The Civil War Within Syria's Civil War

[jakeXT]

The Civil War Within Syria's Civil War


...
As if Syria does not have enough war already, fighting recently broke out in the northeast of the country between Kurdish forces and radical Islamists -- both of whom are no friends of President Bashar al-Assad's regime. In Ras al-Ayn, all the country's problems come together: The town not only sits on the front lines of fighting between Kurds and Arabs, it is also located right on the edge of the Syrian-Turkish border. The Kurdish fighters in Syria are separated from Turkey's border troops -- traditionally the implacable enemies of any form of Kurdish separatism -- by only a 5-centimeter-thick iron gate.

The result is a civil war within a civil war. As the United States prepares for a military intervention in response to what it says was an Aug. 21 chemical weapons attack by the Assad regime on the eastern Damascus suburbs, it is just these sort of divides that could give American policymakers headaches for months and years to come. While U.S. President Barack Obama's administration has signaled that any strike will not aim to topple Assad, deeper U.S. involvement in the country's two-and-a-half-year civil war will mean more than a few Tomahawk missiles lobbed at military installations in Damascus - it will require grappling with the sectarian and ethnic divides that promise to define Syria's future.

For the Kurdish fighters in Ras al-Ayn, there is no doubt which side the United States should support.

"We are fighting America's war on terror right here on the ground," says Kurdish fighter Dijwar Osman. "Our enemies are those al Qaeda fighters who want to destroy our 4,000-year-old Kurdish culture. These jihadists come from Belgium, Holland, Morocco, Libya, and other countries. Unfortunately, the U.S. and Turkey are on the side of al Qaeda, just like the U.S. was on al Qaeda's side in Afghanistan during the '80's."

http://www.foreignpolicy.com/articles/2013/08/28/the_civil_war_within_syria_s_civil_war_kurdish_fighters

[WCGreen]

1. The Kurds just seem to find themselves in the way...

They are the the crazy Aunt who will not be denied.

[VanillaRhapsody]

2. The poor Kurds seem to be everywhere and simultaneously at war with everyone in the region...

[David__77]

3. Yes, YPG is helping fight international terrorism.

And so is the Syrian state. Those are facts. That's why the so-called Free Syria Army hates YPG, because it is allied with al Qaeda and terrorist radicals - not that FSA is even especially important in military terms as compared with al Qaeda and allied Islamists.