Danger to Rojava as United States Threatens to Stab Kurdish Allies in the Back

Washington stands by Turkey while expecting the Kurds to help fight tough battles against Islamist militants in Syria

The democratic organisation of society in Syrian Kurdistan stands in marked contrast to the Erdogan and Assad dictatorships, ISIS and the Israeli state.  It is a beacon of hope in a region without much hope.  The equality of women, with 40% of its fighting forces made up of women, stands in marked contrast to the feudal barbarism of ISIS and Ahrar al-Sham and the other US sponsored jihadi groups in Syria.

The United States has used the Kurdish YPG (People’s Protection Units) of the Kurdish Democratic Party (PYD) as their foot soldiers in the battle against ISIS.  It was always an unholy alliance since the United States is not interested in the liberation of the Kurdish people or indeed any people in the region.

Rojava - Kurdish Autonomous Enclave in Syria

  

The alliance was however useful for the Kurdish people as the YPG would not have managed to have ousted ISIS from Kobane over a year ago without the help of US air support.  However the US has many other fish to fry in the Syrian quagmire. 

Things are now looking very dangerous for the Kurds and that is why western solidarity with the Kurdish struggle is so important.

The Assad regime, which historically has brutally suppressed the Kurds was forced during the civil war to withdraw from Rojava, the Kurdish autonomous region and even have a non-aggression pact as the Syrian Army came under sustained attack.  With the strengthening by Russia of the Assad regime’s position and the new de facto alliance between Assad and the Turkish dictator Erdogan, the Kurdish position is under direct threat.

It was to forestall the two parts of Rojava uniting that the Turkish military in conjunction with Arab forces under US command has attacked and captured the town of Jarablus from ISIS.  Although this was ISIS’s main outlet to the outside world in Syria, the main purpose of the attack was to forestall the unification of Rojava.  Turkey does not want to seen an independent Kurdish statelet on its border.

This picture taken from the Turkish Syrian border city of Karkamis on August 24, 2016 shows smoke following air strikes by a Turkish Army jet fighter on the Syrian Turkish border village of Jarabulus.Bulent Kilic, AFP

Despite differences between Turkey and the USA, the position of Turkey in NATO is of some importance to the USA, especially given the recent raprochment of Erdogan and the Russians.  The Kurds in other words are facedd with the prospect of a united from consisting of Assad, Erdogan and the Russians to some extent against them.  It was into this configuration of power politics that US Vice President Jo Biden has appeared to make it clear to the Kurds that they should abandon all hope of uniting Rojava and to stay clear of the eastern banks of the Euphrates.  Once again the Kurds are at the mercy of the power play of larger forces in the region, forces they had hoped to play off against each other.  However both Erdogan and Assad have an interest in opposing Kurdish autonomy.  

Erdogan has also, separately, made his peace with Israel and thus stabbed the Palestinians of Gaza in the back too.

I post 3 articles below on recent developments.

Tony Greenstein 

Spilling Blood in War on ISIS, Kurds Pay Heavy Price for U.S.-Turkey Ties

Zvi Bar'el Aug 25, 2016 10:42 PM

Secretary of State John Kerry’s threat was unequivocal. If the Kurds did not pull back east of the Euphrates River, the United States would not help them, he said.

It is unlikely that Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan is relying on this threat. More important, will the Kurds heed it, and in exchange for what?

YPG in Tel Abyad

One day after the threat, the Kurdish forces also withdrew from Manbij, Syria, one of the Islamic State’s most important strongholds, which had been taken by Kurdish forces under cover of American air support in a battle that won them accolades for their important victory.

“It’s a slap in the face to the Kurds,” Erwin Stran, a U.S. volunteer who fought with the Syrian Democratic Forces against the Islamic State organization, told ARA News, a Kurdish press agency covering northern Syria and the Kurdish areas.

A Turkish army tank and an armored vehicle are stationed near the border with Syria, Karkamis, Turkey, August 23, 2016.IHA via AP 

The SDF was established by the United States as an alliance of Kurdish, Arab and other militias to blur the organization’s Kurdish character — necessary to allow Washington to continue to support the Kurds without overly angering Turkey.

But now it seems that the Kurds are once again paying in blood for the complex and tense relationship between Ankara and Washington.

An official in the Kurdish administration in Iraq told Haaretz that the American threat “conveys a frustrating and dangerous message not only to the Kurds in Syria but to the entire Kurdish people, who are spilling blood in the war against ISIS and were relying on the U.S. government to stand by them."

Pro-Ankara Syrian opposition fighters moving two kilometers west from the Syrian Turkish border town of Jarabulus.Bulent Kilic / AFP

"The Kurdish forces in Syria seek to establish an autonomous region and that is their right," he said. "They paid and are paying a heavy price to create territorial contiguity in Syria that they need to establish an autonomous region.

"That was clear to the Americans from the outset and they said nothing when the Kurds declared Kurdish autonomy in Syria. Now they have decided to stand with Turkey and at the same time they expect the Kurds to continue helping in the war against ISIS.”

Turkey, which has changed its attitude about direct military involvement in Syria after years of helping Islamic State and other extremist militias, is holding a major means of leverage.

The renewal of ties between Turkey and Russia and the establishment of a commission for military, intelligence and political cooperation between the two countries has earned Washington’s support.

But at the same time, Turkey can threaten to withhold cooperation with the United States if the latter allows the Kurds to establish an autonomous region on its border with Syria.

Turkey can also pressure Washington to extradite Turkish Muslim cleric Fethullah Gulen, whom Turkey claims was behind the recent failed coup.

The United States is not anxious to extradite Gulen, but it began legal discussions with Ankara this week to examine the evidence against him and it may be assumed that the threat against the Kurds is part and parcel of efforts to ease the diplomatic tension.

But there are two more heavyweights in this muddy arena. Over the past year, Russia has become an ally of the Kurds in Syria and was even able to mediate between them and the Syrian regime.

The Russian-Kurdish alliance blossomed in the wake of the crisis between Turkey and Russia after the downing by Turkey of a Russian Sukhoi aircraft in November 2015.

But even after the two countries reconciled, Russia did not abandon the Kurds. Last week Moscow initiated a cease-fire between the Syrian regime and the Kurds in the Hasakah region in northeastern Syria.

According to the terms, the Syrians could maintain a symbolic police force in two cities of Hasakah and Qamishli, the two sides would trade prisoners and the dead, and the Kurds would be in charge de facto of security in those cities.

Kurdish government workers who had been dismissed due to the war would return to work and negotiations even began over the “Kurdish problem.”

Ostensibly this was “merely” a local accord, but its special importance is that it strengthened the standing of Russia, which, unlike the United States, can establish a cease-fire, create “areas of quiet” and translate its aerial assaults into achievements on the ground.

According to Syrian media reports, Russia is trying to change Turkey’s position vis-a-vis Syrian President Bashar Assad, and agree to his remaining in office at least until elections can be held.

This initiative has already seen partial success with Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim’s declaration that Assad is an important player in the Syrian crisis and Turkey could agree to his remaining temporarily in office.

Iran is trying to encourage Turkey, and worked behind the scenes to further Turkish-Russian reconciliation. Iran sees the axis of Russia-Turkey-Iran leading diplomatic initiatives to resolve the crisis. The importance of this axis to Iran is not only the chance of ending the war, but also to neutralize diplomatic moves by Saudi Arabia, Tehran’s bitter adversary, and to distance Turkey from the Sunni coalition that Saudi King Salman has established. Iran’s realpolitik approach is unimpressed by the fact that Russia is an “infidel” state and that Turkey is Sunni. Iran has already proven that when the need arises, it is prepared to cooperate with any entity that serves its interests, including the United States, with which it signed the nuclear agreement.

But Russian-Iranian rapprochement comes at a political cost. That has recently manifested itself in verbal blows exchanged between Iranian Defense Minister Hossein Dehghan and the Speaker of the Iranian Parliament, Ali Larijani, over granting permission for Russian planes to operate from Iran’s Hamedan airfield.

Dehghan said that since permission was only for takeoffs and landings, no parliamentary approval was needed, and that parliament should keep its mouth shut in matters that do not concern it.

Larijani responded that the defense minister “had better avoid statements against parliament and act according to the customs of the regime.”

The problem worsened when Dehghan said the Russian planes had stopped operating from the airfield and Larijani said the opposite.

Russia wants to establish a regular base in Iran for refueling, bomb storage and a large technical team, while for now Iran is willing only to allow landings, takeoffs and refueling. The dispute is wider because Russia is not willing to attack targets of interest to Iran and does not coordinate its flight destinations with Tehran.

This is not a crisis in ties between the two countries, but an arm-twisting effort in the context of Iran’s concern over what it considers Russia’s takeover of Syria. Hence the importance Iran accords the partnership with Syria and its actions now to sort things out over Assad’s future.

According to the Saudi daily Asharq Al-Awsat, Turkey sent a retired general, Ismail Hakki (not to be confused with the former Turkish chief of staff) to Tehran where he met with senior Syrian officials.

Hakki was the Turkish coordinator of the 1998 Adana Agreement that ended the crisis between Turkey and the Hafez Assad regime in Syria over actions of the Kurdish PKK in Syria.

Washington has no contribution at all in any of these moves. At the moment it can only prepare the assault on ISIS in Mosul, Iraq and Raqqah, in Syria.

On those two fronts, its plans depend on massive cooperation on the part of Kurdish forces. We can only watch to see how the Kurds will operate after the slap in the face they received this week. 

The Turkish Army & Syrian Rebels Push ISIS Out of Border Town Jarablus

Syrian rebels retake town with aid from Turkish tanks, special forces and warplanes. U.S. and Turkey agree to limit Kurdish expansion to east of Euphrates.

Reuters and The Associated Press Aug 24, 2016 7:53 PM

Turkish special forces, tanks and jets backed by planes from the U.S.-led coalition launched their first co-ordinated offensive into Syria on Wednesday to try to drive Islamic State from the border and prevent further gains by Kurdish militia fighters.

Syrian opposition forces said they are in control of Jarablus only hours after Turkey launched a cross-border operation to help them oust the Islamic State group from the border town in northern Syria.

Several rebel factions involved in the fighting announced they had liberated the town from ISIS, but were still fighting small pockets of militants.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, which monitors the Syrian civil war, says rebels are in almost full control of Jarablus, adding that ISIS had lost its last link to the outside world.

Ahmad al-Khatib, an opposition media activist embedded with the rebels, says they control 90 percent of the town and posted photos of rebels purportedly in the town's center.

funeral for the victims of a suicide bombing in Gaziantep

After the takeover of Jarablus, a Turkish official said the operation in Syria will continue until Turkey is convinced that threats to its national security were neutralized. According to the official, the operation aims to permanently stop the influx of foreign fighters to Syria and cut supply lines to Syrian militias.

The Turkish and Syrian governments said the cross-border incursion on the town on Jarablus was backed by U.S. airstrikes. Hundreds of Syrian opposition fighters also joined the assault. Just hours after the operation began, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden landed in Ankara.

The unprecedented incursion marked a dangerous escalation in the Syrian conflict — and demonstrates the twisted rivalries that run through the war.

This picture taken on August 24, 2016 shows a Turkish army tank driving towards Syria in the Turkish-Syrian border city of Karkamis, in the southern region of Gaziantep. Bulent Kilic, AFP

 The U.S. has long pushed for more aggressive action by Turkey against the Islamic State group. But Turkey's move to thwart Kurdish ambitions puts it on a path toward potential confrontation with Kurdish fighters in Syria who are also supported by the United States and have been the most effective force battling ISIS in northern Syria.

Turkey has been deeply concerned by the advances of the main U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish militia, known as the YPG, which after months of taking territory from ISIS is poised to control nearly the entire Syrian side of the border with Turkey. The YPG is also linked to Kurdish rebels waging an insurgency in southeastern Turkey.

Speaking in Ankara, Biden backed Turkey's demand for limits on Kurdish expansion. Kurdish forces "must move back across the Euphrates River. They cannot, will not, under any circumstance get American support if they do not keep that commitment," he said.

A senior U.S. administration official said U.S. advisers have been working closely with Turkey on plans for the Jarablus operation, providing intelligence and air cover. The official was not authorized to discuss the military operations publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said the military operation aims to prevent threats from "terror" groups, including the Islamic State and the YPG. He said the operation was in response to a string of attacks in Turkey, including an ISIS suicide bombing at a wedding party near the border which killed 54 people.

A senior official with the YPG's political arm warned Turkey will pay the price. Saleh Muslim, the co-president of the Democratic Union Party or PYD, tweeted that "Turkey is in Syrian Quagmire. Will be defeated as Daesh" will be. He used the Arabic language acronym for IS.

Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu accused the Kurds have a secret agenda to establish a state. "If his (Muslim) intention had been to fight Daesh then he wouldn't oppose such an operation... And so the PYD's secret agenda is out in the open.”

ISIS-held Jarablus is a key lynchpin in the Turkish-Kurdish rivalry. The town lies on the western bank of the Euphrates River at the point where it crosses from Turkey into Syria.

The YPG and other Syrian Kurds stand on the east bank of the river, and from there they hold the entire border with Turkey all the way to Iraq. They also hold parts of the border further west, so if they ever took control of Jarablus, they would control almost the entire stretch.

Last month, Kurdish forces and their allies scored a major victory, crossing west of the Euphrates to retake the town on Manbij from Islamic State militants. They now say they will push further west to assault the ISIS-held town of al-Bab.

Turkey codenamed its cross-border assault "Euphrates Shield," suggesting the aim was to keep the YPG east of the Euphrates River.

Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim said that in Biden's talks in Ankara, the two sides reached agreement that that the Syrian Kurdish forces "should never spread west of the Euphrates and not enter any kind of activity there."

Cavusoglu said Syrian Kurdish forces must cross back to the east side of the Euphrates as soon as possible. "Otherwise, and I say this clearly, we will do what is necessary."

The Syrian government denounced the Turkish military incursion and called for an immediate end to what it described as a "blatant violation" of Syrian sovereignty. It said Turkish tanks and armored vehicles crossed into Syria under the cover of U.S.-led airstrikes.

Turkey has backed rebels against Syrian President Bashar Assad throughout Syria's civil war. It has conducted small, brief special forces operations in the past.

But Wednesday's assault was its first major ground incursion.

The operation began at 4 A.M. with intense Turkish artillery fire on Jarablus, followed by Turkish warplanes bombing ISIS targets in the town. Then up to 20 tanks and a contingent of special forces moved across the border, according to Turkey's private NTV television and several Syrian opposition activists.

Ahmad al-Khatib, a Syrian opposition activist embedded with the rebels, said some 1,500 opposition fighters were involved. He said the fighters come from the U.S.-backed Hamza brigade, as well as rebel groups fighting government forces in Aleppo, such as the Nour el-Din el Zinki brigade, the Levant Front, and Failaq al-Sham.

Fighters from the powerful and ultraconservative Ahrar al-Sham brigade are also present, he said.

Biden's visit comes at a difficult time for ties between the two NATO allies. Turkey is demanding that Washington quickly extradite a U.S.-based cleric blamed for orchestrating last month's failed coup while the United States is asking for evidence against the cleric and that Turkey allow the extradition process to take its course.

But Biden's comments put Washington and Ankara on the same page on limiting the advances by the United States' other main ally in the conflict, the Syrian Kurds.

The capture of the town of Manbij last month from ISIS heightened Turkey's fears. It was seized by the Kurdish-led group known as the Syria Democratic Forces, or SDF. The U.S. says it has embedded some 300 special forces with the SDF, and British special forces have also been spotted advising the group. 

The Real Target of Turkey's Syrian Operation Is the Kurds, Not ISIS

The Kurdish takeover in Manbij and their stated intention to further encroach on ISIS territory raised the stakes for Ankara, which understood that if it doesn't act now it may find a new Kurdish entity on its border.

Zvi Bar'el Aug 24, 2016 9:48 PM

See map:  

“We will cleanse the area of all the terrorists,” declared Turkish Prime Minister Binali Yildirim on the eve of  the Turkish invasion of Syrian territory near the city of Jarablus. But the Turkish definition of terrorists does not relates solely to Islamic State operatives or Al-Qaida; it also includes, perhaps primarily, the Kurdish rebels in Syrian territory that are considered a threat to Turkey.

Herein lies the paradox of the Turkish military operation. Ostensibly it is a reprisal operation for the mortar fire from Syrian territory early this week and the suicide attack that killed 54 people at a wedding in Gaziantep, only a few dozen kilometers from the battle site. But the Islamic State had committed large attacks before without drawing a Turkish invasion of Syria. The main reason for the incursion was to launch a military plan that had already been drawn up to prevent the Kurds from creating territorial contiguity for themselves.

Jarablus is a relatively small city, but its strategic importance lies in its location between two districts controlled by Syrian Kurds that have an enclave controlled by the Islamic State (also known as ISIS or ISIL) between them. Until now, that enclave has prevented the two Kurdish districts from merging, a move that would provide the geographic infrastructure for establishing a continuous Syrian Kurdish district that could become an independent enclave, like the Kurdish region in Iraq.

That is why for years Turkey ignored – and, according to American reports, even assisted – the logistical traffic of Islamic State fighters and equipment between the little town of Karkemish, in Turkish territory, and Jarablus on the Syria side. Until the Turkish attack that began on Wednesday, Jarablus was the only direct crossing point between the Islamic State enclave and Turkey; this campaign may close that route.

The question is whether Turkey plans to leave a permanent military presence in Syria to prevent the Kurdish rebels from seizing control of the ISIS territory or whether it can succeed in enlisting enough non-Kurdish rebels, particularly from the Free Syrian Army, to act on its behalf.

The Turkish decision was not based solely on the ISIS mortar fire but primarily on developments in the field and the intervention of the great powers. The Kurdish conquest of the city of Manbij, south of Jarablus, and the Kurds’ plan to also capture Al-Bab, south of Manbij, made it clear to Turkey that it was liable to find itself facing a new reality on its border that would be difficult to change if it didn’t act immediately. The cooperation of the United States and Russia with the Kurdish rebels made Turkey realize that it was losing control over what was happening in the region close to its border.

Although Turkey has signed a military cooperation agreement with Russia, Russian aid to the Kurds has not stopped. Russia, which saw the Kurds as a way to aggravate Turkey during the months of crisis between the two countries, believes the Kurds will not oppose keeping the regime of President Bashar Assad in place.

Actually, the military cooperation between Russia, the United States and Turkey created a dilemma for the Turks, who had to decide where their most important interests lie. Is it more important to maintain the ISIS enclave, which split the territory held by the Kurds, or to cooperate in the battle against it?

For now, there is only one solution to this dilemma; to deploy Turkish forces in the field and help the Free Syrian Army seize control of the enclave, in the hope that these forces won’t then cooperate with the Kurdish rebels, who are considered the most effective fighters in the war against ISIS.

The problem is that the Turkish invasion and the involvement of the Free Syrian Army may cause an internal battle between the invading forces and the Kurdish militias and divert the focus of the battles from the war against ISIS to a struggle for territorial gain.

The Turkish invasion interferes with the plans of Russia and the United States, which have declared their desire to preserve Syria as a united entity, but in practice have not categorically rejected the idea of establishing an independent Kurdish zone that they will take under their wing. On the other hand, Russia and the United States cannot stop the Turkish invasion, which has acquired legitimacy because it’s being portrayed as a battle against ISIS.

At the same time, the Turkish campaign publicly demolishes the strategy of non-intervention on the ground that the great powers have been upholding until now. It’s true that a few hundred American fighters and trainers are operating in the field alongside the rebels, Russian ground troops are involved in the fighting and, of course, Iranian forces have been fighting in the Syrian arena for years. But as a declared policy, the powers have stressed that they do not plan to deploy ground troops. The Turkish move is liable to change that approach, particularly since plans to conquer the cities of Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria from ISIS are advancing in the background.

Turkey recently came to the realization that its immunity to ISIS attacks on its territory has faded and that the period in which it cooperated with the organization didn’t bring the hoped-for results. It seems that Turkey is also rethinking its strategy and may no longer be so insistent about blocking Assad’s continued rule at any price.

Last week, for the first time, Yildirim said that, “Assad is one of the players in the Syrian arena,” and that he could be allowed to continue his rule temporarily. This approach is based on the desire to keep Syria united in the face of demands to create a federated state in which the Kurds would have an officially recognized independent district.

Despite Assad’s sharp condemnation of the Turkish invasion, he too wants to prevent the establishment of an independent Kurdish district, and would prefer Turkey as a possible partner over the Kurdish or other rebel groups. 

Turkey – Supporting ISIS and Bombing the Kurds

The United States Gives Turkey Green Light to Attack the Kurdish PKK and PYD

In its heyday, Britain was known as Perfidious Albion for its ability to betray allies and friends at a moment notice.  It would seem that the United States has learnt all the dark arts and a few more.

Despite the stupidity of leader writers on papers like The Guardian, who lend credence to the absurd Turkish claim that it is bombing both ISIS and the PKK, it is clear that the US agreement with Turkey to fly its planes from Incirlik air base has come at a price.  The green light for Turkey to attack the PKK in Turkey and bomb its bases in Iraqi Kurdistan.  For months the Turkish state has been itching to attack the Kurds especially in the wake of the victory of the HDP at the General Elections, where the 13% they gained denied Erdogan’s AK party an absolute majority.  There is thus a massive temptation to brand the Kurds as ‘terrorists’ and outlaw the HDP or demonise them, rerun the elections and gain an overall majority to enable, the changes Erdogan wanted in the Constitution, which is absolute power for himself.

Erdogan - Turkish President Looking to Commit New Massacres of the Kurds

The Kurdish PKK and their Syrian counterparts, the YPD, have been the only force able to tackle ISIS on the ground.  All the US’s clients, not least its various ‘moderate’ forces in Syria and the Iraqi government have proved completely incapable.  What we are seeing is in essence a decision by the US to de facto accept of the ISIS presence as a useful weapon .  It is not possible to fight a war against ISIS and back a war against the Kurds.

Turkey's Incirlik Air Base that the US Have Secured Access To

It also means that the US is moving once again to a position of overtly seeking the overthrow of Assad, a position which Israel will welcome.

This is also one of the reasons for the strong opposition in the US to the agreement with Iran.  Along with the Kurds, Iranian forces have been the backbone of the anti-ISIS alliance in Iraq.  Obama may wish to have a de-facto alliance with Iran, but the Republican and Zionist opposition prefers ISIS, Turkey and Saudi Arabia to the Iranians and Hezbollah.

This is why it is a mistake to have any illusions in the United State’s war with ISIS.  The US will make their peace if necessary with Isis in the interests of western imperial interests and keeping Turkey sweet.  Turkey has for the past year supported Isis, allowing them to cross the border with impunity, to send supplies and oil across the border and of course fighters.  That is the reason why it took heavy pressure from the US before it allowed Pesh Merga fighters to cross the border during the fight to repulse Isis from Kobani.

If the US had wanted it could have pressurised Turkey to close the border to ISIS and frozen its bank accounts.  It sought to do neither.

Kurds Mourning Dead Fighter

The only way that peace will be achieved in the Middle East is with a complete withdrawal of imperialist forces from the region.

Tony Greenstein

PKK leader: Turkey is protecting IS by attacking Kurds

10 August 2015

The man leading the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) has accused Turkey of trying to protect the Islamic State group by attacking Kurdish fighters.

Cemil Bayik told the BBC he believed President Recep Tayyip Erdogan wanted IS to succeed to prevent Kurdish gains.

Kurdish fighters - among them the PKK - have secured significant victories against IS militants in Syria and Iraq.

But Turkey, like a number of Western countries, considers the PKK a terrorist organisation.
A ceasefire in the long-running conflict with the group appeared to disintegrate in July, when Turkey began bombing PKK camps in northern Iraq, at the same time as launching air strikes on IS militants.
Observers say PKK fighters have been on the receiving end of far more attacks than IS.

But Turkish officials deny that the campaign against IS group is a cover to prevent Kurdish gains. On Wednesday, Turkey said it was planning a "comprehensive battle" against IS.

'Stop Kurdish advance'

"The Turkish claim they are fighting Islamic State… but in fact they are fighting the PKK," Cemil Bayik told BBC's Jiyar Gol.

"They are doing it to limit the PKK's fight against IS. Turkey is protecting IS.

"[President] Erdogan is behind IS massacres. His aim is to stop the Kurdish advance against them, thus advancing his aim of Turkishness in Turkey."

More than 40,000 people have been killed since the PKK began its armed struggle against the Turkish government in 1984.

In the 1990s, the organisation dropped its demand for a Kurdish state and instead called for more autonomy for the Kurds.

In March 2013, its imprisoned leader Abdullah Ocalan called a ceasefire.
But violence has resumed in recent weeks after a suicide bombing blamed on IS killed 32 people in the predominantly Kurdish town of Suruc.

The PKK's military wing killed two Turkish police officers, claiming they had collaborated with IS in the bombing.

Turkey says the group has been behind a number of other attacks.

On Sunday evening, five police officers and two civilians were hurt in a bomb blast at a police station in Istanbul's Sultanbeyli district, Turkish media said. It was unclear who was behind the attack.

Negotiations 'only choice'

When, on 24 July, Turkey officially launched its first air strikes against IS, it also attacked Kurdish positions in northern Iraq.

Speaking to the BBC, Mr Bayik said negotiations were the "only choice" for an end to the Kurdish conflict.

He said the PKK would stop fighting if Turkey ended its military operation, and called for international monitors to oversee a ceasefire.

Turkish Prime Minister Ahmet Davutoglu has previously said that strikes against the PKK would continue until the group surrenders.

The country's fight with the PKK is complicating the US-led war on the Islamic State group, for which the US has relied heavily on Syrian Kurdish fighters affiliated with Turkey's Kurdish rebels.

Saddam-era veterans account for ISIS battlefield victories, dominate group's top command - report

Islamic State's top brass has been hugely dominated by former officers from Saddam Hussein's military, spy agencies and senior intelligence officials, including the chief of a key counterterrorism intelligence unit, according to a new report.

The experience they bring is said to be a major reason for Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS/ISIL) victories in conquering large parts of Iraq and Syria, senior Iraqi officers on the front lines of the fight against IS told AP. Former Hussein officers gave the militant group the structuring and discipline it needed to bring together jihadist fighters from across the world. They have been allegedly put in charge of intelligence-gathering, spying on the Iraqi forces, maintaining and upgrading weapons, as well as trying to develop a chemical weapons program.

The officials estimate the number of Saddam-era veterans in mid- and senior-level positions within IS ranks stands between 100 and 160. They hail from Sunni-dominated areas as a rule, with intelligence officers mostly from western Anbar province, the majority of army officers from the northern Iraqi city of Mosul and members of security services exclusively from Saddam's clan around his hometown of Tikrit, a veteran of battles against IS north and west of Baghdad, Brigadier General Abdul-Wahhab al-Saadi, told AP.

A former CIA case officer who has served in Iraq, Patrick Skinner, told AP that Saddam-era military and intelligence officers were a "necessary ingredient" in IS' battlefield triumphs last year, accounting for its expansion from a "terrorist organization to a proto-state."

"Their military successes last year were not terrorist, they were military successes," said Skinner, who currently works for a private strategic intelligence services firm.

Another aspect of the problem is how officers from Saddam's mainly secular regime happened to infuse one of the world's most radical Islamic extremist groups. It's believed that a Saddam-era program which tolerated Islamic hard-liners in the military in the 1990s, as well as anger among Sunni officers when the Pentagon disbanded Saddam's military in 2003 have mostly contributed to the transformation in Islamic State’s present line-up.

© Stringer / Reuters

The group's second-in-command, al-Baghdadi's deputy, is a former Saddam-era army major, Saud Mohsen Hassan, who, according to the intelligence chief who spoke with AP on condition of anonymity, goes by the pseudonyms Abu Mutazz and Abu Muslim al-Turkmani. Hassan is also known as Fadel al-Hayali, a fake name he used before the fall of Saddam, the intelligence chief said.

US-run Bucca prison camp as incubator for IS

During the 2000s, Hassan was imprisoned in the Bucca prison camp, where al-Baghdadi was also held. It's the main detention center for members of the Sunni insurgency, maintained by the US near the Umm Qasr port city, in southern Iraq. The prison became a kind of hatchery for the Islamic State group, bringing militants like al-Baghdadi into contact with former Saddam officers, including members of special forces, the elite Republican Guard and the paramilitary force called Fedayeen, according to AP.

In Bucca's Ward 6, al-Baghdadi gave sermons, while Hassan turned out to be good at managing people, leading strikes by the prisoners to gain concessions from the US jailers, the intelligence chief said.

READ MORE: ISIS could have been prevented – if it hadn’t been deliberately fostered

Former Bucca prisoners are now among top IS leaders. Among them is Abu Alaa al-Afari, a veteran Iraqi militant who was once with Al-Qaeda but these days, according to a chart of what is believed to be the group's hierarchy provided to the AP by the intelligence chief, serves as the head of IS's "Beit al-Mal," or treasury.

According to the intelligence chief, Al-Baghdadi has united members of the group even closer after he was reportedly injured last year. He has appointed some of his most trusted comrades to the group's Military Council, believed to have seven to nine members — at least four of whom are former Saddam officers, AP reported.

Saddam-era veterans also serve as "governors" for seven of the 12 "provinces" set up by IS in the territory it holds in Iraq, the intelligence chief stated.

Identifying IS leadership has proved futile in the past. Besides al-Baghdadi himself, the group rarely unveils even the pseudonyms of its members. When reports emerge alleging IS' leaders are killed, they usually turn up alive shortly after, under a new pseudonym sometimes.

A Kurdish Peshmerga fighter moves into position while firing into Baretle village (background), which is controlled by the Islamic State, in Khazir, on the edge of Mosul September 8, 2014 © Ahmed Jadallah / Reuters

"IS's military performance has far exceeded what we expected. The running of battles by the veterans of the Saddam military came as a shock," a brigadier general in military intelligence told AP, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"Security-wise, we are often left unable to know who replaces who in the leadership. We are unable to infiltrate the group. It is terrifying," he added.

A former brigadier general from Saddam-era special forces, Assem Mohammed Nasser, also known as Nagahy Barakat, for instance, led an assault on Haditha in Anbar province in 2014, killing around 25 policemen and briefly taking over the local government building.

Many of the Saddam-era officers also appear to have close tribal links to or are the sons of tribal leaders in their regions, thus providing IS with a much-needed back-up network, as well as facilitating recruitment. These tribal ties are thought to account, at least partially, for the sensational breakdown of Iraqi security forces when IS captured the Anbar strategic capital of Ramadi in May in central Iraq. Several of the officers interviewed by AP said they believe Islamic State commanders persuaded fellow tribesmen in the security forces to give up their positions without a fight.

Saddam-era secret agents 'do classic intelligence infiltration'

Skinner (former CIA officer) highlighted the sophistication of the Saddam-era intelligence officers he met in Iraq, as well as the intelligence capabilities of IS in Ramadi, Mosul and in the group's de facto capital of Raqqa in Syria.

"They do classic intelligence infiltration. They have stay-behind cells, they actually literally have sleeper cells," Skinner said.

"And they do classic assassinations, which depends on intelligence," he told AP, citing a series of murders that targeted Iraqi police, army, hostile tribal leaders and members of a government-backed Sunni militia in 2013.

One particular initiative, believed to have fed Saddam veterans into IS, came in the mid-1990s when Saddam departed from the traditional secular principles of his ruling Baath party and launched the "Faith Campaign" designed to Islamize Iraqi society.

"Most of the army and intelligence officers serving with IS are those who showed clear signs of religious militancy during Saddam days," the intelligence chief said. "The Faith Campaign ... encouraged them."

In the run-up to the 2003 US-led invasion, Saddam publicly invited foreign mujahedeen to come to Iraq. Many eventually joined the insurgency against US troops. After the collapse of the Saddam regime, hundreds of Iraqi army officers, outraged by the US decision to disband the Iraqi army, picked up guns again, joining in the Sunni insurgency. Many insurgents were relatively secular at first, but with the creation and growing strength of Al-Qaida in Iraq, Islamic militants grew in prominence too. Some Sunnis got radicalized outraged by the Shiite majority, which rose to power after Saddam's fall and whom the Sunnis accuse of discriminating against them.

Female ISIS Judge

Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi's first two deputies were both Saddam-era officers, each playing a major role in setting up what would become its sweep over Syria and Iraq, according to those interviewed by AP.
"It's clear that some of these [Saddam-era officers] must have been inside the core of the jihadist movement in the Sunni triangle from the beginning," Michael W.S. Ryan, a former senior executive at the State Department and Pentagon, said referring to the Sunni-dominated area that proved to be the most hostile to US forces in Iraq.

"Their knowledge is now in the DNA of ISIS," he added, using an outdated acronym for the militant group.

"This melding of the Iraqi experience and what we might call the Afghan Arab experience became the unique ISIS brand," Ryan, who currently works for a Washington-based think tank, said.

"That brand ultimately became more successful in Iraq than Al-Qaida in Iraq ... and, at least for now, stronger in Syria than Al-Qaida."

Kurdish Victory in Syria Forces Turkey to Take a Stance

By: Joris Leverink

Kurdish fighters carry their parties' flags after claiming victory in Tel Abyad. | Photo: Reuters

The capture of Tel Abyad by Syrian Kurdish forces and their Free Syrian Army allies on June 15 is arguably the biggest blow dealt to the Islamic State, or ISIS, since the militants were ousted from Tikrit by Iraqi troops in April this year.

Tel Abyad functioned as an ISIS gateway to Turkey – and to the rest of the world. As such, a fierce battle was expected when the Kurds started closing in on the town earlier this month. To the surprise of many, not in the least the Kurds themselves, Tel Abyad fell in a matter of hours.

For the first time since the start of the Syrian civil war and the rise of ISIS the two biggest cantons of Rojava were connected and the jihadists' access to the Turkish border was cut off.

Kurdish gains in northern Syria

The Kurdish capture of the key border town was part of an extensive operation by the YPG/J (Peoples'/Women's Defense Forces) and their Syrian Arab allies. The operation commenced in early May and aimed to clear large swaths of northern Syria from ISIS' presence and (re-)establish control over the liberated areas.

ISIS fighters that Turkey is Supplying

With the help of US-led coalition air strikes targeting ISIS positions, the Kurds and their rebel allies managed to claim a series of important victories – liberating hundreds of villages, conquering the strategically important Abd al-Aziz mountain and capturing the town of Suluk which lies just 80 kilometers north of the Islamic State's de-facto capital Raqqa.

After the capture of Suluk on June 13, thousands of locals of the region fled the heavy fighting towards the border. They were closely followed by ISIS troops who prepared themselves to make a last stance in Tel Abyad. Footage of the refugees amassing at the border, separated from Turkey only by a barbed-wire fence was circulated via social media the same day.

ISIS and ex-Baathist Fighters

At the time, the refugees were denied entry into Turkey. When a number of them pushed towards the border fence in a desperate attempt to convince the Turkish border guards to allow them access, they were attacked with water cannon and tear gas from the Turkish side. The video also showed a number of ISIS fighters openly carrying their arms mere meters away from the Turkish soldiers, forcing the people back into town – presumably to be used as human shields for when the YPG/J launched its attack on the town.

A massacre was feared as soon as the battle for Tel Abyad began. Fortunately, it never came to that. The refugees were allowed to cross the border, joining the nearly two million of their fellow countrymen and -women who had already sought refuge in Turkey, and the Kurdish forces were able to declare victory in a matter of hours after ISIS' troops realized they were trapped between a rock and a hard place. With their supply line to Raqqa cut off by coalition air strikes they quickly surrendered or fled to Turkey, mingling with the stream of refugees after cutting off their beards and changing their combat gear for civilian clothes.

Rojava's cantons united

The capture of Tel Abyad was completed by Kurdish forces who attacked from both the east and the west. The troops arriving from the east came from Rojava's Cezire canton, the largest of the three Kurdish-dominated regions in northern Syria. The troops arriving from the west stemmed from Rojava's Kobane canton, which only five months earlier had made headlines across the world when it was about to be run over by ISIS, a potential tragedy that was only averted cue to the fierce resistance of Kurdish fighters in the town.

In the course of the fighting in Kobane the town had been reduced to rubble. With Turkey refusing to open its borders to facilitate the reconstruction of the ruined town a corridor that connected Kobane with Cezire, and then on to Iraqi Kurdistan, was much needed to bring in the necessary supplies.

The creation of a connection between the two cantons, the victory over ISIS and cutting of the Islamic State's lifeline to the Turkish border – which had been one of the key routes for aspiring jihadists to enter Syria and where the militants had made millions of dollars by smuggling oil across the border into Turkey – was hailed as a potentially game-changing victory across the globe. The Turkish authorities, however, seemed less taken away by the changing of the guard at their gates.

“This is not a good sign,” AFP quoted the Turkish president Erdogan, while he commented on the Kurdish advances a day prior to Tel Abyad's capture."This could lead to the creation of a structure that threatens our borders," he said. "Everyone needs to take into account our sensitivities on this issue."

The Turkish “sensitivities on the issue” concern its belief that the Kurdish forces in Syria – the YPG and the YPJ – and their political counterpart, the Peoples' Democratic Party (PYD), are allied to the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which has been waging a three-decade insurgency against the Turkish state and is listed as a terrorist organization by the US, EU and Turkey.

In July 2012 three regions in northern Syria with a predominantly Kurdish population declared their autonomy from the central government. Since then the Kurds in these so-called 'cantons' – soon joined by other ethnic groups that are living in the same area – have been engaged in a process of radically reorganizing the local government and society, based upon the core principles of horizontal democracy, gender equality and environmental sustainability.

Inspiration for this reorganization of society was drawn from the ideas and writings of the imprisoned PKK-leader Abdullah Öcalan – one of the main reasons for the Turkish state to draw the conclusion that the PYD and the PKK are in fact the same organization, simply going by different names in different places.

It is true that elements of the PKK have been fighting alongside their Syrian comrades, both in the siege of Kobane and elsewhere, but on an organizational level the two parties remain autonomous. Nonetheless, the similar ideological backgrounds of both parties and their obvious ethnic unity have been enough reason for the Turkish State to label the Syrian Kurds as terrorists. The PYD is perceived as a bigger threat to the national security of Turkey than ISIS.

Who's the real terrorist?

Turkey has been accused on many occasions of providing aid to the Islamic State, in terms of helping ISIS fighters to cross the border into Syria, providing medical aid to injured militants, and sending arms to areas under ISIS control. The New York Times recently reported that huge quantities of fertilizer – a key ingredient for producing home-made explosives – were allowed to cross the border into Tel Abyad.

A curious fact in and of itself, but even more remarkable when set off against Turkey's policy to keep the border crossings with regions under Kurdish control sealed, in many cases not even allowing much needed humanitarian aid to cross.

Turkish government officials have been trying to shape the public opinion at the expense of the Kurdish forces. Deputy Prime Minister Bülent Arınçevent went so far as to accuse the PYD of “ethnic cleansing”, a claim that was categorically denied in a press statement by the YPG in which “all groups and individuals who want to observe the truth” were invited to “come to the region” and observe the situation for themselves rather than citing biased media outlets.

A day after the capture of Tel Abyad the governor of Şanlıurfa province in Turkey paid a visit to Akçale, Tel Abyad's Turkish sister town, and publicly claimed that the Syrian refugees who had crossed the border in the previous days were on the run from the YPG/J and coalition air strikes. When journalists on the scene remarked that none of the refugees actually claimed this, and started asking questions about ISIS' presence in the border town, they were quickly rounded up by security agents and detained for several hours.

Claims of ethnic cleansings directed at the region's Arab population by the YPG/J have been doing their rounds on a regular basis, and not exclusively by pro-Turkish media. But so far, hard evidence is lacking to back up these claims. On the contrary, many videos are circulating on social media that purportedly show Arab villagers welcoming the Kurdish fighters, thanking them for liberating them from ISIS' repression.

That said, not everybody is equally happy with the recent Kurdish advances into areas that have a dominantly Arab population. As there are local Arabs that welcome the YPG/J forces, there are others who fear that they will suffer collective punishment for the crimes ISIS committed. As stated above, no cases have been documented yet of Kurdish forces retaliating against Arab people indiscriminately, but time will tell how the relations between the two ethnic groups will take shape after the shifting power balance.

The capture of Tel Abyad was the grand finale of a string of military victories against ISIS that started with the liberation of Kobane. Aided by coalition air strikes they have proven to be the Western coalition's most reliable ally on the ground in the battle against ISIS.

Turkey fears that an empowered Kurdish population across the border in Syria might make it harder for the state to continue to subdue the Kurds at home. However,if it doesn't wants to lose face in the eyes of it's NATO-partners and the international community, it has to get its priorities straight and decide who the real terrorist is.

Joris Leverink is an Istanbul-based freelance journalist with an MSc in Political Economy, and editor for ROAR Magazine.