QAMISHLI, Syria: Syria’s Kurds fear the steadfast ally they found in the US to successfully take on Daesh may now leave them to face threats from Turkey and Damascus alone.
Across Syria’s north, Kurdish authorities have spent more than four years steadily building public institutions including elected councils, security forces, even schools.
They felt they had found an international sponsor in the US, which relied primarily on the fighters of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) to roll back Daesh in northern and eastern Syria.
But with Daesh holding just five percent of Syria, Kurds worry the US could withdraw support, costing them the key political and territorial gains they scored in the chaos of war.
“We are afraid of America, which has been using us as a card to play for a long time,” said Rafea Ismail, a 37-year-old who sells women’s accessories on the hood of his car in the city of Qamishli.
“When they’re done using us, they’ll forget us,” he said.
Qamishli is the main hub of the autonomous administration the Kurdish authorities have run since regime forces withdrew from swathes of northeast Syria in 2012.
“All countries should support us because we fight terrorism. We liberated Raqqa, and America should not abandon us and ally with Turkey,” said Nawal Farzand, a 45-year-old Kurdish language teacher.
In March 2016, Kurdish parties announced they would seek to establish a federal system there after ousting Daesh from much of the area with the help of the US-led coalition.
Their biggest win was Raqqa, once Daesh’s de facto Syrian capital but captured in October by the YPG-led Syrian Democratic Forces.
Weeks later, the US announced it was pulling 500 Marines from its nearly 2,000-strong force in Syria and “amending” its support to the YPG.
But the terrorists are “not finished yet,” said Nassrin Abdallah, a commander in the militia’s female branch, the Kurdish Women’s Protection Units (YPJ).
Sleeper cells still stage attacks and Daesh fighters are active in the eastern province of Deir Ezzor, she said.
“It is important for the coalition forces to stay to guarantee security and stability, since the threat from Daesh still exists,” Abdallah added.”Turkey is also a threat to the Kurdish people.”
The Kurds’ rising profile had enraged Damascus, which insists it wants to recapture every inch of territory lost since Syria’s uprising erupted in 2011.
But it especially alarmed Turkey, which feared the semi-independent administration in northern Syria would inspire similar ambitions among its own Kurdish community.
Ankara considers the YPG as “terrorist” because of its ties to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK).
English teacher Nada Abbas says she, too, fears the US “will abandon the Kurds after the end of the battle against Daesh.”
“This would be a gift to Turkey, which doesn’t accept Kurds becoming stronger,” says the 30-year-old.
“It would attack us like it did in the past. The Turkish threat will not end,” Abbas adds.
Nicholas Heras, a fellow at the Center for a New American Security think tank, says Turkey poses “the gravest threat to the Kurds in Syria” — even more than Syrian President Bashar Assad or Daesh.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip “Erdogan has made it crystal clear that as soon as the Americans are no longer in the way, he intends to crush the Syrian Kurds, all of whom he views as PKK,” Heras tells AFP.
Fears of an American withdrawal may be drawing Syrian Kurds into Russia’s orbit.
The YPG recently announced that its anti-Daesh operations in east Syria had received air support from Moscow.
Russian forces have also trained Kurdish fighters further west in Afrin — where there is no Daesh presence — and manage a buffer zone between Kurds and Turkish-backed fighters.
And Moscow has been particularly outspoken in support of Syria’s Kurds having a seat at the negotiating table at talks in Geneva.
“The relationship between the YPG and the Russian military is becoming a special one. The Syrian Kurdish region of Afrin is solely dependent on the Russian military, not the Americans, for protection from Turkish attack and occupation,” says Heras.
Syria’s Kurds may seek to protect themselves from Turkey by leveraging relationships with both Russia and the US.
“Two large foreign power patrons is better than one for the Syrian Kurds, especially because both of those patrons have an interest in holding Turkey in check,” Heras adds.
“Russia is also the insurance policy for the Syrian Kurds if the United States was to ever abandon them to the mercy of Turkey.”
With the frontline against Daesh winding down, US-led coalition forces are much more visible in urban settings, after several years of being seen almost exclusively in frontline positions.
“We want the best. It won’t be possible to go back to how we were,” says 50-year-old Jassem Hussein in the mostly Kurdish-held city of Hasakah.
“This is why Kurdish unity is the most important thing.”
Syria Kurds fear US to abandon them
Syria Kurds fear US to abandon them
US envoy Amos Hochstein arrives in Lebanon: state media
- US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters that Washington had been sharing proposals with the Lebanese and Israeli governments
- Another Lebanese official said earlier that US Ambassador Lisa Johnson discussed the plan on Thursday with Prime Minister Najib Mikati
Beirut: US special envoy Amos Hochstein arrived in Lebanon for truce talks with officials on Tuesday, state media reported.
The United States and France have spearheaded efforts for a ceasefire in the Israel-Hezbollah war.
On September 23, Israel began an intensified air campaign in Lebanon before sending in ground troops, nearly a year into exchanges of fire initiated by Hezbollah in support of Palestinian ally Hamas after its October 7, 2023 attack sparked the war in Gaza.
A Lebanese official told AFP on Monday that the government had a positive view of a US truce proposal, while a second official said Lebanon was waiting for Hochstein’s arrival to “review certain outstanding points with him.”
On Monday, US State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told reporters that Washington had been sharing proposals with the Lebanese and Israeli governments.
“Both sides have reacted to the proposals that we have put forward,” he said.
Miller said the United States was pushing for “full implementation” of UN Security Council Resolution 1701, which ended the last Israel-Hezbollah war in 2006 and requires all armed forces except the Lebanese army and UN peacekeepers to withdraw from the Lebanese side of the border with Israel.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Monday said that even with a deal Israel would “carry out operations against Hezbollah” to keep the group from rebuilding.
Another Lebanese official said earlier that US Ambassador Lisa Johnson discussed the plan on Thursday with Prime Minister Najib Mikati and Hezbollah-allied parliamentary speaker Nabih Berri, who has led mediation efforts on behalf of the group.
If an agreement is reached, the United States and France would issue a joint statement, he said, followed by a 60-day truce during which Lebanon will redeploy troops in the southern border area, near Israel.
Lebanese authorities say more than 3,510 people have been killed since clashes began in October last year, with most fatalities recorded since late September.
Food shortages bring hunger pains to displaced families in central Gaza
- Almost all of Gaza’s roughly 2.3 million people now rely on international aid for survival, and doctors and aid groups say malnutrition is rampant
DEIR AL-BALAH: A shortage in flour and the closure of a main bakery in central Gaza have exacerbated an already dire humanitarian situation, as Palestinian families struggle to obtain enough food.
A crowd of people waited dejectedly in the cold outside the shuttered Zadna Bakery in Deir Al-Balah on Monday.
Among them was Umm Shadi, a displaced woman from Gaza City, who told The Associated Press that there was no bread left due to the lack of flour — a bag of which costs as much as 400 shekels ($107) in the market, she said, if any can be found.
“Who can buy a bag of flour for 400 shekels?” she asked.
Nora Muhanna, another woman displaced from Gaza City, said she was leaving empty-handed after waiting five or six hours for a bag of bread for her kids.
“From the beginning, there are no goods, and even if they are available, there is no money,” she said.
Almost all of Gaza’s roughly 2.3 million people now rely on international aid for survival, and doctors and aid groups say malnutrition is rampant. Food security experts say famine may already be underway in hard-hit north Gaza. Aid groups accuse the Israeli military of hindering and even blocking shipments in Gaza.
Meanwhile, dozens lined up in Deir Al-Balah to get their share of lentil soup and some bread at a makeshift charity kitchen.
Refat Abed, a displaced man from Gaza City, no longer knows how he can afford food.
“Where can I get money?” he asked. “Do I beg? If it were not for God and charity, my children and I would go hungry,”
Even with Lebanon truce deal, Israel will operate against Hezbollah — Netanyahu
- Lebanon’s government has largely endorsed US truce proposal to end Israel-Hezbollah war
- Israel insists any truce deal must guarantee no further Hezbollah presence in area bordering Israel
JERUSALEM: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that Israel will continue to operate militarily against the Iran-backed Lebanese armed movement Hezbollah even if a ceasefire deal is reached in Lebanon.
“The most important thing is not (the deal that) will be laid on paper,” Netanyahu told the Israeli parliament.
“We will be forced to ensure our security in the north (of Israel) and to systematically carry out operations against Hezbollah’s attacks... even after a ceasefire,” to keep the group from rebuilding, he said.
Netanyahu also said there was no evidence that Hezbollah would respect any ceasefire reached.
“We will not allow Hezbollah to return to the state it was in on October 6” 2023, the eve of the strike by its Palestinian ally Hamas into southern Israel, he said.
Hezbollah then began firing into northern Israel in support of Hamas, triggering exchanges with Israel that escalated into full-on war in late September this year.
Lebanon’s government has largely endorsed a US truce proposal to end the Israel-Hezbollah war and was preparing final comments before responding to Washington, a Lebanese official told AFP on Monday.
Israel insists that any truce deal must guarantee no further Hezbollah presence in the area bordering Israel.
Defiant Lebanese harvest olives in the shadow of war
- A World Bank report this month said that “the disruption of the olive harvest caused by bombing and displacement is expected to lead to $58 million in losses” in Lebanon
KFEIR: On a mountain slope in south Lebanon, agricultural worker Assaad Al-Taqi is busy picking olives, undeterred by the roar of Israeli warplanes overhead.
This year, he is collecting the harvest against the backdrop of the raging Israel-Hezbollah war.
He works in the village of Kfeir, just a few kilometers (miles) from where Israeli bombardment has devastated much of south Lebanon since Israel escalated its campaign against Iran-backed Hezbollah in September.
“But I’m not afraid of the shelling,” Taqi said, as he and other workers hit the tree branches with sticks, sending showers of olives tumbling down into jute bags.
“Our presence here is an act of defiance,” the 51-year-old said, but also noting that the olive “is the tree of peace.”
Kfeir is nine kilometers (six miles) from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights, in the mixed Christian and Druze district of Hasbaya, which has largely been spared the violence that has wracked nearby Hezbollah strongholds.
But even Hasbaya’s relative tranquillity was shattered last month when three journalists were killed in an Israeli strike on a complex where they were sleeping.
Israel and Hezbollah had previously exchanged cross-border fire for almost a year over the Gaza conflict.
The workers in Kfeir rest in the shade of the olive trees, some 900 meters (3,000 feet) above sea level on the slopes of Mount Hermon, which overlooks an area where Lebanese, Syrian and Israeli-held territory meet.
They have been toiling in relative peace since dawn, interrupted only by sonic booms from Israeli jets breaking the sound barrier and the sight of smoke rising on the horizon from strikes on a south Lebanon border village.
Hassna Hammad, 48, who was among those picking olives, said the agricultural work was her livelihood.
“We aren’t afraid, we’re used to it,” she said of the war.
But “we are afraid for our brothers impacted by the conflict,” she added, referring to the hundreds of thousands of Lebanese displaced by the fighting.
Elsewhere in south Lebanon, olive trees are bulging with fruit that nobody will pick, after villagers fled Israeli bombardment and the subsequent ground operation that began on September 30.
A World Bank report this month said that “the disruption of the olive harvest caused by bombing and displacement is expected to lead to $58 million in losses” in Lebanon.
It said 12 percent of olive groves in the conflict-affected areas it assessed had been destroyed.
Normally, the olive-picking season is highly anticipated in Lebanon, and some people return each year to their native villages and fields just for the harvest.
“Not everyone has the courage to come” this time, said Salim Kassab, who owns a traditional press where villagers bring their olives to extract the oil.
“Many people are absent... They sent workers to replace them,” said Kassab, 50.
“There is fear of the war of course,” he said, adding that he had come alone this year, without his wife and children.
Kassab said that before the conflict, he used to travel to the southern cities of Nabatiyeh and Sidon if he needed to fix his machines, but such trips are near impossible now because of the danger.
The World Bank report estimated that 12 months of agriculture sector losses have cost Lebanon $1.1 billion, in a country already going through a gruelling five-year economic crisis before the fighting erupted.
Areas near the southern border have sustained “the most significant damage and losses,” the report said.
It cited “the burning and abandonment of large areas of agricultural land” in both south and east Lebanon, “along with lost harvests due to the displacement of farmers.”
Elsewhere in Kfeir, Inaam Abu Rizk, 77, and her husband were busy washing olives they plan to either press for oil or jar to be served throughout the winter.
Abu Rizk has taken part in the olive harvest for decades, part of a tradition handed down the generations, and said that despite the war, this year was no different.
“Of course we’re afraid... there is the sound of planes and bombing,” she said.
But “we love the olive month — we are farmers and the land is our work.”
Iraqis face tough homecoming a decade after Daesh rampage
- Baghdad has been pushing for the closure of the displacement camps, with the country having attained a degree of comparative stability in recent years
HASSAN SHAMI: A decade after Daesh group extremists rampaged through northern Iraq, Moaz Fadhil and his eight children finally returned to their village after languishing for years in a displacement camp.
Their home, Hassan Shami, is just a stone’s throw from the tent city where they had been living, and it still bears the scars of the fight against Daesh.
The jihadists seized a third of Iraq, ruling their self-declared “caliphate” with an iron fist, before an international coalition wrestled control from them in 2017.
Seven years on, many of the village’s homes are still in ruins and lacking essential services, but Fadhil said he felt an “indescribable joy” upon moving back in August.
Iraq — marred by decades of war and turmoil even before the rise of Daesh — is home to more than a million internally displaced people.
Baghdad has been pushing for the closure of the displacement camps, with the country having attained a degree of comparative stability in recent years.
Most of the camps in federal Iraq have now been closed, but around 20 remain in the northern autonomous Kurdistan region, which according to the United Nations house more than 115,000 displaced people.
But for many, actually returning home can be a difficult task.
After getting the green light from Kurdish security forces to leave the camp, Fadhil moved his family into a friend’s damaged house because his own is a complete ruin.
“Water arrives by tanker trucks and there is no electricity,” said the 53-year-old.
Although the rubble has been cleared from the structure he now lives in, the cinder block walls and rough concrete floors remain bare.
Across Hassan Shami, half-collapsed houses sit next to concrete buildings under construction by those residents who can afford to rebuild.
Some have installed solar panels to power their new lives.
A small new mosque stands, starkly white, beside an asphalt road.
“I was born here, and before me my father and mother,” said Fadhil, an unemployed farmer.
“I have beautiful memories with my children, my parents.”
The family survives mainly on the modest income brought in by his eldest son, who works as a day laborer on building sites.
“Every four or five days he works a day” for about $8, said Fadhil.
In an effort to close the camps and facilitate returns, Iraqi authorities are offering families around $3,000 to go back to their places of origin.
To do so, displaced people must also get security clearance — to ensure they are not wanted for jihadist crimes — and have their identity papers or property rights in order.
But of the 11,000 displaced people still living in six displacement camps near Hassan Shami, 600 are former prisoners, according to the UN.
They were released after serving up to five years for crimes related to membership of IS.
For them, going home can mean further complications.
There’s the risk of ostracism by neighbors or tribes for their perceived affiliation with Daesh atrocities, potential arrest at a checkpoint by federal forces or even a second trial.
Among them is 32-year-old Rashid, who asked that we use a pseudonym because of his previous imprisonment in Kurdistan for belonging to the jihadist group.
He said he hopes the camp next to Hassan Shami does not close.
“I have a certificate of release (from prison), everything is in order... But I can’t go back there,” he said of federal Iraq.
“If I go back it’s 20 years” in jail, he added, worried that he would be tried again in an Iraqi court.
Ali Abbas, spokesperson for Iraq’s migration ministry, said that those who committed crimes may indeed face trial after they leave the camps.
“No one can prevent justice from doing its job,” he said, claiming that their families would not face repercussions.
The government is working to ensure that families who return have access to basic services, Abbas added.
In recent months, Baghdad has repeatedly tried to set deadlines for Kurdistan to close the camps, even suing leaders of the autonomous region before finally opting for cooperation over coercion.
Imrul Islam of the Norwegian Refugee Council said displacement camps by definition are supposed to be temporary, but warned against their hasty closure.
When people return, “you need schools. You need hospitals. You need roads. And you need working markets that provide opportunities for livelihoods,” he said.
Without these, he said, many families who try to resettle in their home towns would end up returning to the camps.
