Washington Kurdish Institute
Robert Sanford August 13, 2019
In spite of the March 2019 territorial defeat of Daesh in Baghouz, the situation of Syria’s Kurds remains as precarious as ever. Daesh sleeper cells have launched numerous asymmetrical assaults in northeast Syria in an attempt to disrupt the region’s respite from war, and President Bashar al-Assad –whose intransigence in the face of popular, peaceful opposition has resulted in over 500,000 deaths and millions displaced– claims he will retake all of his former territory “by force.”
But while Daesh cells and the Syrian regime pose viable threats, the most present destabilizing agent for the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), the multi-ethnic, multi-religious entity controlled by the Kurds and other ethnic minorities, is Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s Turkey. Erdogan, whose formal title of ‘president’ understates his borderline autocratic executive power, has overseen the arrests of hundreds of Kurdish activists, politicians, and journalists under the guise of “terrorism,” and his anti-Kurdish bigotry extends into Syria as well; Turkey perceives the American-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) as threats to its sovereignty in spite of the fact that the SDF agreed to not attack its northern neighbor as a precondition for its U.S. partnership.
What began as rhetoric morphed into action when President Erdogan ordered several thousand troops to the AANES border in early July. Though seen by some as nothing more than an effort to force the U.S. to the negotiating table, Syrian Kurds have reason to fear a violent Turkish assault; in January of 2018, Turkey and Turkish-backed rebels invaded the majority-Kurdish canton of Afrin, displacing over 150,000. Amnesty International reported “widespread human rights violations” including “at least 86 instances of arbitrary detention, torture and enforced disappearance.
The Al-Hol Camp: A “Ticking Bomb”
Another major Turkish assault on the AANES would be catastrophic, and not just for the direct impact on SDF forces and civilians. Following the defeat of Daesh, the SDF began guarding the al-Hol camp in the al-Hasakah governorate. Al-Hol holds around 70,000 individuals displaced by the Syrian Civil War, many of which are family members of deceased, imprisoned, or missing Daesh fighters. The camp presents a myriad of problems for the SDF, so much so that Mutlu Civiroglu, a Kurdish political analyst based in Washington, D.C., called the camp a “ticking bomb” following a mid-July visit. A Turkish invasion would only compound these issues, Civiroglu told the Washington Kurdish Institute.
“[Al-Hol] is already very hard to control, so it’s going to be no longer possible to control the camps, and the residents will flee or be smuggled out,” he said on Wednesday. “If people are under attack, things are going to be put on hold, priorities are going to change.”
Civiroglu stated that while there are aid organizations present, the SDF is stretched thin, and the camp’s residents, many of whom still in pursuit of an Islamic caliphate, are violent and abusive.
“The Kurdish authorities are not able to handle it,” he said. “They have no resources. One guard was stabbed, very, very seriously, by a woman three weeks ago.”
A recent Foreign Policy article reported that roughly 50,000 of the camps inhabitants are under the age of 18. With thousands of radicalized mothers tending to children that know no better, conditions are “rife” for extremism. Civiroglu stated that while camp administrators are concerned for the children, they lack the means to adequately care for them, much less implement the rehabilitation programs they require.
“Right now, the major concern is safety, security, basic needs. There have to be some programs, but al-Hol is certainly not the place because people are deprived of many basic necessities, and that’s because it’s too crowded.”
Captured Daesh fighters, though fewer in number and more heavily guarded, form yet another concern. Currently, the SDF is holding around 1,500 fighters in prisons across northeast Syria. The consequences of a Turkish invasion in regards to the former militants are unknown, but Turkey’s well-documented tolerance and support of individuals who act in their geopolitical interest, even if they are violent extremists, is cause for concern.
Calls Unanswered: Repatriation and the International Tribunal
Authorities are desperately trying to reduce al-Hol’s population in an effort to mitigate resource scarcity, but the high number of foreigners who traveled to Syria to join Daesh’s caliphate have created a legal conundrum. While Syrians in the camp can be released under the supervision of tribal “guarantors,” foreign nationals must be repatriated by their native countries, something too few governments have been willing to do. Just this week, it was reported that the United Kingdom would not retrieve the children of British Daesh fighters from Syria despite repeated calls by SDF authorities to do so.
Authorities have also requested an international tribunal to handle Daesh fighters and their families, but their request has not received significant support from Western governments. Still, Civiroglu believes a tribunal may be possible, but that support from the international community would grant it additional legitimacy.
“What I found striking is the experts… agreed that on a legal, political, social basis, that Rojava could set up an international court,” he told WKI, using the Kurdish term for northeast Syria.
“So, they might try to do something like this. I don’t know how effective it would be without international community support, without the U.N., but at the same time, they know that the situation is critical, the clock is ticking, and in the case of an operation, a Turkish operation, Kurdish officials have said that they’re worried it would free ISIS fighters and families.”
The ‘Vague’ U.S.-Turkey Agreement
Tensions between Turkey and the SDF nearly boiled over last week after President Erdogan declared that his forces would “enter [Syria] east of the Euphrates,” where both the SDF and its American partners operate. American diplomats appeared to avoid the confrontation, as the U.S. Embassy in Turkey released a statement outlining points of agreement between the two countries, but what exactly was agreed upon remains unclear. AANES leaders and residents have been left to make if it what they can.
“We’re still vague on the details, but we don’t necessarily see this as negative,” said Bassam Ishak, the co-chair of Syrian Democratic Council (SDC) delegation to the U.S., in an interview with WKI. “We feel like this is just a step of defusing the war conversation and giving more space to political dialogue and political action.”
The Need for American Support
With Turkey and the U.S. locked in negotiations, the fate of the AANES and its hundreds of thousands of residents rests in the hands of foreign superpowers. Mr. Ishak, who also serves as president of the Syriac National Council, stressed that the U.S. should remember its own values as it works toward a peaceful political solution.
“What I love about the United States is its approach to diversity. It’s a melting pot, and this is why I want the U.S. government, the State Department, to take more active roles in supporting us politically, to be a voice for what you guys have here in America. So far, we’ve seen indifference from the State Department regarding SDC participation in the Syrian constitutional committee. We need your help, and you should be the party who helps us because you should be the one who understand that we’re not terrorists”
“We’re just seeking fairness and dignity,” Mr. Ishak concluded.
Today @vvanwilgenburg and I visited al Hal camp and spend hours to see the situation closely. We talked with people from Turkey, Holland, Belgium, Russia, Azerbaijan, Tajikistan, Afghanistan, Trinidad-Tobago and South Africa pic.twitter.com/OcJiqZSEya
— Mutlu Civiroglu (@mutludc) July 9, 2019