity, and against whom. It must clearly resolve its position: with which class of the Kurdish people does it stand?

The Kurdish people are divided into classes with contradictory interests.

On one side: a rentier bourgeoisie that controls the governance of the Kurdistan Region of Iraq, practicing corruption, despotism, and hereditary rule; and a ruling class in northern and eastern Syria that operates a single-party dictatorship under a progressive label while violating human rights and recruiting children. 

The two coordinate fully to impose their class-national authority, integrated into the policies of global capitalism politically and militarily, particularly with the United States and its aggressive imperialist policies in the region, actively supporting the ruling regimes (the oppressive national bourgeoisies), and actively participating now in the nationalist Islamic system of governance in Iraq, and likewise in Syria following the recent agreement between the SDF and the “Syrian government.”

These two ruling classes have no fundamental class disagreement with these oppressive nationalist regimes regarding their policies that are hostile to the interests of the toiling classes. Rather, they share in impoverishing the masses, suppressing freedoms, and violating the economic, social, and political rights of the toiling masses regardless of their national or religious background.

On the other side: a broad class of Kurdish workers and intellectuals, and residents of those areas from other nationalities, who suffer from poverty, unemployment, marginalization, corruption, despotism, repression, rising costs of living, and the collapse of basic services in health, education, and infrastructure. Their rights to independent union and political organizing are restricted, and they face security repression at any attempt to protest or demand their rights. This is the same class that is exploited to produce the wealth appropriated by the ruling classes, mobilized through nationalist fervor and sectarianism for wars in service of the interests and projects of the first class and its imperialist allies, while it alone pays the price of these conflicts in blood, lives, and the futures of its children, for nationalist wars that serve no real interests of their own.

6. Principled Solidarity: Defending the Cause by Also Criticizing Those Who Distort It

True left solidarity means standing beside the oppressed classes against all who exploit and oppress them, whether from the same nationality or another, and refusing to align with nationalist leaderships that deploy the discourse of national liberation to justify their authoritarian power, class privileges, and plundering of society’s wealth. The Left cannot justify hereditary rule, corruption, or the suppression of the toiling masses under any name.

Yet this reluctance persists in some left circles when confronting documented violations, under the pretext of protecting solidarity or not serving the enemies of the cause. This position departs from the internationalist values founded on rejecting injustice wherever it occurs and defending human dignity by consistent standards that do not shift with changing national identity or ideological background.

Beyond principled considerations, this position does not serve the interests of the Kurdish people themselves, and particularly the toiling masses who aspire to democracy, equality, and social justice, and who need genuine democratic mass leaderships that are accountable and subject to real change.

In light of the documented reports of international human rights organizations, the Left must pose critical questions to itself:

• Do we reject hereditary rule and demand genuine democratic elections even in areas whose peoples we stand in solidarity with?
• Do we reject despotism and demand genuine political pluralism and full freedoms?
• Do we condemn arbitrary detentions and political assassinations and demand accountability for their perpetrators, even when they belong to forces we stand in solidarity with?
• Do we reject torture and repressive practices in detention centers and demand fair trials for detainees?
• Do we defend the rights of Kurdish workers and intellectuals?
• Do we condemn corruption and the pillaging of public funds?
• Do we defend the right of Kurdish journalists, activists, and human rights defenders to criticize Kurdish authorities without fear of repression?
• Do we defend the full equality rights of Arab, Turkmen, Syriac, and other citizens in Kurdish-majority areas?
• Do we reject child recruitment and demand its immediate cessation, even when practiced by forces we stand in solidarity with?
• Do we believe that detainees, including those accused of ISIS affiliation, deserve humane treatment under international law and fair trials, or should they be humiliated, tortured, and abused as America and the SDF have done in detention centers according to documented reports?
• Do we reject left and liberatory forces being supporters of or part of the American imperial military and security apparatus, or receiving funding from it?

If the Left’s answer to any of these questions begins with “Yes, but the circumstances are exceptional,” or “Yes, we reject these practices, but the timing is not right,” or “Yes, these are our principles, but context must be considered,” then here the problem begins. Because human rights and left principles do not accept a “but.”

The global Left’s position of solidarity with oppressed peoples is greatly appreciated and represents one of its most important historical contributions to the struggle for justice. This solidarity must evolve and deepen. At the same time, it requires frank critical review to ensure its consistency with the core values on which it is founded.

Solidarity is a principled position that must not be abandoned. It gains its credibility when coupled with frank criticism upon the emergence of documented violations. Reluctance under the pretext of exceptional circumstances may weaken left discourse and bring it closer to the logic of opportunism that it criticizes in capitalism and its institutions. What is required is deepening solidarity by linking it to the values of citizenship, freedom, equality, and accountability for all without discrimination.

Supporting the Kurdish people’s struggle against the oppression practiced by authoritarian nationalist regimes in the region does not contradict criticizing the repressive practices of ruling Kurdish forces and authorities. Defending a just cause requires criticizing every practice that distorts it.

Democracy and human rights are left values enshrined in international human rights covenants. They must be applied by a single standard to all. Any double standard may hollow out the left project of its moral content. Credibility requires a clear understanding that true solidarity means defending the rights of all. Here lies the distinction between principled solidarity founded on left values, and uncritical solidarity that may transform into alignment at the expense of left and humanitarian principles.

7. The Alternative Project: The Citizenship State and Social Justice

Current local, regional, and global circumstances do not permit the formation of an independent Kurdish national state in the foreseeable future, nor does there appear to be any serious international support for this path. 

Therefore, the more productive and realistic struggle is the joint struggle between the Kurdish people and the other peoples of the region for an alternative project that transcends the exclusionary nation-state model, guarantees the collective and individual rights of the Kurdish people and all other communities within democratic citizenship states, rather than calling the toiling masses to nationalist wars that serve no genuine interests of their own and produce nothing but further destruction, displacement, and victims.

The global and local Left must support a democratic citizenship state founded on full equality among all citizens regardless of their nationality, religion, language, or gender. A state built on a democratic constitution grounded in international human rights covenants, one that guarantees the national and cultural equality of all communities and rejects any form of national domination. And a democratic federal system founded on fair geographical and administrative principles, enabling broad self-governance under the umbrella of a unified state that guarantees equal rights and resources for all its components.

This state is founded on genuine democracy that ensures free and fair elections, political pluralism, separation of powers, judicial independence, press freedom, and independent union and political organization, and that breaks entirely with all forms of hereditary power and family rule. It is also founded on the greatest possible degree of social justice, guaranteeing the rights of workers and intellectuals of all nationalities and religions, and rejecting the privatization and neoliberal policies that impoverish the masses and enrich ruling elites at their expense.

This is the project that deserves the solidarity of the global and local Left. A project that combines social justice, national justice, political democracy, and social emancipation, one that does not replace one form of national authoritarianism with another that differs only in the language of the ruler and the identity of the dominant elite. 

The Kurdish cause is a just cause deserving genuine solidarity, solidarity that means supporting the struggle of the Kurdish people, all other peoples, and the toiling masses across the region for their human, national, and democratic rights within the framework of a just citizenship state and social justice, not alignment behind nationalist elites who exploit this cause to entrench their power and preserve their class privileges.

*******************************************

Appendix: Reports of International and Regional Human Rights Organizations on Human Rights Violations in Iraq, the Kurdistan Region, and Syria

This article’s analysis draws on reports issued by international and regional human rights organizations, listed in this appendix for documentation and transparency.

Reports on the Kurdistan Region of Iraq:

• Freedom of Expression in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (2021) https://www.ohchr.org/en/press-briefing-notes/2021/05/freedom-expression-increasingly-curtailed-kurdistan-region-iraq-un
• 2024 Country Reports on Human Rights Practices: Iraq https://www.state.gov/reports/2024-country-reports-on-human-rights-practices/iraq
• Kurdistan Region of Iraq: Authorities Must End Protests-Related Repression (2021) https://www.ecoi.net/en/document/2053869.html
• Iraq: Kurdistan Region’s Authorities Failing Survivors of Domestic Violence (2024) https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2024/07/iraq-kurdistan-regions-authorities-failing-survivors-of-domestic-violence/
• GCHR Periodic Report on Human Rights Violations in Iraqi Kurdistan (2025) https://www.gc4hr.org/gchrs-periodic-report-on-human-rights-violations-in-the-iraqi-kurdistan-region/
• Pushing for Reforms from Iraqi Kurdish Ruling Parties https://www.washingtoninstitute.org/policy-analysis/pushing-reforms-iraqi-kurdish-ruling-parties

Reports on Northern and Eastern Syria:

• World Report 2025: Human Rights Conditions in Syria https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2025/country-chapters/syria
• World Report 2024: Syria https://www.hrw.org/world-report/2024/country-chapters/syria
• “War of Annihilation”: Devastating Toll on Civilians, Raqqa, Syria https://amnesty.dk/wp-content/uploads/media/4330/mde-2483672018-war-of-annihilation-devastating-toll-on-civilians-raqqa-syria.pdf
• SNHR’s 14th Annual Report on the State of Human Rights in Syria for the Year 2024 https://snhr.org/blog/2025/05/21/snhrs-14th-annual-report-on-the-state-of-human-rights-in-syria-for-the-year-2024/
• Most Notable Human Rights Violations in Syria in February 2024 https://snhr.org/wp-content/uploads/2024/03/M240303E.pdf
• Aftermath: Injustice, Torture and Death in Detention in North-East Syria (UN/OHCHR) https://www.un.org/sexualviolenceinconflict/wp-content/uploads/2024/05/Aftermath_ENG.pdf
• Children and Armed Conflict: Report of the Secretary-General (2024) https://docs.un.org/en/S/2024/384
• Syria 2024 Human Rights Report https://www.state.gov/wp-content/uploads/2025/08/624521_ISYRIA-2024-HUMAN-RIGHTS-REPORT.pdf
• Syria: Kurdish Forces Violating Ban on Child Soldiers https://www.hrw.org/news/2015/07/10/syria-kurdish-forces-violating-child-soldier-ban-0
• Child Recruitment Practices Continue in Syria Before and After the Fall of Assad https://syriaaccountability.org/child-recruitment-practices-continue-in-syria-before-and-after-the-fall-of-assad/
• Report of the Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic (2025) https://www.ohchr.org/en/hr-bodies/hrc/iici-syria/independent-international-commissionEmail

Rezgar Akrawi

Rezgar Akrawi is a leftist researcher specializing in issues of technology and the left, working in the field of systems development and e-governance.