U.S. Ally Halts Fight Against Islamic State in Syria as It Battles Rebel Group -- WSJ

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By Lara Seligman, Isabel Coles and Gordon Lubold in Ankara

Washington's main ally in Syria warned that a power vacuum in the country was leading to attacks on the group by Turkish-backed rebels, forcing it to halt its yearslong campaign against Islamic State.

Since the fall of Bashar al-Assad's regime, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces have been battling rebels backed by Turkey. The head of the SDF, which controls about a third of the country, called on its U.S. backers to press Turkey to rein in the rebel groups it supports, and help enforce a recently agreed cease-fire.

"I hope the U.S. will exert sufficient political pressure in order to stop these attacks against our region," said SDF commander Gen. Mazloum Abdi through a translator in an interview on Thursday. "So far it's not enough."

The collapse of the Syrian government has put the SDF in a precarious position. The civil war enabled the group to carve out an enclave in the northeast and win U.S. support to suppress Islamic State after a successful joint mission to rout the militants' self-proclaimed caliphate.

But Assad's fall has bolstered the influence of Turkey, which opposes the SDF and U.S. support for it, and has longstanding ties to the rebels now leading Syria. That is testing U.S. commitment to its longtime partner in the country, where President-elect Donald Trump has said America shouldn't involve itself.

A group of rebels called Hayat Tahrir al-Sham led the main offensive on Assad's forces, capturing a series of Syrian cities in less than two weeks. Separately, other rebels, backed by Turkey, went on the offensive against the SDF in the north of the country, where the two sides compete for territory on Turkey's southern border.

The attacks against it have compelled the SDF to halt operations to counter Islamic State and transfer some of its prisoners to more stable areas, including from the city of Manbij, where fighting has been most intense, southeast to Raqqa, said Abdi.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken traveled to Turkey on Thursday to meet with President Recep Tayyip Erdogan to discuss Syria's future and seek assurances that Ankara will be circumspect in its operations against the Kurdish fighters. The SDF also guards detention centers across the country that hold tens of thousands of Islamic State fighters and their families. But Turkey considers the group, which has ties to the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, as terrorists.

Turkey's Foreign Ministry on Friday said joint priorities with the U.S. were "ending [Islamic State] and PKK dominance there."

The U.S. has more than 900 troops operating in northeast and eastern Syria, and U.S. officials have said they would remain there to focus on efforts to counter Islamic State. U.S. Central Command this week said the U.S. conducted an extensive airstrike campaign against Islamic State that included more than 75 strikes.

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, a U.S.-designated terrorist group, has promised to protect all minorities in Syria including the Kurds. But the group has longstanding relations with Turkey and on Thursday received the country's intelligence chief, Ibrahim Kalin, in Damascus.

"For sure that concerns us," said Abdi. "They will try to push the new authorities in Damascus to...serve their interests in Syria, which are clearly against us."

The SDF wants to send a delegation to Damascus to discuss its place in the new Syria, Abdi said. The two groups have already coordinated on a practical level. The SDF handed over control of the eastern city of Deir Ezzour to the rebels earlier this week after moving into it when Syrian government forces fled.

Abdi asked the U.S. to help ensure the self-governing region was included in the political process in post-Assad Syria. Its political administration should be represented in the new government and the SDF must be part of the country's armed forces, he said.

"What we are seeking is a decentralized administration in Syria," Abdi said. "We do not need a central power to govern the entire country."

The rights of Syria's minorities should be enshrined in Syria's constitution, he said. Under Assad, the Kurds -- Syria's largest non-Arab minority -- faced repression of political and cultural rights.

The coming change of U.S. administration compounds the concerns of the SDF. In his first term as president, Trump partially withdrew U.S. forces from northeast Syria in 2019, clearing the way for Turkey and its proxies to drive the group out of a strip of territory along Syria's northern border, displacing thousands of Kurds.

"The U.S. presence here is pretty important for stability and security and the protection of our people," Abdi said.

The rebels forced the SDF out of the northern city of Manbij and are also attacking the Kurdish-majority city of Kobani, which lies on the northern border with Turkey, as well as the Tishrin dam on the Euphrates River, he said. His forces faced continued drone and artillery strikes there this week despite a U.S. brokered cease-fire, Abdi added.

The Biden administration has been scrambling to help shape a new Syrian-led transition government, with Blinken also traveling to Jordan on Thursday to meet with King Abdullah and other officials.

Blinken, on what might be one of his last trips to the region while in office, stressed that a transition government has to be for the Syrian people and ultimately created by them. But that requires the help of friendly countries in the region who are willing to support the transitional government, Blinken said.

"These are principles that would be designed to reflect the needs, the aspirations, the will of the Syrian people," Blinken said at the airport Thursday before boarding a military jet for his next stop, Ankara. "Not to dictate what they should do but to make sure they have the opportunity to follow their own path."

Blinken's plan is predicated on some key elements. They include minority rights, a focus on humanitarian operations to help the people of Syria and building a transition government that would prevent the country from becoming a base from which terrorist groups could operate.

Blinken said he is having conversations about what such a government could look like, but indicated it was too soon to outline its contours. "Stay tuned," he said.

Write to Lara Seligman at lara.seligman@wsj.com, Isabel Coles at isabel.coles@wsj.com and Gordon Lubold at gordon.lubold@wsj.com

 

(END) Dow Jones Newswires

December 13, 2024 07:19 ET (12:19 GMT)

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