Turkey is seeking to rapidly take advantage of the fall of the Assad regime to try to settle several scores in Syria and then assume a place of power in Damascus. Turkey has already played a major role in the Syrian civil war, invading various parts of northern Syria and using former Syrian rebel groups as proxies as part of what is called the Syrian National Army.
When the Idlib-based Hayat Tahrir al-Sham began its offensive against the Syrian regime in late November, Turkey chose to try to take advantage of the chaos. As HTS took cities from the collapsing Assad regime, Ankara unleashed the SNA to attack Kurdish groups. Ankara’s main goal over the last eight years in Syria has been to fight against what it claims are “terrorist” groups in Syria. These are not terrorist groups such as ISIS or al-Qaeda, but instead, what Ankara means is using proxy forces to target Kurdish areas of Syria.
The main group in Ankara’s cross-hairs is the Syrian Democratic Forces or SDF. The SDF was formed in 2015 with US backing. They include a group called the YPG, which is a Kurdish group that has been fighting ISIS. Turkey views the YPG as the Syrian branch of the PKK. What matters here is that you have Turkey, a member of NATO, attacking the SDF, which is backed by the US, which is also a NATO member. However, the US has not been able to get Ankara to stop its attacks, instead the SDF ends up fighting the Turkish-backed SNA. While the SDF was formed to help defeat ISIS, now the SDF and SNA fight each other, and ISIS isn’t even part of the story.
For Ankara, this is a win. Ankara can get the SNA to fight the SDF, but that distracts from other Ankara goals in Syria. It also keeps the SDF isolated. Turkey has engaged in rapid diplomacy to shore up its role in Syria as the Assad regime collapsed. It wants to fill the vacuum basically in Syria left by Iran and Russia. Turkey and Qatar are angling to fill the vacuum and open diplomatic posts in Damascus. Turkey has met with the head of NATO and US Secretary of State Antony Blinken. During the meeting with Blinken, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said that Turkey “would take preventive measures to safeguard its national security against all terrorist organizations operating in Syria, including PKK/PYD/YPG and Daesh/ISIS.”
The US State Department has generally frowned upon the SDF, viewing it as a group that was created in partnership with the Pentagon. This has led to a Janus-faced US policy in Syria where US Central Command backs the SDF, but the Secretary of State often meets with Turkey and doesn’t push back forcefully on Ankara’s threats against US partner forces. The SDF then paid the price for US inaction, being attacked by Turkish drones and the SNA.
In the last two weeks, tens of thousands of Kurds have been displaced by SNA attacks. These include Kurds in Tal Rifaat who were already displaced by the 2018 Turkish attack on Afrin. Around 150,000 Kurds had to flee Afrin in 2018. Now, it appears some 200,000 may have fled SNA attacks. The SNA also took over Manbij, a city the SDF fought ISIS to control in 2015 and 2016. This city was a tough fight for the SDF, and it fell within a few days of SNA attacks, basically throwing away years of SDF work there. This puts the SDF in a precarious position.
In another area, the SNA attacked a dam that the SDF was running on the Euphrates. Rudaw media in Erbil, in the Kurdistan region of Iraq, noted that “the manager of a Euphrates River dam that has come under days of attacks in northern Syria has warned that millions of people will be impacted should the structure fail.” The manager said “there was a blackout at Tishreen Dam. The dam is out of service now. Cables fell, and the gates were closed, leading to the closure of the dam. The staff tried to use the generators, but they soon ran out of diesel. Water is flowing into the dam now,” Ali Demir told Rudaw English on Thursday. “Tishreen Dam sits on the Euphrates River in northern Syria, upstream from scores of towns and villages as well as urban centers like Raqqa. It provides electricity to much of northeast Syria (Rojava).”
Meanwhile, Mazloum Abdi, the leader of the SDF, discussed reports of clashes in Raqqa on Friday. “The people of Raqqa deserve a dignified and secure life, and we will spare no effort to achieve this goal. We promise to take transparent and practical steps to address the current situation, ensuring that your voices are heard and considered in every decision made,” the SDF head said, Rudaw reported.
An isolated SDF faces challenges
The SDF is isolated. It has faced this challenge before. Back in 2018 and 2019, the former Trump administration sought to withdraw US forces from Syria. This led to Ankara invading an area called Serekaniya. Ankara also threatened Kobani, a city that had helped defeat ISIS in 2015 by resisting the ISIS advance. Kurds played a key role in holding Kobani. In 2019, the Turkish advance stopped in part due to the Russian intervention and Syrian regime forces deploying to border areas with Syria. This created a kind of buffer zone between Turkey and the SDF. Ankara was working with Russia and didn’t see a reason to bomb Russian forces or the Syrian regime. Now, the Syrian regime is gone, and so are the Russians. The way is open for Ankara to complete the goal that it wants, which is to push Kurds away from the border. Most Kurdish towns in Syria are on the border with Turkey. Turkey already forced Kurds out of Afrin and areas near Aleppo as well as Serekaniye. If the US and others don’t protect the SDF, it's possible a new disaster could unfold in Syria. Most Syrians want peace, but Ankara wants to continue its attacks. Blinken’s visit to Turkey did not push back on Ankara’s threats.
US Central Command head Michael Kurilla visited Syria after the Assad regime collapsed. “US Central Command commander General Michael Eric Kurilla visited Syria and Iraq to assess ongoing operations against Islamic State, the first visit of a senior US military official since the fall of the Assad regime,” VOA News said on December 11. Kurilla has a lot of weight on his shoulders if the SDF is going to be preserved. Kurilla was in Israel this weekend, holding more discussions about Syria in the wake of the IDF eliminating what remains of the Syrian regime’s former military assets.