The Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) said on Sunday that they have fully withdrawn from the Syrian town of Ras al-Ain as part of the ceasefire deal with Turkey, brokered by the U.S. A spokesman for the SDF said they “don’t have any more fighters in the city.”
Ras al-Ain is one of two towns on the Syrian-Turkish border that have been under attack by Turkish forces. The ceasefire, agreed to on Thursday, was made to give the SDF five days to withdraw forces from the “safe zone” Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan wants to keep clear of Kurdish fighters.
The ceasefire seems to be largely holding, although there have been reports of sporadic fighting over the last couple days.
Turkey’s defense ministry said on Sunday that a convoy of 86 vehicles left the Syrian border town and headed south.
A spokesman for the Turkish-backed rebels in the area, disputed the SDF claim and told Reuters that the Kurdish fighters have “not yet completely” pulled out of Ras al-Ain.
The rebels are mostly made up of militias that have fought the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad over the past eight years. If the ceasefire holds and the SDF withdraws from the area, Assad’s forces will likely move in, something these rebels may want to avoid.
All out, or not all out?
Hard to say, when there are 27 separate US-backed non-Kurdish groups included in the Kurdish-led forces on the last count I saw in the media, and the Kurds themselves are in factions that don’t always get along.
The Kurds don’t even believe in centralized leadership from the top, it is against their ideology — and that is one of their good points considering the fundamentalist lunatic alternatives.
So yeah, in the midst of the confusion of war, all-or-nothing is not so clear at first review.
As they say — figures do not lie, but liers
figure. The non-Kurdish component of SDF is an illusion. When Kurds liberated places from ISIS — they could not by themselves control Arab majority places. In each such place, they put up an Arab group, mostly from former local governments. They became SDF, but fully under Kurd military command. Counts of such “forces” is meaningless. At present, all such local authorities throughout SDF are, hoisted Syrian flags and are no more taking orders from YPG.
A US funded group, Revolutionary Commando Army, in Al-Tanf manages for US a refugee camp straddling Jordan-Syria border. Inside the camp, ISIS fighters that were allowed to leave Kurd liberated cities, have congregated, and are in fact running it inside by controlling distribution of food. US did not allow refugees to be evacuated — Russia offered buses to transport anyone who wanted to leave. Many escaped into Jordan, and then into Government controlled territory. These people have no voice — it is to our shame that they have to suffer.
Other than that, only Kurds still receive funds.
It makes sense for Trump to trll his hawkish generals to secure oil on Syria-Iraq border. That way, Kurdish projects in the region can be financed by that revenue, not taxpayers.