Kurds struggle as U.S. abandons its allies in Syria
QAMISHLI, Syria — As U.S. troops continued their withdrawal from Syria on Sunday, a line of cars carried their routed former allies, terrified civilians and dead bodies out of a pulverized border town that had been besieged by Turkish forces for more than a week.
Away from the front lines where the Turks might assassinate him, the Kurdish leader of the Syrian force that once helped the United States battle the Islamic State group, and that has now been abandoned by the Trump administration, looked drained from 10 days of battle and geopolitical struggle over his people’s fate.
The commander, Mazlum Kobani, had visibly lost weight, and his eyes drooped from exhaustion. His fighters had shed considerable blood to wrest territory from the Islamic State group and establish self-rule on its former lands. Now, he worried that a complete U.S. withdrawal would not only jeopardize those gains but also subject his people to displacement and slaughter.
“There will be ethnic cleansing of the Kurdish people from Syria, and the American administration will be responsible for it,” said Kobani, commander of the Syrian Democratic Forces.
But if he felt any bitterness that the Americans his fighters had battled alongside for years were now running for the exits, he did not show it, instead expressing hope that the partnership could live on.
“America needs to work to rebuild the trust with its ally against ISIS,” Kobani said. The United States should work, he said, “to limit the damage of this past decision and preserve the areas we liberated together.”
The Turkish incursion into northeastern Syria to sweep Kobani’s forces away from the border followed President Donald Trump’s decision to pull
U.S. troops out of the way. That decision shattered what had been a fragile peace, setting off fighting that has killed more than 200 people.
On Sunday, the clashes had mostly stopped but fear still coursed through northeastern Syria, with residents unsure whether the Turks or the government of President Bashar Assad would soon take over the area. People wounded in the fighting filled hospital wards.
U.S. and Turkish officials agreed to a cease-fire on the border late last week and the establishment of a “safe zone” for civilians, but few seemed reassured Sunday.
“It is going to be chaos,” said Abdulqader Omar Nabi, 46, who fled the border town of Ras al-Ayn after his home was destroyed by a Turkish airstrike. “It won’t be a safe zone. It will be destroyed.”
His son, Shiyar, who came out of the town with other wounded residents on Sunday’s convoy, said he feared the Syrian fighters who are being backed by the Turks.
“They don’t see any difference between fighters and civilians,” he said. “If you are a Kurd, they’ll kill you.”
Kobani finds himself at the center of a swirl of forces seeking a stake in the region.
The Syrian government wants to reclaim territory that Kobani’s forces control and has sent troops to keep the Turks from advancing. Russia has stepped in to broker deals. Turkey has dispatched Syrian militias to take territory. And the Trump administration announced a cease-fire deal last week that would allow Turkey to establish a so-called “safe zone” in Syria where it hopes to resettle Syrian refugees.
Turkey moved one step closer to that goal Sunday when hundreds of Kobani’s fighters and haggard civilians finally left Ras al-Ayn, which Turkey and its Syrian proxies had heavily bombarded.
“It has been evacuated,” said Kobani. “There is no one left. It’s over.”
Under the cease-fire agreement, reached by Vice President Mike Pence and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan of Turkey on Thursday, Kobani’s fighters are to leave a rectangular piece of territory that is bounded by the towns of Tel Abyad and Ras al-Ayn on Syria’s border with Turkey, and runs south to a main highway in territory Kobani’s forces control, by Tuesday night.
Since the agreement was announced, both sides have accused each other of violations and described its terms differently, raising the possibility that it could break down.
A joint communiqué released by the United States and Turkey said that Turkey was responsible for ensuring the “safety and well-being of residents” and that Turkish forces would control the area.