Syrian Kurds: US Arms Will Mean More Influential Role Against ISIS

YPG Officials Promise 'Positive, Big, and Fast Results'

The Syrian Kurdish YPG forces are cheering yesterday’s announcement that the US will be directly providing them with more advanced heavy weaponry, saying the decision had come “somewhat late” but promising that it would bring “positive, big, and fast results.

Perhaps more importantly, however, the YPG sees this as giving them a more influential role in the war on terrorism across Syria, which is likely to mean more YPG ambitions for taking territory away from ISIS and other Islamist factions to add to their own region.

This has been a growing concern as US-backing has allowed the YPG to expand well outside of historic Western Kurdistan, first taking some Arab villages in the surrounding area, and now taking some pretty significant cities, which it full expects to keep within an autonomous zone.

While most of the focus right now is on how unhappy Turkey will be about this, the establishment of this large, autonomy-minded Kurdish militia faction with a large cache of US weapons is likely to be a major factor in the future of Syria long after the current war.

Author: Jason Ditz

Jason Ditz is Senior Editor for Antiwar.com. He has 20 years of experience in foreign policy research and his work has appeared in The American Conservative, Responsible Statecraft, Forbes, Toronto Star, Minneapolis Star-Tribune, Providence Journal, Washington Times, and the Detroit Free Press.