Kurds open doors to Assad in bid to save their cities

The West’s Kurdish allies announced they had agreed to a Russian-brokered deal to allow the Assad regime into their territory in a bid to spare cities from a Turkish assault after they were abandoned by Donald Trump.

Hours after the US said it was withdrawing all of its troops from northern Syria, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said it had agreed to allow Assad’s troops into the territory.

‘‘If we have to choose between compromises and the genocide of our people, we will surely choose life for our people,’’ said Mazloum Kobani Abdi, the commander of the SDF. It was not immediately clear if the agreement would bring a halt to the Turkish offensive or if the Turkish military and its Syrian rebel allies would continue.

But the deal appeared to strike a death knell for Kurdish hopes of maintaining autonomy in their own semistate in north-east Syria.

The announcement marked a stunning fall for the SDF, who just a week ago could count on the support of the US in deterring Turkey.

That came to an end on October 6, when Trump told Recep Tayyip Erdogan, Turkey’s president, that the US would not interfere in a Turkish attack.

‘‘The betrayal process is officially completed,’’ an SDF official said of the US withdrawal.

Turkish warplanes thundered into Syrian airspace while Turkish-backed rebel forces advanced against the SDF on the ground, and last night Kurdish commanders decided they had to strike a deal to prevent annihilation.

While the formal details of the agreement were not announced, Syrian regime forces appeared poised to enter many of the key Kurdish-held cities along the Turkish-Syrian border.

Many of the areas hold vast symbolic importance for the Kurds, who have lost around 11,000 men fighting against Isis in the last five years.

The announcement came after Mark Esper, the US defence secretary, said he and Trump decided to withdraw all 1000 US troops from northern Syria because the Turks ‘‘likely intend to expand their attack further south than originally planned’’.

While Trump said last week he was removing around 50 US commandos from a 120km section of the Turkey-Syria border, hundreds of other American soldiers remained near Kurdish key cities, such as Kobani.

News of the US retreat sparked panic across northern Syria as civilians, who believed their towns might be spared from Turkish onslaught by the presence of American forces, started fleeing.

At least 200,000 people have been displaced so far, aid groups said, and the number is likely to rise.

The agreement came as civilian casualties mounted and Isis prisoners took advantage of the chaos to escape.

– Telegraph Group