Kurdish Militia Commander in Syria Says Anti-ISIS Operation Has Stopped Due to Turkish Airstrikes

The US military and SDF in Syria. (Wikimedia Commons/Sgt. Torrance live)

JAKARTA - Kurdish militias in Syria have halted operations against Islamic State, their commander said at the weekend, after a week of intense Turkish airstrikes against their positions.

At least 100 Turkish airstrikes hit militia positions.

President Recep Tayyip Erdogan ordered the military to start Operation Sword Claws last Sunday, saying that air strikes would be followed by a ground invasion, pushing its forces further into Syria.

The operation followed the November 13 bombing in Istanbul that killed six people, including two children, an attack Turkey blames on the separatist Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), which operates mainly in northern Iraq but also has positions in Syria.

Turkish air strikes have hit PKK targets in the mountains of northern Iraq, which Turkey considers part of the same front in its war against Kurdish separatists.

The Turkish operation, the third major offensive since 2016, mainly targeted the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the US-backed Kurdish militia, which controls much of eastern Syria.

"The troops that worked symbolically with the international coalition in the fight against Daesh (ISIS) are now being targeted by the Turkish state and therefore the operation is stopped," said Mazloum Abdi, commander of the SDF, reported by The National News on November 28.

US military and SDF in Syria. (Wikimedia Commons/Sgt. Arjenis Nunez)

Turkish troops are already present in the districts of several provinces along the border with Turkey including Aleppo, Raqqa, and Hasakah, occupying these areas with allied militias funded by Ankara.

Western countries have armed and trained the SDF in the fight against ISIS. The group is responsible, aided by US air power and advisers on the ground, for driving the terrorist group out of Syria.

Major SDF victories include the battle of Kobani in 2015 and the final battle against ISIS in the cities of Raqqa and Baghouz in 2018.

On Saturday, Abdi told the BBC the Turkish offensive could force its soldiers to leave the open-air detention center housing nearly 60,000 women and children, most of whom are the wives and children of ISIS fighters.

Separately, SDF forces are holding about 10,000 ISIS fighters in safer facilities, although in January last year, ISIS launched a desperate attempt to free prisoners from Al Sina prison in Hasakah province, which is largely under Kurdish control.

ISIS used a suicide car bomb to penetrate the compound where 3,000 prisoners are being held. Around 140 SDF members and 400 militants died in the ensuing fighting.

Illustration of the United States and Turkey's military in Syria. (Wikimedia Commons/Staff Sgt. Andrew Goedl)

"If the Kurds are forced to leave this prison, it will lead to a second civil war in Syria and our counter-terrorism operations against ISIS will stop," Abdi said.

"As part of the international coalition, we fought and defeated ISIS, and what Turkey is doing will ruin everything," he said.

About 900 US troops are based in Syria, working with the SDF to coordinate against remnants of ISIS, which has been severely weakened since losing all of its territories, with its last stronghold in Baghouz falling to US-backed Kurdish forces in early 2019.

On Wednesday, the US said Turkish air strikes had struck within 300 meters of their forces, and "directly threatened the safety of US personnel working in Syria with local partners to defeat ISIS.

Meanwhile, Turkey says the SDF is linked to the PKK, which has carried out terrorist attacks including suicide bombings in Turkey.

The US and the European Union have designated the PKK as a terrorist organization, saying their support for the SDF does not help the PKK. Both groups said they had no role in the November 13 Istanbul attack.

The SDF said on Friday when a Turkish drone flew over the Al Hol camp that houses tens of thousands of wives, widows, and children of ISIS fighters, several ISIS family members attacked security forces and managed to escape from the sprawling facility. The SDF did not say how many escaped but they were later arrested.

Kurdish authorities operate more than two dozen detention facilities spread across northeastern Syria, housing about 10,000 ISIS fighters. Among those detained were 2,000 foreigners whose countries of origin refused to repatriate them, including about 800 Europeans.