Tag Archives: YPG

Coalition Allies Play Into Islamic State’s Hands

17 Replies

By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on November 14, 2016

Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) fighters in Dohuk in northern Iraq, 14 May 2013, Azad Lashkari/Reuters

Last week, a member of the Kurdish militia that is the primary instrument the U.S.-led Coalition is using in Syria to defeat the Islamic State (IS) was killed. Examining his biography underlined that this militia is the Syrian wing of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a Marxist-separatist group that is registered as a terrorist organization by the United States, the European Union, and Turkey. The Western powers continue to obfuscate, if not outright deny, this fact, but Coalition support for the PKK—questionable morally and legally in and of itself—is producing negative results on the ground that help IS over the long-term. Continue reading →

The Coalition’s Flawed Endgame Strategy for the Islamic State

9 Replies

By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on November 6, 2016

After some (perhaps wilful) confusion over the timing, the operation to expel the Islamic State (IS) from Raqqa City, its Syrian capital, got underway this morning, running concurrent with the effort to evict IS from its Iraqi capital, Mosul. There are deep concerns about the methods adopted in both cases. The ground forces the U.S.-led Coalition has chosen to support in Raqqa cannot lead to sustainable stability in Syria, something that is essential to defeat IS. While the Mosul operation has proceeded generally to plan, there are increasing signs of trouble within the operation itself and the most troubling aspect—the aftermath—still appears to be unplanned. Beyond this is the continued assault on Aleppo City by Bashar al-Assad’s regime and its Russian and Iranian patrons that is systematically destroying the forces needed if there is to be any settlement to Syria’s war that ends the space given to international terrorists. Continue reading →

Of Kurds and Compromises in Syria

23 Replies

By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on September 2, 2016

PYD/YPG soldiers

PYD/YPG soldiers

Having written extensively about the authoritarian structure in the areas run by the Democratic Union Party (PYD), the Syrian branch of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), in northern Syria, and the problems of media, local and Western, in covering this, it was very interesting to see a report in The Wall Street Journal underlining some of these points.

The Journal notes that the PYD and its armed wing, the People’s Protection Units (YPG), have engaged in a ruthless consolidation of power within a single party, despite claims to be governing in a democratic way. This has included: heavy pressure on all non-pro-PYD media via various Soviet-style accusations of subversion; demographic engineering by a refusal to allow Arab inhabitants to return to homes or actively expelling them; forced conscription, including of children; the imposition of an ideological curriculum in schools; and the suppression and/or expulsion of all opposition. Continue reading →

One Man’s Terrorist …

16 Replies

By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on August 30, 2016

Polat Can, 2014, head of the YPG's information centre (source)

Polat Can, 2014, head of the YPG’s information centre (source)

Over the last twenty-four hours, as fighting has escalated between Turkey and the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), the armed wing of the Democratic Union Party (PYD), in northern Syria, an YPG/PYD operative has taken to Twitter to protest. Polat Can is the YPG’s representative to the American-led international coalition ranged against the Islamic State (IS), and his missives have sought to inform the coalition who and what terrorism is, which can be broadly summarized as: the Turkish government. Can himself, however, might easily be considered a terrorist since he is an allegedly-former member of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a registered terrorist organization by the United States, European Union, and Turkey. Continue reading →

Turkey’s Intervention in Syria Improves the Prospects for Peace

18 Replies

By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on August 25, 2016

Picture put out by Faylaq al-Sham of Jarabulus soon after the Islamic State was expelled (Telegram, 24 August 2016)

Picture put out by Faylaq al-Sham of Jarabulus soon after the Islamic State was expelled (Telegram, 24 August 2016)

After a horrific suicide bombing by the Islamic State (IS) at a Kurdish wedding in eastern Turkey had slaughtered more than fifty people on Saturday, Turkey moved to expel IS from Jarabulus in eastern Aleppo Province at about 4 AM on Wednesday morning. IS was swept from this last major border town in Syria, a key gateway for resources to the outside world, around ten hours later.

Operation EUPHRATES SHIELD saw Turkey put troops and tanks over the border publicly for the first time, and allow the Free Syrian Army (FSA)-branded and other mainstream Syrian rebels who have been battling IS for years to use Turkish territory to launch the assault. It was supported by airstrikes from the international anti-IS coalition.

For Turkey, this is a strong indication of a change in her threat-perception vis-à-vis IS, but it is also about a (correctly) perceived threat of what was to follow IS. Continue reading →

The West’s Kurdish Allies in Syria Can’t Escape Their Authoritarian Legacy

39 Replies

By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on August 13, 2016

PYD/YPG fighters

PYD/YPG fighters

The Islamic State (IS) was driven from the city of Manbij yesterday, a key supply route to the Turkish border in northern Syria, the conclusion of an operation launched on 31 May by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a front-group for the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), represented in Syria by the Democratic Union Party (PYD) and its armed wing, the People’s Protection Units (YPG). The SDF was backed by U.S. airstrikes. It is difficult not to see the defeat of IS as a positive development. It is, however, worth more closely examining the forces that are being enabled by Western power to fasten their rule across northern Syria, whose vision is deeply problematic—even in narrow terms of the fight against IS. Continue reading →

The Islamic State, Territory, and a Change of Tone

2 Replies

By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on May 26, 2016

The Islamic State’s spokesman, Taha Falaha (Abu Muhammad al-Adnani), released a speech on 21 May that prepared the ideological ground for the loss of territory by underlining something the Islamic State has long maintained: the caliphate is more a cause than a location. This was a departure, however, from the confident messaging that the Islamic State had emphasized since it announced the caliphate in June 2014. Just a month before Falaha’s speech, on 16 April, the twenty-seventh edition of al-Naba, the Islamic State’s weekly newsletter, carried an editorial that was triumphalist about the march of the jihadists—despite the losses in the prior eight weeks, of Ramadi in early February, al-Shadadi later in February, Palmyra on 27 March, and al-Qaryatayn on 3 April. That editorial from al-Naba 27 is reproduced below. Continue reading →

America Picked the Wrong Allies Against the Islamic State

12 Replies

By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on February 17, 2016

Article published at NOW Lebanon

PYD/PKK fighters after they took over the Mannagh airbase on February 10, 2016.

PYD/PKK fighters after they took over the Mannagh airbase on February 10, 2016.

Over the last six weeks the regime of Bashar al-Assad—which by this point means in most areas Iranian-run ground forces and Russian air power—have made territorial gains in northern Syria that threaten the existence of the armed opposition in the area. This threat has been compounded by the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) and allies, which have also drawn on Russian airstrikes to attack the rebellion in the same areas. The U.S.-led coalition against the Islamic State (ISIS) has made the PYD its main proxy inside Syria—the only force that can call in coalition airstrikes. This policy was obviously flawed given the view of the PYD by necessary anti-ISIS allies like Turkey and the demographic realities of ISIS, which require Sunni Arabs to be able to police their area, and ensure that ISIS begins to look like a protector of Sunnis if Kurds occupy Arab areas; the PYD now attacking the crucial anti-ISIS demographic in alliance with the regime underlines that fact. Continue reading →

Is Turkey Responsible for the Islamic State?

10 Replies

By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on December 20, 2015

1

Turkey concluded its biggest investigation to date into Islamic State (IS) operatives on its territory on Friday, and blacklisted sixty-seven people. This provides a good moment to review what Turkey’s role has been in the rise of IS, especially amid the escalating accusations from Russia that Turkey is significantly responsible for financing IS. The reality is that while Turkish policy has, by commission and omission, made IS stronger than it would otherwise have been, so has Russia’s policy—and Russia’s policy was far more cynical than Turkey’s, deliberately intended empower extremists to discredit the rebellion against Bashar al-Assad. Turkey’s focus on bringing down Assad and Ankara’s fear of Kurdish autonomy led it into these policies and now—having seemingly found the will to act to uproot IS’s infrastructure on Turkish territory—there is the problem of actually doing so, when IS can (and has) struck inside Turkey. The concerns about these external funding mechanisms for IS, while doubtless important, obscure the larger problem: IS’s revenue is overwhelmingly drawn from the areas it controls and only removing those areas of control can deny IS its funds. Continue reading →

If Assad Is Not Forced Out, ISIS Never Will Be

3 Replies

By Kyle Orton (@KyleWOrton) on December 3, 2015

A version of this article was published at The Independent.

1

Yesterday, the British House of Commons voted 397 to 223 to extend airstrikes against the Islamic State (ISIS) into Syria from Iraq. After the vote in August 2013 against military action to punish Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad for the massive poison gas attack outside Damascus that killed 1,500 people in a few hours, this is undoubtedly a sign of a recovery in confidence of Britain’s international role, but it is only the beginning. Continue reading →