US Justice Dept. signals it may allow safe injection sites

By JENNIFER PELTZ and MICHAEL BALSAMO

Supplies are shown on a desk at Safer Inside, a realistic model of a safe injection site in San Francisco, Aug. 29, 2018. The Justice Department is signaling it might be open to allowing so-called safe injection sites, or safe havens for people to use heroin and other narcotics with protections against fatal overdoses. The department's stance comes a year after federal prosecutors won a major court ruling that found the sites would violate federal law. The Justice Department tells The Associated Press it is talking to regulators about “appropriate guardrails” for the sites. 

(AP Photo/Eric Risberg, File)

NEW YORK (AP) — A year after winning a major court battle against the opening of so-called safe injection sites -- safe havens for people to use heroin and other narcotics with protections against fatal overdoses — the Justice Department is signaling it might be open to allowing them.

In response to questions from The Associated Press, the Justice Department said it is “evaluating” such facilities and talking to regulators about “appropriate guardrails.”

The position is a drastic change from its stance in the Trump administration, when prosecutors fought vigorously against a plan to open a safe consumption site in Philadelphia. The Justice Department won a lawsuit last year, when a federal appeals court in Pennsylvania ruled that opening such a facility would violate a 1980s-era drug law, aimed at “crackhouses,” which bans operating a place for taking illegal drugs. The Supreme Court declined in October to take the case.

About six weeks later, the first officially authorized safe injection sites opened in New York City in November. The two facilities — which the city calls “overdose prevention centers” — provide a monitored place for drug users to partake, with staffers and supplies on hand to reverse overdoses.

Such sites exist in Canada, Australia and Europe and have been discussed for years in New York and some other U.S. cities and states. A few unofficial facilities have operated for some time.

Advocates have hailed them as a way to curb the scourge of overdose deaths. Drawing from the latest available death certificate data, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimated that more than 100,000 Americans died of drug overdoses from May 2020 to April 2021.

Critics, however, argue that safe injection sites encourage illegal drug use and burden neighborhoods.

For months, the Justice Department – under Attorney General Merrick Garland – had refused to take a public stance on safe consumption sites. Officials now say they are weighing their use.

“Although we cannot comment on pending litigation, the Department is evaluating supervised consumption sites, including discussions with state and local regulators about appropriate guardrails for such sites, as part of an overall approach to harm reduction and public safety,” the agency said in a statement Friday to the AP.

The New York City sites so far have intervened in more than 125 overdoses among more than 640 users, many of whom have made multiple visits, according to OnPoint NYC, the organization running them.

Executive Director Sam Rivera said he was excited and relieved by the Justice Department’s statement. The group is eager to tell the agency about its work, he said.

“I believe they’re going to land in the right place here and we’ll be able to, together, really expand on this health initiative that’s saving lives every day,” he said.

Former Mayor Bill de Blasio, a Democrat whose administration allowed the centers to open, said the city’s attorneys believed that the federal statute is “aimed at drug trafficking, not at medical facilities,” as he characterized the consumption sites.

But U.S. Rep. Nicole Malliotakis, a New York City Republican, has urged Garland to work to shut them down, citing the appeals court ruling against the Philadelphia proposal last year. She told Garland in November that it is “imperative that you enforce this legal precedent,” and she wasn’t pleased to hear about the new Justice Department statement.

“Instead of stopping the deadly drugs streaming over our border, putting drug dealers behind bars and helping people receive the long-term treatment they need to overcome addiction, Democrat leadership is enabling illegal drug use,” Malliotakis said in a statement.

Some other arms of the federal government also have signaled some willingness at least to explore safe injection facilities, if not yet embrace them. Asked about the New York sites, White House drug czar Dr. Rahul Gupta told CNN in December he was “interested in looking at the science and data behind all of the emerging harm reduction practices.”

Later that month, the National Institutes of Health issued a call for harm reduction research that mentioned safe consumption sites, among other approaches.

Rare session of key Palestinian body could provide Abbas succession clues


FILE PHOTO: U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken meets

 with Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas

Sun, February 6, 2022
By Ali Sawafta and Nidal al-Mughrabi

RAMALLAH, West Bank/GAZA (Reuters) - A key Palestinian decision-making body convenes on Sunday for the first time in nearly four years in a session that could be a stepping stone for two potential successors to 86-year-old President Mahmoud Abbas.

The Palestine Liberation Organization's (PLO) Central Council last met in 2018, hampered by internal divisions among Palestinians. Hamas and Islamist Jihad movements turned down an invitation to attend Sunday's meeting, saying Abbas had to institute power-sharing reforms first.

Abbas heads the PLO and the Palestinian Authority (PA), which exercises limited self-rule in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. His main rival, Hamas, runs the Gaza Strip, also an Islamic Jihad stronghold.

The elderly leader, who has a history of heart problems, has not proposed a successor. Both Islamic groups have accused Abbas, who hasn't held a presidential election since 2005, of not doing enough to heal Palestinian divides which are holding up a ballot. Abbas blames Hamas for the current split.

The 141-member Central Council, meeting on Sunday and Monday, was widely expected to appoint two of Abbas's confidants, Hussein Al-Sheikh and Rawhi Fattouh, to senior posts, effectively placing them on a short list to replace him, Palestinian analysts said.

Abbas, scheduled to speak at the opening session, wants 61-year-old Sheikh, now a key Palestinian liaison with Israel and the United States, to fill the post of secretary-general of the PLO's Executive Committee, replacing the late Saeb Erekat, the analysts said.

Fattouh, 73, another Abbas aide, is his choice to head the PLO's highest decision-making body, the National Council.

Both men are close to Abbas and are not expected to shift policies over the handling of the conflict with Israel.

But even if the appointments are ratified by the Central Council, the path to succeeding Abbas, elected in 2005 to replace the late Yasser Arafat as PA president, could prove complicated.

"There is a long list of successors to (Abbas) and there is a clear internal conflict," said West Bank-based political analyst George Giacman. "If something happened to (him) there will be disputes."

Relations with Israel were also due to be discussed at the council session. Israeli-Palestinian peace talks collapsed in 2014.

(Writing by Nidal al-Mughrabi; Editing by Jeffrey Heller and Raissa Kasolowsky)

Two potential successors to Palestinian president named to top posts


President Mahmoud Abbas gestures during a meeting in Ramallah

Mon, February 7, 2022,

RAMALLAH, West Bank (Reuters) - Two potential successors to 86-year-old Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas were named on Monday to top posts in the Palestine Liberation Organization at a meeting boycotted by his Islamist rivals.

Official Palestinian news agency WAFA said the PLO's 141-member Central Council appointed Hussein Al-Sheikh, 61, an Abbas confidant who serves as key liaison with Israel and the United States, to the PLO's Executive Committee.

He is likely to replace the late Saeb Erekat as the committee's secretary-general.

The council, meeting for the first time in nearly four years, picked Rawhi Fattouh, 73, another Abbas aide, to head the PLO's highest decision-making body, the National Council.

Both men were nominated by the Western-backed Abbas and his Fatah party and are widely seen in the Palestinian territories as possible successors. They are not expected to promote any shift in policies over the handling of the conflict with Israel.

The Hamas and Islamist Jihad movements turned down an invitation to attend the council's two-day session, which began on Sunday, saying Abbas had to institute power-sharing reforms first.

"These appointments are void, illegal and lack (national) consensus. It is nothing but a redeployment of (Abbas's) team," Hamas spokesman Fawzi Barhoum said in Gaza.

Abbas heads the PLO and the Palestinian Authority, which exercises limited self-rule in the Israeli-occupied West Bank. His main rival, Hamas, runs the Gaza Strip, also an Islamic Jihad stronghold.

Both groups have accused Abbas, who hasn't held a presidential election since 2005, of not doing enough to heal Palestinian divides holding up a ballot. Abbas blames Hamas for the current split.

Palestinian analysts said the Central Council's appointments could improve Sheikh's and Fattouh's prospects of succeeding Abbas, but internal divisions and other potential challengers cloud the political picture.

Abbas, who has a history of heart problems, has not proposed a successor.

(Reporting by Ali Sawafta in Ramallah and Nidal al-Mughrabi in Gaza; Writing by Jeffrey Heller in Jerusalem; Editing by Leslie Adler)

WHO chief says he stressed collaboration on COVID-19 origins with China

Sun, February 6, 2022, 


World Health Organization (WHO) chief Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said on Saturday that he stressed greater cooperation in investigating the origins of the novel coronavirus during conversations with Chinese officials.

In a Twitter thread on Sunday, Tedros said he also spoke with Chinese Premier Li Keqiang about the global goal of vaccinating 70 percent of the world's population this year.

"Pleased to meet with Premier Li Keqiang. We discussed #COVID19 and the need for an aggressive effort on #VaccinEquity this year to vaccinate 70% of all populations. Solidarity is key to ensuring access and affordability of vaccines," Tedros wrote in his tweet.

"We also discussed the need for stronger collaboration on #COVID19 virus origins, rooted in science and evidence. I welcomed his support to strengthen @WHO and discussion about a #PandemicAccord to advance global preparedness," Tedros concluded.

The WHO last year established the Scientific Advisory Group on the Origins of Novel Pathogens, calling on China to provide raw data concerning its investigation on the matter, Reuters reported.

Chinese officials denied WHO's request for data, citing patient privacy rules. Beijing has continually denied that the COVID-19 virus was leaked from a laboratory in the city of Wuhan.

A joint study from WHO and China found the most likely scenario on how COVID-19 began was spreading through a human naturally infected through the wildlife trade, Reuters noted.

A Bridge Too Far? The Dutch Are Lining Up to Pelt Jeff Bezos’s Gigayacht With Rotten Eggs


Bryan Hood
Mon, February 7, 2022,


Jeff Bezos’s gigayacht could be in for an embarrassing surprise if it ever leaves Rotterdam.

Thousands of residents of the Dutch port city have said they’re willing to egg the second-richest person in the world’s new $485 million boat, according to Jalopnik. Why? Because they’re annoyed by his plan to dismantle a historic bridge so that the yacht can pass.

Last week, word broke that the Amazon founder’s new 417-foot boat, which is currently known as Y271, had run into a problem. The boat, which is set to dethrone Sea Cloud as the world’s largest sailing yacht, features three 229-foot masts making it too tall to pass under the Koningshaven Bridge that stands between the Oceanco shipyard where it’s being built and open water. Rather than trim down the ship’s giant masts, or build them later, the idea is to temporarily disassemble the middle section of the bridge—which is known to locals as De Hef—so it can pass.

While Bezos will reportedly pay to dismantle and reassemble the center section structure once his ship has passed, it would see that Rotterdammers are none too pleased about the idea. One resident named Pablo Strörman set up a Facebook event inviting others to join him in throwing a carton of rotten eggs (or tomatoes “if you want to keep it vegan”) at the boat as it passes. As of press time, 3,300 people have said they plan to attend the event, while another 11,100 are interested in participated in the en masse egging in some form.

“Rotterdam was built from rubble by the people of Rotterdam, and we don’t just take that apart for the phallus symbol of a megalomaniac billionaire,” the description of the event reads, according to Google translate. “Not without a fight!”

Although the city’s mayor, Ahmed Aboutaleb, has previously talked up the potential benefits of Bezos paying to dismantle the bridge, it appears that is no longer certain to happen, according to The Guardian. Late last week, the politician’s office said it had yet to received a permit request for dismantling the bridge, and because of this no official decision had been made one way or the other.

Time will tell whether a mass egging is enough to make Bezos and his team reconsider the route. If so, they will need to figure out another way to get the behemoth to open water.

Leaked video shows F35 fighter crashing on aircraft carrier and going up in flames in South China Sea


Leaked video shows F35 fighter crashing on aircraft carrier and going up in flames in South China Sea

Gustaf Kilander
Mon, February 7, 2022

A leaked video shows an F35 fighter jet crashing onto an aircraft carrier and being engulfed in flames before sliding into the South China Sea.

The F-35C plane is the most recent in the fleet used by the US Navy. It was filmed off a monitor and uploaded to Reddit by a user who said they were not the original owner of the video. The footage was filmed inside the USS Carl Vinson on 24 January, CNN reported.

After crashing into the ship, the plane slides across the runway into the water. Members of the crew can be heard yelling “wave off, wave off” as the $100m plane approaches the ship. The term is used when a pilot is advised to abandon a landing attempt, and instead speed back up to turn around for another try. But in this case, the warning came too late to avoid a crash.

Seven people were injured in the crash. The pilot ejected from the plane, with six people on the aircraft carrier also sustaining injuries.

Former Royal Australian Air Force Officer Peter Layton, currently at the Griffith Asia Institute, told CNN: “That’s really, really scary.” He said the plane appeared to struggle to retain control as it approached the ship.

“As the aircraft is coming down the flaps are working overtime backwards and forwards. It looks like the pilot has lost control and is suffering oscillations,” he said, adding that the plane may have not been using the automatic landing system, which limits the corrections a pilot has to make.

“It’s a really clever piece of software that links up the flight controls [the flaps] and the throttles and also gives the pilot some display so the pilot can monitor the system and fine tweak,” Mr Layton said. “This is a reasonably new system that came out of the F-35 program.”

The F-35C started being used in 2019, and its use on the USS Carl Vinson was its first operational deployment. The US Navy has confirmed that video is authentic, CNN reported.

“We are aware that there has been an unauthorized release of video footage from flight deck cameras onboard USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70) of the F-35C Lightning II crash that occurred Jan 24, in the South China Sea. There is an ongoing investigation into both the crash and the unauthorized release of the shipboard video footage,” Navy public affairs officer Zach Harrell said in an email.

Navy officials said the aircraft carrier resumed normal operations quickly after the crash. According to analysts, the ongoing efforts to get the ship from the seafloor would be difficult and would come under Chinese scrutiny. China considers almost all of the South China Sea to be its territory.

The F-35C has advanced technology that the US would want to avoid handing over to China. The Chinese Foreign Ministry has said that they have “no interests” in the plane.

“We advise [the US] to contribute more to regional peace and stability, rather than flexing force at every turn in [the South China Sea],” spokesperson Zhao Lijian said.

EDITORIAL: Webb telescope peers deep into space, and into our humanity


Portland Press Herald, Maine
Mon, February 7, 2022, 11:32 AM·2 min read

Feb. 7—As far as we know, we are the only beings capable of looking into the night sky and wondering what's out there. We're the only ones able to grasp the enormity of the universe around us, and to seek to know its secrets.

That is reason enough to explore space — to do whatever we can to make sense out of its mysteries.

And in doing so we not only learn more about where we came from and how we fit into the story of the cosmos, but we also display the best parts of us.


It took tremendous technical skill, building on the successes and failures of prior space explorations, to create the James Webb Space Telescope and send it successfully to its new home 1 million miles away — equal to 40 times around the Earth's equator.

But it also took the most human of qualities: cooperation, determination, curiosity, and a never-ending will to know more.

The Webb telescope, designed and built over 25 years for about $10 billion to replace the Hubble-era telescopes, was launched on Christmas Day. It reached its final destination on Jan. 24, settling into a spot between the gravitational pulls of the sun and Earth.

That wasn't nearly the end of it. The telescope featured dozens of mechanical arms that had to be deployed. There were five layers of foil-thin plastic that stretched out to the size of a tennis court, protection against the sun, whose heat would fry the telescope's instruments. A 21-foot-wide array of 18 gold-plated mirrors were unfolded to reflect light into the ultrasensitive infrared sensors that produce the scope's images.

In all, there were 344 of what NASA calls "single point failures," places where the telescope could fail once it was ready for launch, many of them around new techniques and technologies never used before.

Things could still go wrong now that the telescope is in orbit. But if not, sometime this summer it will begin sending images home. First, it will look at planets beyond our solar system, sized in between Earth and Neptune and unlike anything we know near us.

Over what is hoped to be a 20-year life, the Webb telescope will look deep into space, which because of the distances involved will actually be the far past.

The telescope will pull in light reflected off the very first stars and galaxies formed in the wake of the Big Bang, about 13.7 billion years ago, just 500 million years after everything started.

This isn't a telescope. It's a time machine, allowing us to see the universe coming together as it has never been seen before.

It's also a measure of us — of our innate desire to understand the mysteries of life and the universe, and our incredible and unique ability to come together in pursuit of that knowledge.

Mexican authorities evict Tijuana migrant camp near border

A makeshift migrant camp stands near El Chaparral pedestrian border bridge in Tijuana, Mexico, Thursday, July 1, 2021. About a hundred members of the police, National Guard and army on Sunday, Feb. 6, 2022, evicted almost 400 migrants, mainly Central Americans and Mexicans, from the makeshift camp they had been staying in for almost a year in Tijuana at the U.S. border crossing.

 (AP Photo/Emilio Espejel, File) 

JORGE LEBRIJA
Sun, February 6, 2022

TIJUANA, Mexico (AP) — About a hundred members of the police, National Guard and army on Sunday evicted 381 migrants, mainly Central Americans and Mexicans, from a makeshift camp they had been staying in for almost a year in Tijuana at the U.S. border crossing.

The migrants’ tents around El Chaparral crossing were demolished with the help of excavators and trucks while their inhabitants loaded their few belongings into bags and suitcases to be transferred to three local shelters.

“It was a relocation that had to be carried out carefully to avoid a collapse,” Tijuana Mayor Montserrat Caballero Ramírez told reporters, saying the families were living in a state of “insecurity” for health reasons.

Caballero Ramírez said the eviction was carried out peacefully and denied that the decision to take down the camp was in response to U.S. pressure.

“You know that Tijuana is governed by its own legal norms,” she said.

The 381 migrants, made up of 86 families, 24 single mothers with children, 33 men and three members of the LGBT community, were moved to the Migrant Integration Center shelter, the Salesian project and the Migrant Sanctuary, she said.

"It’s inhumane because they did it at dawn and the children were asleep,” said Mexican migrant Guadalupe Omeca, who had lived in the camp for seven months with her three children, grandson and her partner.

The “El Chaparral” camp began forming at the end of January 2021, with the arrival of the Biden administration, after U.S. authorities began to limit the flow of migrants in compliance with policies that force migrants to wait in Mexico for their immigration court hearings as well as for pandemic health measures.

The camp had become a headache for authorities in both countries because it was affecting traffic through one of three pedestrian crossings to the U.S. city of San Diego.

Activists and humanitarian organizations had expressed concerns about the situation of the migrants, many of them children, living in the makeshift camp. Last year, Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission urged Mexican authorities to guarantee respect for the human rights of the migrants and to offer them protection.

Some activists and migrant rights defenders criticized Sunday's eviction.

“Central American migrants and displaced Mexicans are human beings. They do not represent a threat to Mexico,” said Wilner Metelus, president of the Citizen Committee in Defense of Naturalized and Afro-Mexicans, on his Twitter account, calling the camp eviction a “shame”.

Honduran migrant Marleni Hernández complained that authorities treated them "as if we were criminals.”

“It’s hard, it’s not easy,” she said, her eyes brimming with tears as she acknowledged she felt very vulnerable being in a foreign country with two young daughters.

USW Supports Section 232 Deal with Japan

PR Newswire

PITTSBURGH, Feb. 7, 2022

PITTSBURGH, Feb. 7, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- United Steelworkers (USW) International President Tom Conway issued the following statement today in response to the announcement that the United States and Japan reached an arrangement on Section 232 relief measures:

United Steelworkers. (PRNewsFoto/United Steelworkers)

"President Biden and his administration from day one pursued initiatives and policies that promote fair trade and preserve domestic jobs. Nowhere has this commitment been more pronounced than in its careful evaluation of the Section 232 relief measures for steel and aluminum.

"The USW was a fierce advocate for the original 232 measures, but we have always maintained that it's crucial to consider the unique circumstances surrounding each of our trading partners.

"The arrangement with Japan, which leaves aluminum 232 measures in place and sets tariff rate quotas on steel, demonstrates that President Biden understands that we must move beyond the less-effective, one-size-fits-all approach of the previous administration.

"Through this deal, the administration was able to negotiate steel import volumes that provide for the continued success of our domestic industries while maintaining opportunities to work together with Japan to address global overcapacity and other areas of mutual concern.

"In particular, 'melted and poured' requirements will ensure that steel imports from Japan are actually produced there, which will help stem circumvention and allow workers in both countries an opportunity to succeed.

"Far too many U.S. workers and their communities have fallen victim to the non-market predatory practices of China and other countries. We commend the administration for its commitment to working toward a larger trade policy that preserves our national security and allows our critical industries to thrive."

The USW represents 850,000 workers employed in metals, mining, pulp and paper, rubber, chemicals, glass, auto supply and the energy-producing industries, along with a growing number of workers in health care, public sector, higher education, tech and service occupations.

Amazon Is Raising Base Salary Cap to $350,000 From $160,000

Spencer Soper
Mon, February 7, 2022,

(Bloomberg) -- Amazon.com Inc. is more than doubling the maximum base salary it pays employees to $350,000 from $160,000.

“This past year has seen a particularly competitive labor market, and in doing a thorough analysis of various options, weighing the economics of our business and the need to remain competitive for attracting and retaining top talent, we decided to make meaningfully bigger increases to our compensation levels than we do in a typical year,” the company told employees Monday in a memo reviewed by Bloomberg.

Amazon also said it was increasing the compensation ranges of most jobs globally and is changing the timing of stock awards to align with promotions.

Like many big employers, Amazon has struggled to hire and retain workers of late. The company has long relied on stock awards, betting it can entice workers to take positions even if the base pay is low. But the stock languished in 2021, gaining just 2.4% while the S&P 500 jumped 27%, and the strategy began to lose its appeal. Media reports indicate the turnover rate inside Amazon has reached crisis levels, and a record 50 vice presidents departed last year.

Amazon’s salary hike was reported earlier by Insider.

The e-commerce giant employed 1.6 million globally as of Dec. 31, including warehouse workers who are paid hourly and office staff who earn annual salaries. Amazon declined to say how many employees would receive the bump in pay announced on Monday.

Amazon pays warehouse workers at least $15 an hour and in September said it had raised average wages for these employees to $18 an hour. During the pandemic, the company has spent heavily on its logistics operation, hiring hundreds of thousands of people and paying bonuses to new recruits.

Investors have been warily watching Amazon’s rising costs and expressed relief when the company reported a strong fourth quarter last week and said an annual Prime subscription would rise $20 to $139. The shares soared almost 14% on Friday and were up another 1% to $3,174.47 at 1:35 p.m. Monday in New York.

(Updated with number of employees, context.)

Syria's Kurds Wanted Autonomy. 

They Got an Endless War.

Jane Arraf
Mon, February 7, 2022

Thousands of mourners at the funeral in Qamishli, Syria, on Feb. 2, 2022, of 12 fighters from the Kurdish-led forces who recently fought an ISIS attack on a prison in the city of Hasaka. 

(Diego Ibarra Sanchez/The New York Times)

QAMISHLI, Syria — Suad Shukri arrived early one morning last week to visit her son’s grave. An hour later, the small cemetery would be thronged by thousands of mourners burying 12 fighters from a Kurdish-led force who were killed battling the recent Islamic State attack on a prison in northeast Syria.

But for the moment, she had the place — its hundreds of graves adorned with plastic flowers — almost to herself. Her son, Eli Sher, was also killed fighting the Islamic State group, but that was six years ago near the Syrian city of Raqqa. He had joined a Kurdish militia when he was 13 and by the time he died at 16, he was already a veteran fighter.

“This is our life,” Shukri said of this vulnerable corner of the Middle East.

Not long after the start of Syria’s civil war 10 years ago, the Kurdish minority that dominates the country’s northeast set up an autonomous region as an experiment in multiethnic, gender-equal self-rule. But ever since, the Kurds have been engulfed in a seemingly endless war, subject to the whims of their more powerful neighbors, most notably the regime of President Bashar Assad in Damascus and Turkey to the north.

The latest threat is a familiar one — the Islamic State group.

The terrorist group reared its head again recently, three years after the main military power in this region, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces or SDF, drove the militants from the last patch of their self-declared caliphate in Syria and Iraq with the help of a U.S.-led military coalition.

On Jan. 20, Islamic State suicide bombers and gunmen attacked a prison in the city of Hassakeh in an attempt to free some 4,000 suspected Islamic State fighters held there. The city is part of the autonomous region, and the SDF, backed by U.S. military might, fought for almost two weeks before it regained control.

The attack was viewed as a sign of an Islamic State resurgence in the area. But days after it was put down, the U.S. staged a daring commando raid on another part of northern Syria that ended in the death of the Islamic State group's leader, Abu Ibrahim al-Hashimi al-Qurayshi.

President Joe Biden, in announcing the successful operation, singled out the SDF for praise, calling the force “essential partners,” without saying whether they had played a role in the raid.

Still, despite a close military partnership with the United States that has lasted for years, the Syrian Kurds face a precarious future.

The autonomous region, encompassing roughly the third of Syria east of the Euphrates River, was created in 2012, breaking away from Syrian government control after the start of an uprising against Assad’s authoritarian rule the previous year. In one of the most complicated battlefields in the world, U.S. forces share space in the region with Russian troops allied with the Assad government, allowed in by the SDF as protection against a Turkish incursion.

In this uneasy coexistence, major cities in the region are split between Syrian government control and local control. Residents who study or work in the government-controlled territory line up at a checkpoints, waiting to be allowed through. But many are too afraid of arrest to venture there.

The Kurds call the region Rojava, which means “the West.” It is an allusion to western Kurdistan and a long-standing but seemingly unattainable dream of an independent state that would stretch over the Kurdish areas of Syria, Iraq, Iran and Turkey.

All those countries have historically oppressed their Kurdish populations, and the more than 25 million Kurds who live in them are considered the world’s largest ethnic group without a state. In Syria, they account for up to 10% of the population of 18 million.

At least 55% of the roughly 4.6 million people live in the autonomous region are Kurds, according to the regional administration. But there are also large numbers of Arabs and Assyrian Christians, along with smaller populations of Turkmen, Armenian, Circassian and Yazidi minorities.

“In Syria and Iraq, there were sectarian wars,” said Abdul Karim Omar, the head of the Kurdish region’s international relations department. Within his own region, he said, “we have maintained social peace and coexistence.”

The regional administration relies on a network of multiethnic, multireligious councils. Each major committee is headed by both a woman and a man. Women play a prominent role as fighters, including on the front lines.

While some are not as strong in reality as on paper, those steps to ensure diversity and gender equality are a far cry from most countries in the Middle East.

Still in its short life, the Kurdish-led region has faced persistent security and economic threats from almost all sides, including from the Syrian government and Iraqi Kurdish neighbors to the east. But it is Turkey that looms the largest.

Outside the office building where Omar tries to craft policy for a region that has political autonomy but is not recognized by any government, the lights of the Turkish city of Nusaibeen twinkle across a high wall a few hundred yards away.

Turkey, which has battled Kurdish militants at home for decades, invaded areas held by the Syrian Kurdish-led forces to push them back from the border. Turkey considers the SDF a security threat because of its links to a Kurdish guerrilla movement that has been fighting an insurgency against the Turkish state for decades.

The operation was endorsed by President Donald Trump, who withdrew U.S. forces from some Kurdish-led areas after a phone call with the Turkish president. This allowed Turkey’s Syrian proxies to move in.

The Iraqi Kurds have close economic ties with Turkey, and last month the dominant Kurdish party in Iraq closed the Iraqi Kurdistan region’s border with the Kurdish-led region in Syria. That left shops on the Syrian side empty of sugar and other staples.

On a recent day, long lines of people shivering in the winter cold waited with jerrycans to buy kerosene outside fuel stations. At checkpoints, choking plumes of black smoke rise from burning tires set alight by security forces to keep warm.

Mazlum Kobani, the head of the region’s security forces, blamed Turkish pressure for the Iraqis’ closure of the border, which included stopping exports of oil sold by the Kurdish-led region in Syria to Iraqi Kurds — a main source of revenue.

“We are both Kurds,” Kobani said of his Iraqi Kurdish neighbors, “and we must help each other out. But they have interests with Turkey.” The security chief, who is on Turkey’s most-wanted list, spoke from a base he shares with U.S. forces. He chose the location to deter Turkey from launching a drone strike to kill him.

During the war with the Islamic State group years ago, the SDF struck up a critical partnership with the U.S.-led military coalition that was battling the militants in Syria and Iraq. The militia was considered the most potent ground force when it came to fighting the extremist group.

The prison attack in January drew the U.S. military back into the fight, and escalated into the most intense urban clashes with the Islamic State in the three years since the end of the caliphate.

Kobani told The New York Times that after the prison attack, the 700 U.S. troops in his region are no longer enough.

“I you ask me, I would say we need more American troops,” he said.

All told, the SDF, which currently has between 80,000 to 100,000 fighters, says it has lost about 13,000 members in the war to drive the Islamic State group out of the region since 2014. In the recent prison battle, 43 SDF fighters were killed.

These days, armored fighting vehicles with American flags waving drive along the highways, trying to keep out of the way of Russian forces with the help of deconfliction measures that entail providing advance notice of each other’s movements.

The Syrian Kurds are under little illusion though that they can count on the U.S. to protect them in the long run. The only thing for certain in this corner of Syria seems to be that its future depends almost entirely on forces beyond its control.

At the cemetery in Qamishli on Wednesday, one thing did seem certain — that in this militarized society, a new generation would take up the fight.

Jeyan Hassary, 16, had come with her friends to mourn the 12 dead fighters. She already knew what she wanted to do with her life.

“My dream is to carry the guns of my grandfather and uncle to avenge their blood,” she said.

© 2022 The New York Times Company