Loading ...Syrian Kurds Face Fresh Test Ruling Arab Regions after Isis
US-backed SDF controls about a quarter of the country, including oilfields
SOURCE: FINANCIAL TIMES
Weeks after capturing his Arab city from Isis, the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces abducted Abdelfattah Mohammed, interrogated him and locked him in solitary confinement for 34 days. The memory makes the tribal leader tremble with rage. And yet, given the choice, he would still pick the SDF to rule his city. “They are the best of bad options,” says Mr Mohammed from Tabqa, in Syria’s Raqqa province. Seven months since the city was clawed back from Isis, charred buildings lie in ruins. One of the anomalies of Syria’s six-year civil war has been the rise of leftist Kurdish forces. With US military support, they formed the SDF alliance that has been critical in the fight against Isis. They now control about a quarter of Syria, from northern Raqqa, the erstwhile Isis capital, to the country’s most lucrative eastern oilfields. But the Kurds’ successes battling Isis may soon feel like the easy part. Ruling Arab regions could prove harder — and their ability to do so will be crucial to preventing a resurgence of the jihadi group that western powers and regional forces spent years trying to crush. The SDF has pushed far beyond the narrow northeastern belt where Syria’s Kurdish population mostly lies, and deep into regions that are conservative, mostly Arab, and suspicious of leftist, Kurdish-led forces. “What worries people is this starting to feel like [a Kurdish] occupation,” says one Arab humanitarian worker from Tabqa. “If we can’t improve the situation, it could eventually lead to war.” The SDF is hoping to use its territorial gains to negotiate its vision of a decentralised state with President Bashar al-Assad, with whom the Kurds have maintained a shaky truce. But that risks crumbling as their shared fight against Isis draws to an end. They also face the risk of ethnic conflict if they fail to gain local support for their rule. Any renewed fighting would provide an opening for jihadi militants to exploit. The SDF was born out of a precarious alliance between the US and a Syrian Kurdish faction known as the Democratic Union Party (PYD), a sister party to the Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK) that has fought a three-decade insurgency against Turkey. The PKK is designated a terrorist group by Ankara and the west. But over the objections of fellow Nato member Turkey, Washington decided to work with the PYD, deeming its fighters as the best Syrian combatants to take on Isis. Share this graphic Under PYD leadership, the SDF espouses the ideology of Abdullah Ocalan, the imprisoned PKK leader who champions localised, communal self-rule to replace the Kurdish separatism his group once advocated. Locals call it “the democratic nation”. Omar Alloush, a Kurdish SDF official, says he works in “public relations” with Arab councils to foster local support. He organises meetings with civilian councils, shares meals with tribal leaders and deftly dots his rhetoric with local dialect. There is little doubt where the real influence lies. At one Raqqa tribal council meeting in October, Mr Alloush handed Arab sheikhs a statement on the latest events of the final battle for Raqqa, directing them as they stood before a camera. “Look formidable! Give us some vigour!” he shouted. “We are the force of society, and we are speaking.” Mr Alloush argues the democratic nation ideology is a good fit for Syria’s myriad sects and ethnicities. “Our project is not nationalistic,” he says. “We’ve surpassed the nationalist phase.” But for many Syrians, that is a hard pill to swallow. For decades, the Assad family’s ruling Ba’ath party ideology taught that Syria was an Arab republic, exacerbating Arab suspicions about Kurdish separatist ambitions. The Kurds, repressed under Ba’athist rule, now feel empowered to express nationalist aspirations long stymied across their ethnic homeland, stretching through Syria, Iraq, Iran and Turkey. “Today, we have two big problems, each as bad as the other . . . Arab chauvinism and Kurdish ethno-nationalism,” says Nasr Haj Ali, a senior SDF adviser. The SDF combats this with ideological training for its fighters, now made up mostly of Arabs and other ethnicities. It forms local councils and neighbourhood “communes” to govern areas and gives classes on the “democratic nation” philosophy. Mr Hajj Ali says the SDF wants a “friendly Raqqa, that is not because we want to Kurdify Raqqa”. Such means are necessary, he argues, to erase the Ba’athist — and Isis — ideology. Recommended Syria conflict: Raqqa’s civilians foresee last days of Isis Syria war yields cottage industry for anti-Isis spies US-backed forces claim victory over Isis in Raqqa as jihadis flee The reality on the ground is more complicated, as the story of Mr Mohammed, the tribal leader who was imprisoned, reveals. When the SDF arrived, he eagerly offered advice on security matters and tips on how to court local sheikhs. “I told them: we would like to be your partners,” he recalls. The relationship soured when he tried to launch his own, independent tribal council. Other sheikhs were arrested or bribed into joining the SDF-organised council, he says. “The only thing democratic about the Syrian Democratic Forces is their name,” he said in an interview in October. A checkpoint run by the SDF in Raqqa. Whatever the misgivings about the force, many Arabs have fled to SDF regions © AFP A month later, the SDF surprised him with an apology. “Things are getting better,” he says. “I am speaking in the name of many — maybe 70 per cent of people — when I say they prefer the SDF over the regime. And so do I.” Whatever the misgivings about the SDF, many Arabs displaced by the war on Isis have voted with their feet: tens of thousands have fled to SDF regions, far more than those heading towards government-held territory. However, Mr Mohammed warns that the SDF’s Arab tribal allies can be fickle. “Most of them were in the tribal council for Isis. Before that, they were with the regime and now the SDF,” he says.“ Whoever comes next, they’ll be with them.” Yet many SDF leaders say their bigger problem is not Arab constituents, but their fellow Kurds. One official in the oil town of Rumeilan recalled having to block fellow Kurdish members from rigging a commune election against a popular Arab candidate, who eventually won. At a recent funeral for SDF fighters, most of them Arab and Turkmen, another SDF leader was shocked to hear loudspeakers blaring Kurdish nationalist songs. To his relief, another commander ordered the music shut down. “Five minutes later, someone played it again. We finally ordered the speakers unplugged,” he says, chuckling before adding soberly: “It worries me. If today, we cannot create true friendships while we’re strong, we cannot do it tomorrow when we are weak.” Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2017. All rights reserved. Print this page Send this article Latest on Syria crisis Putin won the Syria war but can he keep the peace? Syrian forces agree to ceasefire in Damascus suburb What Is Russia Up To in the Middle East? 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