There has been a lot of news surrounding Turkey and its allied militia, the self-described Syrian National Army (SNA), in Syria’s Aleppo District since the regime change back in December. Overwhelmingly, it has been SNA forces attacking Kurds in places like Manbij and Kobani, with an eye toward moving further east along the border.
With a new security deal being worked on between the Kurdish SDF and the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) government, however, there seems to be renewed hope that the Kurds of Afrin, many of whom were displaced all the way back in 2018, may finally be able to return.
A Syrian Defense Ministry official reported Tuesday that the SNA is substantially reducing its presence in Afrin. They remain at some checkpoints and military posts, but the HTS government is keen to integrate them into the army and post them in army posts elsewhere in the country. They say regular Israeli airstrikes against bases across the country have slowed that redeployment.
Kurdish political groups like the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) are expressing hope that with the SNA presence in Afrin on the decline, massive numbers of internally displaced persons can see the light at the end of the tunnel and may begin to try to go home.
Turkey and the SNA have been keen to destroy Kurdish autonomy in the northeast, and historically that meant occupying cities and expelling the Kurdish population outright. Afrin District has over 300,000 people in 2017, mostly Kurdish. It has been occupied by the SNA and effectively by Turkey since 2018.
The hostility between the SNA and SDF isn’t entirely halted, but the number of battles seems to have dropped substantially in recent weeks. Still people who live in the villages around Afrin continue to report attacks on their crops, particularly their olive trees. The HTS has reported sending its own security forces to Afrin to free people believed to be wrongfully detained.
How large a number that is remains unclear, though in the course of the HTS regime change offensive, the SNA launched pushes against the internally displaced around the Aleppo Governorate, capturing a number of them and forcing others to flee elsewhere.
Though the regime change allowed a number of displaced people to return home in parts of Syria, Afrin is one of the major cities where it so far hasn’t happened, and any move that brings them closer to being allowed to return will doubtless be welcomed.
