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Derechos | Equipo Nizkor
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| Information | | |
Derechos | Equipo Nizkor
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28Aug16
In Syria, Rebels Threaten Kurdish-Controlled Territory as U.S. Allies Clash
In a new escalation that further complicates American involvement in the Syrian war, Syrian rebels pressed deeper into the northern part of the country on Sunday, seizing territory with the aid of Turkish airstrikes.
The rebels, with Turkey's help, took the border town of Jarabulus last week from the Islamic State — an incursion supported by the United States. But the rebels are now advancing into territory controlled by Syrian Kurds.
That means the new fighting pits two American-backed Syrian forces against each other: rebel groups aided by the C.I.A. and allied intelligence agencies, and Kurdish-led militias that work with the Pentagon under an umbrella group called the Syrian Democratic Forces, or S.D.F. The United States has considered the Kurdish-led militias its most reliable partner on the ground in the fight against the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL.
The United States has in recent days appeared to rebalance its support for the Kurdish militias with its backing of the Syrian rebels and Turkey, a NATO ally. The Turks consider the Syrian Kurdish militias their enemy and are intent on keeping them from taking over an unbroken stretch of land along the border.
As part of that rebalancing, the United States warned the Kurds last week that they should return to the eastern side of the Euphrates River, essentially asking them to cede control of areas they had seized recently from Islamic State fighters.
But it is unclear what the United States will do if its allies continue to fight each other.
Peter Cook, the Pentagon press secretary, wrote in an email on Sunday: "While we are closely monitoring reports of clashes south of Jarabulus — where ISIL is no longer located — between the Turkish armed forces, some opposition groups and units that are affiliated with the S.D.F., we want to make clear that we find these clashes unacceptable."
He added: "This is an already crowded battle space. Accordingly, we are calling on all armed actors to stand down immediately and take appropriate measures to deconflict."
The offensive on Sunday was on the western side of the Euphrates, including in the villages of Jib al-Kousa and Amarna, where the airstrikes hit. The Kurdish-led militias said that they had left the area, but that groups aligned with them remained in charge. The Syrian rebels, however, said the Kurdish militias had not left and had started the fight by attacking a Turkish tank.
Amarna and Jib al-Kousa fell to the rebels, according to a Turkish statement. It added that 10 villages had been taken from Kurdish control and four from the Islamic State.
It was not the first time the American-backed groups had clashed — they have bitter differences over the possibility of Kurdish autonomy in northern Syria — but their battles could be the most consequential yet, occurring at a volatile time in the multisided five-year conflict.
The most powerful Syrian Kurdish party is reeling from what its supporters see as an American betrayal after the United States gave the green light for Turkey to send tanks and allied rebels into Syria last week.
Turkey sees a chance to curb the growing power of the Syrian Kurdish party, which it says is indistinguishable from the P.K.K., a Kurdish insurgent group that Turkey is battling at home and considers a terrorist organization. But Turkey is also in the midst of a delicate partial rapprochement with the Syrian government's main ally, Russia, which is watching to see how far Turkey will go in backing the rebels trying to oust President Bashar al-Assad of Syria.
All of that is happening as Russia and the United States seek, without success so far, to lay out parameters for joint military action against extremist groups, including the Islamic State, and a road map to a political transition in Syria in a bid to end the war.
As the battleground in northern Syria became increasingly confused, it was unclear what was happening to the civilians caught in the crossfire. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a monitoring group, and Kurdish local news outlets declared that 35 civilians had been killed in the two villages hit by Turkish airstrikes. The Turkish government said it had killed 25 Kurdish "terrorists."
It was also unclear where the weekend offensive would stop. Some rebels threatened to advance to Manbij, a town recently recaptured from the Islamic State by the Kurdish-led forces with the help of intensive American airstrikes. The Kurds say that they have left the town, which is west of the Euphrates and is mainly Arab, but that they have handed the area to a local military council made up of their allies.
Some Syrian rebels interviewed by telephone said they were determined to take back what they considered Arab land from the Kurdish-led forces, who have captured a long stretch of the border. The Kurdish-held territory is separated by an area still under Islamic State control.
But others said they wanted to fight only the Islamic State and the Syrian government, not Syrian Kurds. One of those rebels, Ahmad Kanjo, a commander, said he had been forced to act because his fighters had come under attack by Kurdish-led forces.
"We weren't planning to open a front with them," he said, but added that an attack from Kurdish forces had hit a Turkish tank — Turkey confirmed that one soldier had been killed — and had killed three of his men.
"We are lost," he said in a telephone interview. "My enemy was supposed to be Daesh" — an Arabic acronym for the Islamic State — "and the regime, but the Kurds are attacking me from the back."
"I don't know who is bombing whom," he said.
[Source: By Anne Barnard, International New York Times, Beirut, 28Aug16]
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