Bashar al-Assad’s forces began entering
northeast Syria in large numbers for the first time in years on Monday after
the West’s Kurdish allies agreed to a Russian-brokered deal to
try to hold off a Turkish onslaught.
US President Donald Trump appears to
have agreed to a Congressional plan to sanction Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and
all of the Turkish president’s top ministers, a move that would infuriate
Ankara and inflame US-Turkey relations.
Fears were also rising over an Islamic
State of Iraq and the Levant (Isil) resurgence as it emerged that US
forces had failed to secure dozens of the most hardened jihadist fighters and
the first known British member of Isil escaped Kurdish custody.
Forces loyal to the Syrian regime have
started arriving in the Kurdish-held province of Hasakah and Assad’s fighters
are expected to start moving into key cities along the Syrian-Turkish border
over the next 48 hours.
The regime’s black-and-red flag was
raised over government buildings in Hasakah and the nearby city of Qamishli for
the first time in seven years, according to Syrian state media.
The Russian deal, agreed to by the
Kurds in desperation after they were abandoned by Mr Trump, offers Assad an
unexpected opportunity to reassert his authority over large
swathes of northeast Syria.
It likely also marks the end of
Kurdish autonomy in the stretch of northeast Syrian they called “Rojava”, where
Kurdish officials have governed independently from Damascus since 2012.
“The betrayal process is officially
completed," a Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) official said of the US
withdrawal.
The SDF said that under the
agreement Kurdish and Syrian regime troops would join forces to drive back the
Turkish invasion. However, it seems likely that Russia will broker a broader
agreement to avoid a clash between Turkey and the Assad regime.
It is not clear if Turkish forces
and their Syrian rebel allies will continue advancing into Syria now that
Assad's soldiers have entered the area.
The Pentagon said on Sunday that it was
withdrawing all 1,000 American forces from northern Syria. But US media
reported the Trump administration was preparing to pull its troops out of the
country entirely, with the exception of small garrison in the southern town of
al-Tanf to deter Iran.
If the US does mount a full-scale
withdrawal it will also force the retreat of British and French special forces,
who are dependent on American support to continue
operating inside Syria.
Meanwhile, Mr Trump signalled on Sunday
night that would give into pressure from both Republicans and Democrats in
Congress to impose sanctions on Turkey as punishment for the offensive against
the Kurds.
Mr Trump said he was speaking to Lindsey
Graham, a hawkish Republican senator and avowed Erdoğan critic, about “about
imposing powerful sanctions on Turkey”. Mr Graham has laid out a plan that would
sanction Mr Erdoğan’s personal assets and those Turkey’s foreign and defence
minister, as well as blocking arms sales and military equipment to
Turkey.
It is not clear if Mr Trump has agreed to
those sanctions specifically but if the final policy is even close to Mr
Graham’s proposal it will infuriate Turkey and could lead to the cancellation
of Mr Erdoğan’s scheduled visit to Washington next month.
Mr Trump has so far show little appetite
for sanctioning Turkey but he faces little choice but to go along with
sanctions that have overwhelming support in Congress. A Western diplomat said
the White House believes Congress would override any effort by Mr Trump to veto
the sanctions.
The situation in northeast Syria
collapsed into chaos so quickly that US special forces did not have time to
execute a plan to seize around 60 of the top Isil fighters in Kurdish
custody, according to the New York Times.
US commandos planned to take the
prisoners from the Kurds and move them to Iraq but were unable to as the roads
of northeast Syria were flooded with refugees and military vehicles while
Turkish airstrikes rained down.
It is not known if any British fighters
were among the 60 men on the US list. America has already taken custody of
Alexanda Kotey and El Shafee Elsheikh, the two surviving members of the
“Beatles” group of of alleged British torturers.
Meanwhile, Tooba Gondal, a 25-year-old who went to Syria and
is alleged to have recruited other British women into Isil, became the first
known UK member of the jihadist group to escape.
Ms
Gondal was among around 800 women and children who broke free from a Kurdish
camp in Ain Issa on
Sunday when Turkish shells fell nearby. She texted family in the UK “I am free”
and told them she was sleeping on the street of a nearby with her children,
according to ITV.
Several
other British women are believed to have escaped from the camp. All face a
deeply uncertain fate as Assad’s forces take control of the area.
Norb
Leahy, Dunwoody GA Tea Party Leader
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