Kurdistan

Syria

Syria: after the fall of the regime

As Syrian rebels advanced on Damascus in a surprise lightning offensive, the Rojava Kurds seized territory from the Bashar Assad regime, and the Druze took up arms in their own region. After years of the lines in the conflict being frozen and the genocidal Assad dictatorship being “normalized,” the unthinkable happened and the dictator fled. Suddenly the 13-year aim of the Syrian Revolution has been realized—the fall of the regime. But the lead rebel faction, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), has an ugly past, its partner the Syrian National Army (SNA) is in the political orbit of Turkish aspiring dictator Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, and the threat of Arab-Kurdish ethnic war in northern Syria looms closer. Amid a conflict now dominated by armed actors, can the unarmed civil resistance that began the revolution 13 years ago re-assert itself, and revive the secular-democratic spirit of 2011? In Episode 255 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg takes a hard look. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. (Photo of Aleppo Citadel in rebel hands via social media, e.g. Twtter)

Syria

Threat of Arab-Kurdish war in new battle for Syria

With the Syrian city of Aleppo now mostly in rebel hands following a surprise offensive, the danger emerges that Kurdish forces could be drawn into the conflict on the side of Assad dictatorship. Kurdish militias have for years controlled their own enclave within the city, the neighborhood of Sheikh Maqsood. The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) are now trying to open an evacuation corridor between Sheikh Maqsood and the Kurdish-held town of Tal Rifaat to the north. An evacuation of Tal Rifaat itself to Kurdish-held areas to the east is also being prepared. This effort is being blocked by one of the rebel militias, the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army (SNA), with clashes between the two forces reported. The SNA has been repeatedly implicated in abuses against the Kurdish population in areas it took from SDF-aligned forces in a 2019 offensive. This offensive drove the SDF into a tactical alliance with the Assad regime—although this alliance has repeatedly broken down over the regime’s rejection of the SDF’s principal demand of Kurdish autonomy. (Map: Google)

Syria

Syria: Kurdish militia accused of diverting US aid

USAID’s Office of Inspector General has found that security forces and administrators at northeast Syria’s al-Hol camp “diverted aid”—bread from a USAID-funded program—”from the intended beneficiaries to themselves.” An unnamed “awardee” of the aid, presumably an NGO, was “forced to rely on the Asayish and the Camp Administration to deliver bread within the inaccessible areas of the camp, which created the opportunity for the initial diversion. However, once the awardee received full access to the camp, the Asayish and the Camp Administration continued to divert the USAID-funded bread.” Asayish (for Internal Security Forces of North and East Syria) is the militia associated with the US-backed Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). Al-Hol, which is home to both sympathizers and victims of the so-called Islamic State, has become notorious for its dangerous and extremely harsh conditions. (Photo: SOHR)

Greater Middle East

US air-strikes on Yemen, Syria

Pentagon Central Command forces carried out multiple air-strikes against Houthi weapons facilities in Yemen. Both Air Force and Navy aircraft, including F-35C fighter jets, were involved in the strikes, which were in response to Houthi attacks on commercial ships and US-led coalition military vessels in the Red Sea, Bab al-Mandab Strait and Gulf of Aden. CentCom also conducted strikes against targets at two locations “associated with Iranian groups in Syria.” The strikes were in response to drone and artillery attacks on US personnel that took place at Mission Support Site “Green Village” in northeast Syria. (DOD News)

Greater Middle East

Turkey strikes Syria, Iraq after Ankara attack

Turkey launched air-strikes on supposed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) targets in Syria’s Rojava autonomous enclave and Iraq’s Kurdistan region in retaliation for an attack on the headquarters of a defense contractor in Ankara. Five were killed and two attackers reported “neutralized” in the explosion and armed assault at the Turkish Aerospace Industries (TUSAS) facility in Ankara’s Kahramankazan district. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack, but Turkish authorities quickly blamed the PKK. Strikes were reported on the Rojava towns of Qamishli, Derik, Kobane, Tal Rifaat, and Manbij. Rojava’s autonomous authorities said that at least four civilians were killed, including a five-year-old child, and 15 people injured. (Image: Pixabay)

Syria

Syria: Rojava Kurds clash with Assadist forces

Clashes broke out between Syrian regime forces and militia of the Kurdish-led Rojava autonomous administration near the Euphrates River in eastern Deir ez-Zor governorate. The fighting began after regime forces west of the Euphrates launched surface-to-surface attacks on Kurdish-held towns across the river. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the principal Kurdish-led military formation, said in a statement that an operation against regime positions was carried out “in retaliation for the blood of the martyrs” killed “by artillery shelling from the Syrian regime.” The violence erupted three days after US troops were targeted in a drone attack on a position they share with the SDF at Rumalyn Landing Zone in al-Hasakah governorate to the north. The current fighting is close to al-Omar oil field, which is protected by a joint force of SDF fighters and US troops. (Map: PCL)

Greater Middle East

Regional war looms closer after Golan rocket strike

Israeli warplanes hit several targets in southern Lebanon, as diplomats worked frantically to prevent a regional war after a rocket strike that killed 12 youths in the Golan Heights. Israel is blaming Hezbollah for the rocket, which struck a football field in the Druze village of Majdal Shams. Hezbollah has denied responsibility, asserting that a projectile from Israel’s own Iron Dome missile defense system hit the village amid strikes on military targets elsewhere in the area by the Iran-backed Lebanese armed organization. Israel and Hezbollah have been trading strikes over the Lebanese border since Oct. 8, a day after the start of the war in Gaza. Israel has killed 527 people in Lebanon since then, according to an AFP tally, including at least 104 civilians. Israel says 23 of its civilians and 17 soldiers have been killed by Hezbollah rocket-fire over this period. (Image: Pixabay)

Greater Middle East

Was drone strike on US forces in Jordan or Syria?

President Biden is pledging undefined retaliation after three US troops were killed and dozens injured in a drone strike being blamed on one of the Iran-backed militias that have been harassing US-led coalition forces in Iraq and Syria. It is widely reported that the target was a site in Jordan known as Tower 22, which provides logistical support for the US outpost across the border at al-Tanf, Syria—near where the borders of Jordan, Syria and Iraq intersect. However, a communique from the umbrella group for Iran-backed factions known as the Islamic Resistance in Iraq did not mention Tower 22, but claimed responsibility for drone strikes on three sites within Syria. These are al-Tanf, the nearby border outpost of Rukban, and Shaddadi—over 200 kilometers away in Hasakah governorate, in Syria’s northeast corner, near oil fields that are under the control of US-backed Kurdish forces. (Image: Pixabay)

Greater Middle East

Podcast: Gaza, Guernica and the Great Game

In Episode 209 of the CounterVortex podcast, Bill Weinberg takes stock of the frightening international escalation set off by the Gaza cataclysm, with Yemen, Syria, Iraq, Iran and Pakistan all coming under aerial bombardment over the past week, in a cascading regional crisis. The 1937 aerial bombardment of the Spanish town of Guernica by Nazi warplanes shocked the world. Today, what happened there is a near-daily occurrence in countries around the world. And the media (“mainstream,” “alternative” and “social”) are more concerned with how the various actors line up in the Great Power game than the horrific realities on the ground. Listen on SoundCloud or via Patreon. (Photo: WAFA via WikimediaCommons)

Greater Middle East

More US troops to Iraq?

An Iraqi military official denied reports of a deployment of more US troops to the country, asserting that Baghdad does not need foreign forces. CBS News reported that 1,500 troops from the New Jersey National Guard are being deployed to Iraq and Syria to join the US-led coalition established to fight ISIS. This would constitute the largest reserve deployment out of New Jersey since 2008. CBS cited the state’s Gov. Phil Murphy as saying the troops were being mobilized for Operation Inherent Resolve. But the report was refuted by Maj. Gen. Tahsin al-Khafaji, the head of Iraq’s Security Media Cell—a body that officially cooperates with the US-led coalition to counter online disinformation. (Map: University of Texas Libraries)

Iraq

Oil, ethnicity at issue in Kirkuk land dispute

Residents of a disputed neighborhood in Iraq’s northern city of Kirkuk staged a sit-in to protest eviction orders and criminal charges filed against them by a state-owned oil company. Hundreds of Kurdish families who were pushed out of Kirkuk during Saddam Hussein’s Arabization campaign returned to the city following the fall of his regime in 2003. With their former homes now occupied by Arab families, many took up residence in a residential complex in Arafa neighborhood, previously inhabited by functionaries of Saddam’s Baath party. Now, the North Oil Company is claiming ownership of the residential complex, and ordering the Kurdish families to vacate. Arrest orders have been issued against residents who have refused to comply. In the background lie ongoing tensions between Baghdad and the Kurdistan Regional Government over control of the Kirkuk oil-fields. (Photo: Rudaw)

Greater Middle East

Gaza: flashpoint for regional war? (redux)

The Pentagon carried out air-strikes on Iran-backed militia forces in Iraq in retaliation for a drone attack on a US airbase in Erbil, while a senior commander of Iran’s Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps was killed in a presumed Israeli strike in Syria. Israel continues to trade cross-border fire with Lebanon’s Hezbollah, while Yemen’s Houthi armed movement claimed responsibility for drone attacks targeting the Israeli port city of Eilat. Israeli Defense Minister Yoav Gallant said that Israel is now fighting on “seven fronts”—Gaza, the West Bank, Lebanon, Syria, Iraq, Iran and Yemen. (Image: Pixabay)