RAQQA, SYRIA/WASHINGTON // For an explanation of why US president Donald Trump believes the best tactic against hardline militants is to arm Syrian Kurds, look no further than Sheen Ibrahim’.
Taught by her brother to fire an AK-47 at 15 and encouraged by her mother to fight for Syrian Kurdish autonomy, she says she has killed 50 people since she took up arms in Syria’s six-year-old civil war, first against Al Qaeda, then crossing into Iraq to help Kurds there fight ISIL.
Now 26, she leads a 15-woman unit hunting down the hardline group in its global headquarters Raqqa, speeding through streets once controlled by the militants in a pickup lorry as her comrades comb through ruined buildings for booby traps.
The US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), spearheaded by the Syrian Kurdish YPG militia, have taken several parts of the northern Syrian town since their assault began this month.
This week American defence secretary James Mattis said Washington may arm the SDF for future battles against ISIL as part of a still ill-defined stabilisation plan for Syria.
But it also carries risk of creating new instability in a war in which outside powers are playing ever larger roles.
The US-YPG relationship has infuriated America’s Nato ally, Turkey, which considers the YPG to be an extension of the Kurdish Workers Party, or PKK, an organisation both Ankara and Washington have designated a terrorist outfit. Turkey has sent troops into Syria, partly to attack ISIL, but also to keep the YPG from wresting control of the frontier between Kurdish Syria and Turkey.
Meanwhile the SDF is concerned that the reinforcements Turkey recently sent into Syria are there toattack Kurdish foYPG forces.
Syrian Kurdish leaders say they want autonomy in Syria, of the sort enjoyed by Kurds in Iraq, rather than independence. Nor do they want to interfere in neighbouring states. Turkish warnings about YPG weapons ending up in PKK hands are unjustified, they say.
However, Sheen ibrahim says she and her fellow combatants will fight whoever they have to. “Turkey is fighting us,” she said. “Anyone who fights us, we will fight.”
Her comrade Maryam Mohamed agreed. “Erdogan is our biggest enemy, we cannot hand over our weapons,” she said.
Washington does not know how many weapons the YPG holds. Some Arabs have joined their ranks, bringing US-supplied weapons with them. But in any case, disarming the YPG will not be easy. “We’ll do what we can,” Mr Mattis said, when asked about weapons recovery.
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Kurds are spearheading the attack on Raqqa, but the plan is for a mainly Arab force to maintain security in the overwhelmingly Arab town thereafter.
While Kurds and Arabs fight side by side against ISIL, with the militants’ self-proclaimed caliphate shrinking, competition for territory will intensify.
“We are getting ourselves into the middle of another potential mess we don’t understand,” one of the US officials said.
* Reuters