PerspectiveTurkey’s Syria Assault Halts the Fight Against ISIS
The Trump administration’s abrupt decision to pull out of Syria has, as expected, led to a pause in the fight against the Islamic State. Leaders of the SDF, the mostly Kurdish group that has done the bulk of the fighting on the ground in Syria, culminating in the defeat of the group’s so-called caliphate earlier this year, said that Kurdish fighters are being reassigned from counterterrorism missions – including guarding more than 10,000 ISIS fighters in detention camps – to the battle against Turkish incursions. The decision to withdraw U.S. troops from the border region, paving the way for Turkey to launch a catastrophic assault on the Kurds, is “the worst foreign policy decision since the Iraq war,” the senior administration official said.
Operations dedicated to fighting the Islamic State militant group have halted in Syria after Turkey launched a military assault across the border, U.S. and Syrian officials tell Foreign Policy.
Lara Seligman and Robbie Gramer write on Foreign Policy that the Syrian Democratic Council’s (SDC) envoy to the United States, Bassam Saker, confirmed that counterterrorism operations have stopped as Kurdish fighters moved north in significant numbers to meet the Turkish advance. The SDC is the political arm of the Syrian Democratic Forces, the mostly Kurdish group that has done the bulk of the fighting on the ground in Syria, culminating in the defeat of the group’s so-called caliphate earlier this year.
The pause in operations against the Islamic State came as Turkish ground forces on Wednesday crossed the border into Syria, while Turkish jets and artillery began pounded Kurdish positions including border towns and locations as far as 25 miles inside northeast Syria. The town of Ain Issa, where the headquarters of the SDF and the Syrian Democratic Council are located, has been hit, officials confirmed.
The Turkish advance came after a weekend phone call between U.S. President Donald Trump and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, after which Trump abruptly announced the withdrawal of U.S. forces in the region, essentially giving Turkey a green light to launch an attack on what it has long considered a terrorist group ensconced in northern Syria.
Seligman and Gramer werite:
The decision to withdraw U.S. troops from the border region, paving the way for Turkey to launch a catastrophic assault on the Kurds, is “the worst foreign policy decision since the Iraq war,” the senior administration official said.
Senior Pentagon leaders are “doing everything they can” to prevent Trump from following through on his decision to move all U.S. troops out of Syria, the official said, a plan the president doubled down on repeatedly this week.
Senator Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina), a staunch political ally of Trump, pulled no punches in his criticism. “Pray for our Kurdish allies who have been shamelessly abandoned by the Trump Administration. This move ensures the reemergence of ISIS,” he tweeted on Wednesday.
