“Fake News” and the Trump Betrayal of our Kurdish Allies

by Anne Speckhard

Athens: On October 9^th, 2019, with a “nod” from President
Trump—given via Twitter—the Turkish military began an all-out aerial
bombardment and invasion of Northeastern Syria, purportedly to clear the area
to create a terrorist-free safety corridor and resettle over one million of the
over four million Syrian refugees currently straining the Turkish system. This occurred
despite the fact that the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) already were doing a
good job of controlling the area and that there was no publicly available data
that the SDF, despite being predominantly Kurdish led and staffed, had allowed
any PKK terrorist activity attacking Turkey to occur from inside their
territory.

The
PKK, who the Turks continue to confuse with the Kurdish People’s Protection
Units YPG) and Women’s Protection Units (YPJ), have their headquarters in the
Qandil mountains in Iraq, not Syria. The YPG and YPJ who make up the
major part of the SDF, are the Kurds who fought valiantly to defeat ISIS
territorially and to save the Yazidis being genocidally killed on Sinjar Mountain.
After incorporating minorities into their ranks, the YPG transitioned into the
SDF, which currently controls the northeast of Syria. While many Rojava
officials leading inside the SDF sympathize with the larger Kurdish project and
revere PKK leader Abdullah Ocalan for uniting the Kurds and for his visions of
bottom-up governance, they state that they do not allow PKK to be active in
their territory, and there is no clear evidence that they do.  

The PKK
is actually a Turkish domestic issue with complications in Iraq, not Syria.
Although Abdullah Ocalan lived and operated in Syria until the 90s, the PKK has
long ago moved to the Qandil mountains in Iraq. The PKK successfully recruits
terrorist cadres from inside Turkey and attacks across the Iraqi/Turkish border
are common using Turkish cadres. Two years ago, Turkey was engaged in talks
with the Turkish PKK, but these talks ultimately failed and there are major
issues in Turkey due to their failure to resolve their so-called “Kurdish”
problem. This has nothing to do with the Syrian Kurds, however, and it is grave
mistake to confuse the YPG with the PKK. Likewise, with the development of
Turkish military drones, the Turks have been very successful in identifying PKK
movement in the Iraqi Qandil mountains, and have, as a result, been bombing
them daily, diminishing the size and power of the group. Yet domestic
support for the PKK inside Turkey continues, referencing the need for domestic
changes versus international military incursions.

Meanwhile
the Syrian Kurds who, since 2015, had U.S. military backing and air support to
fight ISIS have been, and are currently, suffering from Turkey falsely labeling
them as terrorists while they are in actuality the strongest and bravest force
that fought and defeated the most heinous terrorist killers yet seen to date.
In serving as U.S. “boots-on the-ground” to fight ISIS, the YPG and YPJ lost
12,000 fighters, saving us from losing many U.S. troops in the fight against
ISIS.

Today,
President Trump stated that the Kurds are not U.S. allies because they did not
fight with the U.S. in Normandy and in World War Two. Despite the stupidity of
this statement, he seems to have forgotten that ISIS is a globally minded group
and that the ISIS external emni, the security apparatus of ISIS, while
operating from inside Syria, planned, incited, and carried out numerous and
horrendous terrorist attacks inside many of our major cities: New York, Paris,
Brussels, Nice, London and Istanbul among them.

The YPG
and YPJ helped enormously to put an end to ISIS’s ability to control territory
on the ground in northeast Syria and thereby made all of us safer as we board
trains and planes and move about our cities. However, ISIS is still active.
Until this Turkish incursion, the SDF was busy repelling weekly attacks from
ISIS sleeper cells that they have been actively rounding up. Meanwhile,
Baghdadi still exhorts his followers to mount attacks all over the
globe. Hence, our YPG and YPJ allies have protected all of us from the
long and tenacious terror arm of ISIS and continue to do so. By comparison,
Turkey proved negligent in allowing upwards of 40,000 foreign fighters to
stream across its border to join groups like ISIS, and there is a great deal of
evidence of Turkish complicity in
directly supporting ISIS to be its proxy fighting force against the Kurds. Turkey
contributed to making ISIS as strong as it
became, while the Kurds were the force that took them down.

When Baghdadi resurfaces on audio and video clips, he tells his
followers to try to break out the ISIS men and women currently held in prison
in Syria and Iraq. This is a considerable group of persons. In Syria, the
SDF currently holds 10,000+ ISIS cadres, 8,000 of them local and approximately 2,000 more who are foreign
fighters, 1,000 of them thought to be Europeans. Additionally, an estimated
75, 000 women and children are currently being held in Camp Hol, Syria, with at
least 60, 000 being Syrians and Iraqis. At
least 8,000 children and 4,000 wives of foreign terrorist fighters are held in
Camp Hol, while Camp Ain Issa holds an additional total of 12,000 women and
children. Of these 1,000 children and 265 women are foreigner terrorist
fighter’s family members. Camp Roj holds 1,500 women and children of foreign
terrorist fighters. Europe in particular has refused to repatriate these ISIS
prisoners who are now waiting to see what will befall them with the Turkish
incursion and battles ensuing. Those inside the prison report being terrified.

All
of the SDF prisons and camps are overcrowded, with riots and attempted jail
breaks regularly occurring, as well as killings and attacks. The prison facilities themselves are also strained, with some of
prisons consisting of schools repurposed as prisons and the prison guards are
often attacked. Yet, in our ICSVE interviews with over 5% of the SDF held ISIS
prisoners, we repeatedly hear that the YPG and YPJ units holding the prisoners
do not engage in abuses or torture and that they observe human rights with this
dangerous prison population. The SDF has been severely challenged in managing
these facilities and has repeatedly expressed a need for technical assistance in dealing with terrorist prisoners and for financial assistance
to build at least five prisons. 

Now,
the SDF are even more challenged as they face a Turkish incursion. While
counter-terrorism experts warn that the ISIS prisoners could escape and might
try to reinvigorate the ISIS Caliphate, our interviews indicate that most
prisoners are very battle exhausted, disillusioned of ISIS and simply want to
go home to face justice and at some point, resume normal lives. Most show no
interest to pick up arms again. Yet if they were to suddenly find freedom
amidst this new chaos unleashed by President Trump and the Turks, they would
likely go into hiding locally in Syria or Iraq, try to make their way into
Turkey to hide, or continue onward home, and in doing so may get convinced to
rejoin the terrorist group. It remains to be seen how far the Turks will incur
into SDF held territory and if they will cause circumstances in which the
prisons are also under attack. 

It is
clear that the SDF has no wish to free the ISIS prisoners that they lost their
lives fighting and capturing. We can expect that they will do their best to
keep them secured, unless it proves impossible to stay alive while so doing.
Naively, President Trump assures that Turkey has been warned that they must be
responsible for the prisoners and we are all safe. Yet, there is no clear
hand-off mechanism in place and the YPG and YPJ units holding the prisoners are
being called terrorists by the Turks and as a result, threatened for their very
lives.

On the first day of the Turkish incursion the Turks announced that
they had hit 181 targets but were not aiming at the Kurdish people, just
wanting to clear the area of Kurdish terrorists. Whether or not the Turks are
able to distinguish terrorist from civilian while using aerial bombardments and
mortars launched from a distance, is unclear. We know that 7 civilians, 2 who
were Christians, were killed in the first day of assaults.

The
Turks are demanding that the SDF stands down and YPG and YPJ do not resist
them. Yet, judging from the Turkish actions in Afrin, the Kurds have a strong
motivation to engage in armed resistance.  On the same pretext of creating
a safe zone, in Afrin, Turkish backed fighters took over the homes of Kurds and
drove many of them out while they placed Arabs in their places. The SDF also
claim that they have a great deal of evidence that these so called “Free Syrian
Army” troops that Turkey used then, and is using again now, as their fighting
force, is made up of vicious, sick-minded and brutal former ISIS members who
Turkey aligned with in the past to fight the Kurds.

Sinam
Mohamed, who now lives in the U.S., tells of how her beautiful Afrin home was
overtaken by bearded cadres, her factories looted, and the equipment taken back
to Turkey, and that her family was driven out, never to return to their farms
and livelihood.  Once wealthy, the family is now impoverished and living
apart, having fled Afrin. Theirs is just one of many such stories. Certainly,
there are also stories of Kurds being unfair, but under SDF leadership their
problems with minorities were being worked out in a democratic manner, not
through violence.

Yesterday
Turks shelled all along the borders. The SDF sent us a picture of a young boy
under age five laying on the ground killed by Turkish bombs. Is this the PKK
that the Turks wished to eliminate? Civilian deaths cannot be justified on
either side.  These areas where Turks are
incurring are heavily populated and the Turks look to be aiming to do a massive
population displacement with no regard to human rights.

President
Erdogan’s goal in creating a safety zone is also to resettle at least one
million of the Syrian refugees currently residing in and stressing the Turkish
population. However, it goes against all human rights principles to forcibly
resettle refugees and to do so in areas that they are not from. It begs the
questions of whose homes and lands exactly will they will take over, and how
this could possibly occur in the name of promoting peace? Forcible deportations
and resettlements are not a good idea, yet President Erdogan today threatened
Europeans who may call their actions an occupation, warning that he will
respond by sending more refugees streaming into Europe. Indeed, Turkey holds
the keys for that as well. Clearly, President Erdogan does not have the Syrian
refugees nor the Europeans best interests in mind and he is just locked into
labeling the YPG as terrorists.

The
betrayal by President Trump of our Kurdish allies needs to be reversed
immediately. The originally negotiated joint
patrols with Turkey are what should be instituted, with a no-fly zone over SDF
controlled areas immediately instituted, with US guarantees of SDF protection.
While President Trump is correct that the U.S. should not be engaged in endless
wars, his abrupt pull out with no clear plan for handing off the ISIS
prisoners, or ensuring protections for civilians, is not the way to
leave. 

There
is no need for this current Turkish military incursion. Turkey has not put
forward any credible evidence that the PKK is mounting attacks into Turkey from
Syria, where it is clear the PKK is a Turkish problem that they have themselves
failed to adequately address. Turkish academics admit that the PKK routinely
recruits in Turkey and we know that Turkey was engaged in negotiations with the
PKK two years ago which have now failed. These are totally a domestic issue
requiring resolution at home, not in Syria. If refugees are to be resettled
that also needs to occur in a planful and nonviolent manner.

Our SDF
allies are completely able to enforce the peace in their territory and have
been doing so for a few years now. That we would acquiesce to Turkish demands
and “fake news” accusing our best allies of being terrorists, without any
evidence produced that the PKK is active in these zones and allow this violence
to occur harming our reputation and our allies is a shame to all of us. It
costs us no American lives to offer airpower and protection to our Kurdish
allies who fought valiantly to protect us all from ISIS.

While
at some point the US will have to back out of Syria, we are committed to Iraq
for the longer term and our troop and air power are mainly situated there,
decisions which are unlikely to change, so the costs are low at present to
reverse this disastrous decision.

To keep
Syria intact as one country, the SDF will have to at some point negotiate its territorial
control with the central government.  However, the Assad government has
insisted to place top-down governance in areas held by the SDF and that goes
against Kurdish philosophy of democratic grassroots up governance. Assad may
win that battle, but if he does, we should recognize it means the newest
budding democracy in the Middle East will have been destroyed in its infancy.

SDF
units who fought valiantly on our behalf, are men and women who deserve our
respect and gratitude.  Likewise, given all the bad governance, oppression
and corruption in the region we should be eager to support the newest democracy
in the Middle East, that is also attempting to give women and minorities their
rights. While the SDF has not yet created a perfect democracy, it’s an amazing
accomplishment to have established good governance in the middle of war.

President
Trump needs to get some spine now and tell the Turks to back out of Syria and
clearly stand by the Kurds who are our allies and are not terrorists.  If
anyone can produce clear evidence that there are any PKK actions occurring from
inside SDF controlled territory it is easy to insist with the SDF that these
people be arrested and brought to justice. Currently, we are aware of none,
despite Turkish propaganda claims to the contrary.

While
the SDF are armed and they have dug tunnels throughout the area and thus can
move underground and avoid air detection, they are no match for the Turkish
army, which is the second largest army in NATO with a huge air force, latest
technology, drones etc. Likewise, as they counterattack Turkish lives are
needlessly lost. Essentially, given the example of Afrin, we have left our
Kurdish allies to a slaughter and massive displacements which are already
occurring.  What choice do these brave men and women have but to fight
when it’s their cities and land and they are being called terrorists who Turkey
wishes to kill. It’s time to put a stop to this now.

Reference for this Article: Speckhard,
Anne (October 11,
2019) “Fake News” and the Trump Betrayal of
our Kurdish Allies. ICSVE Brief Reports. https://www.icsve.org/fake-news-and-the-trump-betrayal-of-our-kurdish-allies/

Author
Biography

Anne
Speckhard, Ph.D., is Director of the International Center for the Study of
Violent Extremism (ICSVE) and serves as an Adjunct Associate Professor of Psychiatry at
Georgetown University School of Medicine. She has interviewed over 600
terrorists, their family members and supporters in various parts of the world
including in Western Europe, the Balkans, Central Asia, the Former Soviet Union
and the Middle East. In the past two years, she and ICSVE staff have been
collecting interviews (n=196) with ISIS defectors, returnees and prisoners,
studying their trajectories into and out of terrorism, their experiences inside
ISIS, as well as developing counter narratives from these interviews. She has
also been training key stakeholders in law enforcement, intelligence,
educators, and other countering violent extremism professionals on the use of
counter-narrative messaging materials produced by ICSVE both locally and
internationally as well as studying the use of children as violent actors by
groups such as ISIS and consulting on how to rehabilitate them. In 2007, she
was responsible for designing the psychological and Islamic challenge aspects
of the Detainee Rehabilitation Program in Iraq to be applied to 20,000 +
detainees and 800 juveniles. She is a sought after counterterrorism expert and
has consulted to NATO, OSCE, foreign governments and to the U.S. Senate & House,
Departments of State, Defense, Justice, Homeland Security, Health & Human
Services, CIA and FBI and CNN, BBC, NPR, Fox News, MSNBC, CTV, and in Time, The
New York Times, The Washington Post, London Times and many other publications.
She regularly speaks and publishes on the topics of the psychology of
radicalization and terrorism and is the author of several books,
including Talking to Terrorists, Bride of
ISIS, Undercover Jihadi and ISIS Defectors: Inside Stories of the Terrorist Caliphate.
Her publications are found here: https://georgetown.academia.edu/AnneSpeckhard and on the ICSVE
website http://www.icsve.org Follow @AnneSpeckhard