Fighters of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units. Delil Souleiman—AFP
Trump administration’s move likely to anger Turkey, which has long considered Kurdish forces to be terrorists
The United States on Tuesday announced it would supply arms and military equipment to Kurdish fighters battling the Islamic State group in Syria, a move likely to anger key ally Turkey which considers the Kurdish forces to be terrorists.
The weapons will go to the fighters ahead of a upcoming offensive to recapture Raqa, the last major bastion for I.S. in Syria and the capital of their supposed “caliphate.”
President Donald Trump on Monday “authorized the Department of Defense to equip Kurdish elements of the Syrian Democratic Forces as necessary to ensure a clear victory over ISIS in Raqa,” Pentagon spokeswoman Dana White said in a statement. “The SDF, partnered with enabling support from U.S. and coalition forces, are the only force on the ground that can successfully seize Raqa in the near future.”
The equipment will include small arms, ammunition, machine guns, armored vehicles and engineering plant such as bulldozers, a defense official told AFP.
The Kurdish elements of the SDF are from the Kurdish Peoples’ Protection Units (YPG) and they have been the main faction fighting I.S. on the ground in Syria. But Turkey says the YPG is linked to Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) separatists inside Turkey, who have waged an insurgency since 1984 that has killed more than 40,000 people.
Turkish warplanes carried out strikes on YPG forces in Syria last month and also hit Kurdish positions in neighboring Iraq, which Ankara described as “terrorist havens.”
Tuesday’s announcement comes ahead of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s visit to Washington next week to meet Trump. Charles Lister, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, said it was unclear how Washington can allay Turkey’s concerns. He noted that the U.S. government’s National Counter-Terrorism Center previously labeled the YPG as the PKK’s Syrian affiliate, but scrapped that description once the U.S. began working with them in late-2014.
“There really cannot be any ignoring the fact that the YPG is the official affiliate of a terrorist organization that Turkey has been fighting for over 30 years,” Lister told AFP. “We have many reasons to be very frustrated with the Turks, but Ankara has a justified reason for being infuriated by our support for the YPG.”
Pentagon chief Jim Mattis, who arrived in Vilnius late Tuesday as part of a Europe trip, earlier attended a summit in Copenhagen for senior leaders from the top 15 countries in the anti-I.S. coalition, including Turkey. Mattis gave a positive assessment of the role Turkey will play.
“Our intent is to work with the Turks, alongside one another to take Raqa down,” Mattis said.
Spokeswoman White later said Mattis had spoken with Turkish Defense Minister Fikri Isik and reassured him of U.S. commitment to protecting its NATO ally. “Equipment provided to the SDF will be limited, mission specific, and metered out incrementally as objectives are reached,” White said, adding that the U.S. foresees Raqa eventually being governed by Arabs, not Kurds.
The U.S.-led coalition fighting I.S. in Iraq and Syria discussed the campaign’s next steps as the jihadists’ “caliphate” around Raqa is collapsing. Though officials warn that military action will continue for some time, they are generally upbeat about the progress and quickening momentum of the fight.
“We examined the enemy situation and discussed the next steps to make sure we are all on the same sheet of music. We are going to further accelerate this fight,” Mattis said.
After months of brutal, street-by-street combat, I.S. has lost control of most of its stronghold of Mosul in Iraq, while the jihadists have become largely isolated in Raqa. Several coalition countries are keeping a nervous eye on the region as I.S.-held territory diminishes. But thousands of foreign fighters remain in Iraq and Syria, and coalition nations—particularly in Europe—are bracing for a possible wave of battle-hardened jihadists returning home.
According to a senior U.S. administration official, Interpol has identified 14,000 foreign fighters it knows have traveled to Syria and are still alive. The campaign against I.S. began in autumn 2014 and has seen the Iraqi security forces—backed with coalition training and air power—reverse humiliating losses and recapture several key cities including Ramadi and Fallujah.
Trump came to power on a pledge to destroy I.S. Though much of the groundwork had already been laid and the coalition had conducted thousands of strikes, U.S. military leaders credit him with delegating greater authority, enabling a quickening pace of operations. But critics say the additional strikes have accelerated the rate of civilian deaths.