The Kurdish light at the end of the IS tunnel?

.: June 29, 2015

The author analyse the important role of Kurdish in war against IS terrorism organisation.

The disintegration of the 1916 Sykes–Picot Agreement is not beneficial only for the Islamic State but also for the Kurds, who have yet to earn their independence. IS fighters have succeeded in pushing back Iraqi and Syrian troops but show a weakness when faced on the battlefield with the Kurds. Why is that? A Kurdish fighter in northern Syria told Al-Arabiya television a few days ago: “We are a force that is meant to defend the people. We don’t distinguish between Kurds and Arabs.”

Fallout of Arab springs

Syria has been through four bloody years. The civil protest (known as the Arab Spring), which was brutally quashed in 2011, turned not only into a war between rebels and government forces but among rebel groups themselves. The second year of the war saw Islamist organizations taking over almost all the rebel territory and the Free Syrian Army falling apart. On the third year of the revolt, Jihadists, IS and Jabhat al-Nusra seized the majority of rebel territory. Today, most of eastern Syria is under IS rule and al-Nusra has control of much of the west. Remnants of the Free Syrian Army are holding on along the border with Israel and in the south. The alternative to Bashar al-Assad’s oppressive regime is much worse - a rule of crazy people twisting Islam’s true meaning and committing atrocities. The sad outcome is that 70 percent of Syria’s population is now crowded into the mere 20 percent of land that Assad still controls. The number of dead is estimated at 210,000 and 3.7 million Syrians are now refugees who fled the country.

Kurdish as a real threat against terrorism

The 30 million Kurds of the world are spread out in Turkey, Iran, Syria and Iraq, an obstacle to the achievement of an independent state. Yet Saddam Hussein’s fall a decade ago and the unraveling of Assad’s regime have given the Kurds a historic opportunity to establish an autonomy in northern Iraq and northern Syria. Such an autonomy poses a threat to Turkey and Iran, where the Kurds also seek autonomy. Many claim that Turkey’s President Recep Tayyep Erdogan is in fact helping the Islamic State in order to weaken the Kurds, as evidenced by the passage of IS volunteers into Syria through Turkey and the fact that Turkey buys cheap oil from the terrorist organization. The appearance of the Islamic State both threatened the Kurds but also unified and strengthened them. In light of the IS atrocities, many young Kurds, women and men, enlisted into armed militias and the rival families, Barazani and Talabani, joined forces against their mutual enemy. The Iraqi army’s defeats, fall of Mosul and American weapons falling into the hands of IS, all have convinced the West to supply weapon to the Kurds directly for the first time in history.

The threat to the Kurds around the town of Kobane and the wave of Kurdish refugees fleeing into Turkey have convinced the Turkish government to allow the Peshmerga, the Kurdish army in Iraq, to move forces through its territory in order to help their brethren in Syria. The Peshmerga are equipped with new weapons from Europe, training and intelligence support from the US and are a part of the US-led coalition against IS. Unlike the shameful defeats of the Iraqi and Syrian armies, the Peshmerga (“those who battling death”) has proven over the past year that it is the only army that wins battles against IS. On the battlefield Peshmerga fighters have shown all that is needed to win - solidarity, loyalty, discipline, courage and determination. The slaughter of the Yazidi Kurds in Sanjar, the horrific executions of IS opponents, have only increased the motivation of the Kurds to fight for their lives and their future independence?

What can be expected ?

Over the last month there has been a meaningful breakthrough in the Kurds’ fight against IS in Syria. They have taken back Dar al-Abid and were joined by Free Syria Army’s fighters. Dar al-Abid connects two Kurdish provinces while blocking the organization’s access to the Turkish border, thus preventing volunteers from joining the Islamic State. The Kurdish army, backed by moderate Arab opposition fighters, has taken over Ein Issa over the last few days and is now 65 kilometers from the town of Raqqa, the self-proclaimed capital of the Caliphate. This operation was carried out with the full cooperation of the US-led coalition, which struck IS from the air. The IS is showing distress signs and has launched widespread arrests of all those suspected of belonging to the Free Syria Army.

The next campaign - the battle for Raqqa - will have an effect on all of Syria. If IS loses its capital it will have a crippling effect of the motivation of the organization and reinvigorate its opponents. The Kurds are Sunni Muslims who symbolize moderate Islam, which is on good terms with the West. The biggest party in Iraq is the Democratic Party. The Kurds have cooperated in the past with different forces in the fight against terrorism. The Kurdish leadership had maintained good ties with Israel. The bigger their army gets, the more Free Syria Army fighters will join it. The Kurds today embody the last hope that out of the ruins of Syria a new sane country will rise, not another Shiite enclave backed by Iran and Hezbollah or a Sunni terror state supported by al-Qaida.

Yaron FRIEDMAN © Ynet (Israel)

Yaron Friedman, Ynet’s commentator on the Arab world, is a graduate of the Sorbonne. He teaches Arabic and lectures about Islam at the Technion, at Beit Hagefen and at the Galilee Academic College.