As conflict has flared, the White House has strongly backed Syria’s interim president, Ahmed al-Sharaa – a former Jihadi. That’s a slap in the face for the Kurds. The SDF lost 11,000 fighters battling the jihadis of IS.<\/p>\n
Commander Azad compares the president to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the late founder of IS. “They are the same thing. After Jolani took over, Syria will always be a war zone,” he says, referring to the president by his fighting name, Abu Mohammed Al Jolani.<\/p>\n
Having fought US troops in Iraq, Al Sharaa set up an al-Qaeda offshoot in Syria, which was in fact fiercely opposed to IS though the groups had similar roots. He later broke with al-Qaeda, then in December 2024 swept to power in Damascus, ousting Bashar al Assad.<\/p>\n
In the eyes of the Kurds, Al Sharaa is still a Jihadi, but now in a suit.<\/p>\n
Commander Azad stiffly climbs the stairs to an open rooftop with a commanding view of flat countryside.<\/p>\n
Below us sheep graze in the fields and clothes flaps on a washing line in a back garden. But a pick-up truck with an anti-aircraft machine gun is parked outside the door, and there is a cluster of troops in camouflage uniforms. This is the SDF’s last checkpoint in their stronghold of Hassakeh province.<\/p>\n
“They [Syrian government forces] are in an Arab village seven kilometres from here,” he says, gesturing to the horizon. “So far, there is no danger. I hope there will be no war, but if it comes, ‘Let it be welcome,'” he says, quoting Che Guevara, Cuba’s revolutionary hero.<\/p>\n
A fragile ceasefire between the two sides is due to expire on 7 February, but talks are continuing.<\/p>\n
“We are focusing all our efforts on reaching a permanent ceasefire or a lengthy one,” says Siyamend Ali, of the People’s Protection Units (YPG), a Kurdish militia that is the backbone of the SDF. <\/p>\n
“We don’t want war, but if we are forced down that path we will fight back. Every neighbourhood will turn into a hell for them.”<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"As conflict has flared, the White House has strongly backed Syria’s interim president, Ahmed al-Sharaa – a former…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":729476,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5311],"tags":[49,978,659],"class_list":{"0":"post-729475","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-united-states","8":"tag-united-states","9":"tag-us","10":"tag-usa"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/115980683311051026","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/729475","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=729475"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/729475\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/729476"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=729475"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=729475"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=729475"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}