Syria’s Kurdish community at the center of a post-Assad game of geopolitical tug-of-war

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Syria’s new post-Assad leadership, worried about the country’s “uncertain future,” last month “took steps to dissolve the different rebel factions and unite them under the new Syrian army,” National Public Radio said. The SDF did not participate in that unification process, claiming that while it “wasn’t opposed to joining the Syrian military in principle,” any such action “required negotiations with Damascus.” Crucially, the Syrian National Army — the group most closely aligned with Turkey, “is interacting with the new Syrian leadership in Damascus to integrate into a unified army,” said Foundation for the Defense of Democracies research analyst Ahmad Sharawi. The question then is whether or not any future unified army “will participate in an offensive against northeastern Syria and SDF-controlled areas.”

In the middle of these intersecting vectors of influence and interest lies the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an American-backed military group of Kurdish-led fighters that controls approximately one-third of the country after helping the United States fight ISIS in the region. The SDF’s accumulated power has placed it — and Syria’s ethnic minority Kurdish community at large — at the center of a fight for the country’s future. The regional powerhouse Turkey is threatening to eliminate the SDF as part of a broader anti-Kurdish enterprise, and the United States is pondering if and how to best support a proven ally.

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