ANKARA: With anti-Daesh operations in Syria coming to an end, the US will focus on holding territory instead of arming the Syrian-Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Friday.
“The YPG is armed, and as the coalition stops offensive (operations), then obviously you don’t need that,” he said.
“You need security, you need police forces, that’s local forces, that’s people who make certain that ISIS (Daesh) doesn’t come back.” Mattis made clear the US will stop arming the YPG, its main local partner in Syria.
Last week, in a phone call between US President Donald Trump and his Turkish counterpart Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the former reportedly said Washington will stop supplying weapons to the YPG.
Ankara considers the YPG a terrorist group and a national security threat due to its close ties to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has fought against the Turkish state for more than three decades. The US considers the PKK a terrorist group, but not the YPG.
Washington’s military support for the YPG has been a major source of tension between the US and Turkey. The main concern is that weapons supplied to the YPG will end up in PKK hands in Turkey.
“Mattis’ statement, which confirms the conversation between Trump and Erdogan, isn’t insignificant, but it’s no game-changer either,” Ozgur Unluhisarcikli, Ankara office director of the German Marshall Fund of the United States, told Arab News.
American support for the YPG is only one issue of contention between the US and Turkey, and providing arms is only one of the ways in which Washington has supported the YPG, alongside providing training and protection, he added.
“The US has already provided large amounts of heavy and light weaponry to the YPG, and even without further shipments, it will remain heavily armed unless the US can recollect most of those weapons,” he said.
“If the US decides to recollect most of the weapons and withdraw its protection of the YPG, the impact on relations with Turkey will be very positive, but the first option isn’t easy and the second one unlikely.”
Mete Sohtaoglu, an Istanbul-based researcher on Middle East politics, said the heavy weaponry provided by the US to the YPG will be recollected starting in January 2018.
“But it’s difficult to recover AK-47 rifles, and Turkey is likely to declare this a reason for war and a threat to its national security and borders as of 2018,” Sohtaoglu told Arab News.
The US will leave civilian construction vehicles such as cranes, bulldozers and trucks in the region to help locals with post-Daesh reconstruction, but military vehicles will be dispatched to Iraq, he added.
The motivation behind the US drive to maintain its military presence in the region is not to support the YPG, but to accelerate the departure of Syrian President Bashar Assad and to have a final say in the settlement of the conflict, Sohtaoglu said.
“The US never attributed any political connotation to the YPG other than military cooperation to fight Daesh,” he added.
“But if Syrian Kurds are denied their federal plan in northern Syria, the question is whether they’ll become the PKK of Syria with the arms they’ve already been provided.”
In November, Kurds in northern Syria voted for local councils. This will be followed in January by the election of a federal Parliament for the region.
US to shift focus in Syria away from arming YPG
US to shift focus in Syria away from arming YPG
Iraq sets November 11 for parliamentary election
BAGHDAD: The Iraqi cabinet has set November 11 as the date for a parliamentary election, it said on Wednesday.
US says it is aware of Palestinian American’s killing by Israeli forces in West Bank
- Israel has expanded and consolidated settlements in the occupied West Bank as part of the steady integration of these territories into the state of Israel in breach of international law, the UN human rights office said last month
WASHINGTON: The US State Department said on Tuesday it was aware of the killing by Israeli forces of a Palestinian American teenager in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and was seeking more information about the incident.
A State Department spokesperson made the comments to reporters when asked about the killing of US citizen Omar Mohammad Rabea, 14, and the shooting of two other teenagers.
“We are certainly aware of that dynamic,” the State Department spokesperson said. “There is an investigation that is going on. We are aware of the reports from the IDF that this was a counterterrorism act, we need to learn more about the nature of what happened on the ground.”
The Palestinian foreign ministry condemned the weekend incident as an “extra-judicial killing” by Israeli forces during a raid. A local mayor said Rabea was shot along with two other teenagers by an Israeli settler and that the Israeli army pronounced him dead after detaining him.
The Israeli military said it shot a “terrorist” who endangered civilians by hurling rocks.
“We don’t have the complete picture of what was going on on the ground,” the State Department spokesperson added.
Israel has expanded and consolidated settlements in the occupied West Bank as part of the steady integration of these territories into the state of Israel in breach of international law, the UN human rights office said last month.
Settler violence in the West Bank, including incursions into occupied territory and raids, has intensified since the start of Israel’s war in Gaza that has killed over 50,000, according to Gaza’s health ministry, and led to genocide and war crimes accusations that Israel denies.
The Israeli onslaught in Gaza followed a Hamas attack in October 2023 in which 1,200 were killed and about 250 taken hostage, according to Israeli tallies.
Israel troops shoot dead woman in alleged West Bank knife attack
- Yaqub was a lawyer and mother of three from nearby Biddya, the village’s mayor, Ahmed Abu Safiyeh, told AFP
- The Israeli military said Tuesday that Israeli settlers set fire to a Palestinian event hall overnight in the area of Biddya, and that no injuries were reported
HARES, Palestinian Territories: The Palestinian health ministry said Israeli troops killed a 30-year-old woman near the West Bank city of Salfit on Tuesday after what the army described as an attempted stabbing.
The ministry reported the death of Amana Ibrahim Mohammed Yaqub, 30, “who was shot by (Israeli) forces near Salfit,” south of Nablus.
The Israeli military said it had “neutralized a terrorist who hurled rocks and attempted to stab soldiers adjacent to the Gitai Avisar junction” close to the West Bank village of Hares.
An AFP journalist reported seeing a lifeless body under a foil blanket by the roadside at the scene of the attack.
Yaqub was a lawyer and mother of three from nearby Biddya, the village’s mayor, Ahmed Abu Safiyeh, told AFP.
The Israeli military said Tuesday that Israeli settlers set fire to a Palestinian event hall overnight in the area of Biddya, and that no injuries were reported.
An AFP journalist reported most of the hall was burned to the ground, and that settlers left graffiti in Hebrew on nearby walls.
The area around Salfit and Biddya is dense with Israeli settlements, including the town of Ariel.
Since the start of the Gaza war in October 2023, violence has soared in the occupied West Bank. Israeli troops and settlers have killed at least 918 Palestinians in the territory, according to health ministry figures.
Palestinian attacks and clashes during military raids have killed at least 33 Israelis, including soldiers, over the same period, according to Israeli figures.
Hamas official says ‘necessary to reach a ceasefire’ in Gaza
- “This war cannot continue indefinitely, and it is therefore necessary to reach a ceasefire,” Hossam Badran, a member of Hamas’s political bureau, told AFP
GAZA CITY, Palestinian Territories: A Hamas official told AFP on Tuesday that it was “necessary to reach a ceasefire” in the Gaza Strip, three weeks after Israel resumed bombardments on the Palestinian territory.
“This war cannot continue indefinitely, and it is therefore necessary to reach a ceasefire,” Hossam Badran, a member of Hamas’s political bureau, told AFP, adding that “communication with the mediators is still ongoing” but that “so far, there are no new proposals.”
Iran-backed militias in Iraq ‘ready to disarm’
- They fear threat of US airstrikes
BAGHDAD: Powerful Iran-backed militias in Iraq are ready to disarm to avert the threat of US airstrikes, they said on Tuesday.
The move follows repeated private warnings by US officials to the Iraqi government since Donald Trump took office as US president in January.
They told Baghdad that unless it acted to disband the militias on its soil, America could attack the groups.
“Trump is ready to take the war with us to worse levels, we know that, and we want to avoid such a bad scenario,” said one commander of Kata’ib Hezbollah, the most powerful militia.
BACKGROUND
Militia leaders said the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps had told them to do whatever they deemed necessary to avoid being drawn into a potentially ruinous conflict with the US.
The others that have offered to lay down their weapons are Nujabaa, Kata’ib Sayyed Al-Shuhada and Ansarullah Al-Awfiyaa.
Militia leaders said their main ally and patron, the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps in Iran, had told them to do whatever they deemed necessary to avoid being drawn into a potentially ruinous conflict with the US.
The militias are part of the Islamic Resistance in Iraq, about 10 armed factions with about 50,000 fighters and arsenals that include long-range missiles and anti-aircraft weapons.
They are a key pillar of Iran’s network of regional proxy forces, and have carried out dozens of missile and drone attacks on Israel and US forces in Iraq and Syria since the Gaza war began in 2023.
Iraqi security officials said Prime Minister Mohammed Shia’ Al-Sudani was pressing for disarmament by all militias that declared their allegiance to the Revolutionary Guards or its Quds Force rather than to Baghdad.
Some have already quit their bases and reduced their presence in major cities including Mosul and Anbar for fear of airstrikes.
