Heavy fighting continues to be reported across north-central Syria today, with at least 37 combatants killed today alone in fighting in the area around Manbij. The fighting involves the Turkish-backed SNA and the US-backed Kurdish SDF.
The SNA, with Turkish air and artillery support, have been pushing against Kurdish territory for weeks, and Turkey has recently threatened direct military action to ensure the defeat of the SDF.
The SDF has suggested that US and French troops could be deployed to secure the northern Syrian border. Co-chair for Foreign Affairs in Syrian Kurdistan’s administration Ilham Ahmed said that they could help establish a demilitarized zone and help them improve relations with Turkey.
Turkey, however, has promised to wipe out the Kurdish SDF’s largest constituent group, the YPG. The US has not taken a position on the idea of deploying troops, but Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Wednesday he believes Turkey has “legitimate concerns” about the Kurdish PKK.
The PKK is a banned Kurdish group in Turkey, but Turkish officials have presented the YPG as effectively the same organization. In practice, the PKK and YPG have strong ideological similarities, though they are distinct groups.
The US has been reported to be setting up a military position inside Kobani, though the Pentagon has denied that they plan a military base in the city, which is one of those Turkey and the SNA intend to invade. Turkey has been shelling the area around Kobani in recent days.
In addition to fighting over Manbij and Kobani, fighting continues at the Tishreen Dam. The SNA, backed by Turkey and with support from the new Syrian Islamist government have been throwing troops at the Dam for over a week, and reports are that they also intend to move on and attack the Tabqa Dam, another SDF-controlled dam downriver from Tishreen.
The dams are the primary source of electricity generation in northeastern Syria, and control of them is considered strategically important. Kurdish officials have warned that recent attacks on Tishreen Dam put the dam at structural risk, and could cause humanitarian problems if it is put out of operation.
Most casualties were Turco-fascist mercenaries in spite of Turkish air support, go figure!
Fascism lacks morale: they operate only on feeble "wag the flag" or "wow the god" ideology, as well as whatever paycheck they get (never enough if you're dead or maimed). Meanwhile eco-communists (SDF) operate on much stronger basis that deliver to the people, in this case the issue of women rights is particularly important, as the Turkish troop is only made of patriarcal machitos, while the SDF has a true "amazon" troop (YPJ) that will not surrender, that cannot surrender.
They should be careful as to what they're wishing for, once they're installed, it would be very difficult to ask them to leave later on
Asking them to leave?? They are their progeny.
https://npasyria.com/en/120801/ Germany’s envoy discusses future of Kurds in Syria with SDF Commander
https://al-sarira.com/2025/01/07/turkey-signals-imminent-action-against-ypg-in-syria-rejects-continued-militia-presence/
https://syrianobserver.com/syrian-actors/sdf-agreement-reached-with-damascus-to-reject-partition.html
https://apnews.com/article/austin-biden-syria-trump-troops-3ba5679d2b88fb1458ecdd1bf871efc5
https://www.independent.co.uk/news/syria-ap-turkey-kurdish-bashar-assad-b2676791.html
Fun fact: Vietnam was a former French colony too, just like Syria.
Significant in the definition of mission of the PKK is its prominent role in the drug-trafficking chain from Asia to Europe and the US. How prominent? They exclusively control the entire traffick in the passage from Turkey to Greece and Italy, as welas Turkey to the Balkans. Now imagine the volume of that traffick, and then imagin what they can do with that vast capital…Do you think they'd take over some economic activity? Have "barons" and "oligarchs" in rent hyped sectors–like tourism, just for instance? Do you ever hear the name Baybasin clan in the UK? Just check it out. Read it from Britain's own heavily anti-Turkish filters. And ask yourself–WHO then is the PKK? Where are the Kurds in Turkey? Who RULES the place still euphemistically called Turkey?!
Someone suggested that I substantiate my claims re PKK. I already did so, and with Britain's own mainstream media. I suggested that folks take a shallow dive into the proper name Baybasin. Given the pervasiveness of Kurds' illegal network power in the public and private sectors of Turkey, the expose of these networks by investigative authors have always been accompanied by either their assassination or silencing or, less honesstly but understandably, turning coats, that is recuperation. Still there are a stack-full of books in Turkish which deep divers need to read. Soner Yalcin's Beco-Behcet Canturk is the compilation of a Kurdish drug baron's own accounts. In this case the drug baron was killed shortly prior to the publication of the book. US fin-tech barons talk of machines excelling in all skills. If so, you may download the book and Machine-Translate it and get the full gist. Meanwhile asking yourself, WHY AREN'T ANY TURKISH INVESTIGATIVE AUTHORS TRANSLATED INTO ENGLISH OR GERMAN OR FRENCH? Speaking of French, If you want some idea as to how the Kurds' drug trafficking money trickles down into Tourism, Construction, Development, Real-Estate, Catering, energy… etc. sectors you may revert to the French literature prize laureate (!) Hakan Gunday's Malafa!
Please substantiate your claims of drug trafficking with internet links.
https://www.mfa.gov.tr/pkk.en.mfa
https://irp.fas.org/world/para/docs/studies5.htm V. The PKK'S Role in International Drug Trafficking
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/pkk-funds-its-bloody-terror-campaign-through-drug-trafficking-in-eu/2732660
https://www.aa.com.tr/en/europe/pkk-terror-group-involved-in-drug-trafficking-human-smuggling-in-europe-europol/3423031
https://www.dailysabah.com/politics/war-on-terror/report-unveils-pkks-multibillion-dollar-drug-ops-in-europe-us
http://www.turkishsocialscience.com/tr/download/article-file/1924003 The Importance of Iraq in The PKK Terrorist Organization’s Drugs Traffic https://www.researchgate.net/publication/367053342_Financing_the_PKK_Terrorism_and_Drug_Trafficking
https://dergipark.org.tr/en/download/article-file/1637267 The Nexus between Illicit Drug Trafficking and Terror: The PKK as an Example of Hybrid Transnational Threat
https://www.tni.org/en/publication/the-revolutionary-armed-forces-of-colombia-farc-and-the-illicit-drug-trade
https://www.npr.org/2020/05/19/855567659/many-of-colombias-ex-rebel-fighters-rearm-and-turn-to-illegal-drug-trade
https://smallwarsjournal.com/2023/08/15/terrorist-organizations-cocaine-groups-colombia-eln-next/
https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/17440572.2024.2351818
A systematic review of the extent of the Taliban and FARC’s involvement and profit from drug trade and methods of estimating income from the drug trade
https://www.wola.org/the-revolutionary-armed-forces-of-colombia-farc-and-the-illicit-drug-trade/
The pharmaceutical industry does not buy natural active ingredients of analgesics from medicinal plant production on the agricultural market, but produces them artificially, chemically. This is how the products of medicinal plants end up on the black market.
So it goes…………..
When I say the most powerful are also the most cowardly , this is exactly what I mean. None of these guys want to put their own asses on the line and use the locals as pawns.
No. The PKK set up the YPG as a new name for themselves in Syria. All the leaders came over from Turkey. Kurdish members themselves said that "we are the same," also including a group in Iraq.
So the YPG was set up with the same Marxism and Kurdish nationalism as the PKK, and using terrorism just like the PKK. In Syria they burn Syria's wheat fields, occupy water reservoirs, occupy Syria's oil fields. They have ethnically cleansed Arab villages, and in other cases they have drawn power lines and water around Arab villages to Kurdish ones. They force occupied Arabs to submit to their practices, and in school the Arab children are taught that historical Syrian heroes, like Sargon, were actually Kurds.
In Turkey they extort money from businessmen. They use car bombs or throw grenades through windows to kill those who don't pay. They kidnap store owners for ransom. They force Kurdish children to become child soldiers. They kill Turkish forest workers with explosives. They smuggle drugs to Europe, and this is what the terrorist state called the U.S. is now financing. But of course, aiding Europe's destruction is a bonus for the Zionists in Washington.
Jon_Met: "In Turkey they extort money from businessmen."
A party that works with mafia methods is behaving in a fascistoid manner.
https://www.trtworld.com/europe/whats-behind-the-recent-surge-in-arrests-of-pkk-terrorists-across-europe-18242260
https://www.rfi.fr/en/international/20230413-prosecutor-asks-for-prison-sentences-for-alleged-pkk-members-on-trial-in-paris
https://www.firstpost.com/world/france-tries-11-alleged-senior-members-of-pkk-accused-of-extortion-terror-financing-12407472.html
https://medyanews.net/former-pentagon-official-calls-on-us-to-delist-pkk/
That u erdogan?
A good and accessible source on Kurdish terrorist organization PKK, alias YPG/SDF in Syria, is the 1997 Report drafted by the chief prosecutor in the lawsuit concerning the 1996 Susurluk Accident in which the cozy links between the self-proclaimed "Turkish Nationalists" (incidentally, all Kurds!) and the PKK, as well as the intelligence service, were spilled out. The report, titled Susurluk Raporu, is available under wikisource. You may machine translate and read the part about Drug Trafficking for starters… It is especially pertinent because it sheds light on PKk's Syrian (and Iraqi, and Iranian) connectins at a time when the YPG was not yet born! So you may reassess the fairy tale about freedom fighters fighting against ISIS, the goddess!..
"Mehmet Ali Yaprak is the owner of Hidayet Tourism and Yaprak TV based in Gaziantep, and his main source of income is Saudi Arabia- and Syria-linked drug trafficking…. Hidayet Tourism is used for the distribution of Captagon…" Here's Kurdish networks of whatever you want to call it–terrorism, oppressed people, noble savage, or Lost Tribe. The quote is from the 1997 Susurluk Report by chief prosecutor. From 1990s Turkey, for those who just turned their TV on. So much for the pet-project Freedom Fighter Kurds of the US. So much for Tulsi Gabbard's "oh, no! Turks are going to genocide Kurds!" or "Stop the Turks attacking SDF!" etc. Gives you a tiny bit of idea as to the rides you and your tax $s have been and are being taken for, folks.