Subscribe free to our newsletters via your
. Military Space News .




WAR REPORT
Syria's Kurds whip jihadists, another layer in a complex war
by Staff Writers
Beirut, Lebanon (UPI) Nov 5, 2013


Syria car bomb kills 8 intelligence officers: NGO
Beirut (AFP) Nov 06, 2013 - A suicide car bombing on Wednesday killed eight intelligence officers in the southern Syrian city of Sweida, a Druze bastion under regime control, a monitoring group said.

"A suicide attacker detonated himself in a car bomb in front of the air force intelligence headquarters in Sweida, killing the intelligence branch chief and seven other officers," said Syrian Observatory for Human Rights director Rami Abdel Rahman.

Sweida province has for the most part escaped Syria's brutal conflict, which in 31 months has killed more than 120,000 people and forced millions more to flee their homes.

State news agency SANA also reported the attack, citing a police source who said "eight citizens" were killed and 41 others injured when "terrorists" detonated a car bomb in Sweida.

The regime uses the term "terrorists" to refer to opponents and rebels fighting to depose President Bashar al-Assad's regime.

The Druze are a minority community in Syria, most of whose members have stayed out of the anti-Assad revolt.

Assad's regime claims to protect Syria's minorities against foreign-backed Islamists.

Syrian Kurds are reported consolidating their hold on northeastern Syria along the border with Iraq after defeating jihadist groups in a three-day battle, the latest in a series of clashes since July in which the Kurds have come out on top.

This could move them a step closer to setting up their own embryo mini-state, possibly linked to the Iraqi Kurds' semiautonomous enclave across the frontier and the core of an ethnic state combining for the first time the Kurds of Syria, Iraq, Iran and Turkey.

The capture of the Yaaroubiyah post Oct. 26 from jihadist groups, including the formidable al-Nusra Front and the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, marked a major advance for the fighters of the Kurdish People's Defense Units, or YPG, linked to the Democratic Union Party, or PYD, and a setback for the jihadists who've emerged as a major force in this multifaceted war.

But the YPG's takeover of the oil-producing region has added another layer of complexity to an already bewildering conflict. The upshot is that all this is likely to draw Turkey, Iraq and the Iraqi Kurds' enclave, which is becoming increasingly independent of Baghdad, deeper into the Syrian quagmire.

The YPG/PYD is the most potent political force among Syria's Kurdish minority, which comprises about 10 percent of the 23 million population, and has links to the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, that's been fighting a separatist war in Turkey since 1984.

Kurdish forces in Syria were initially ambivalent when the Syrian uprising against the regime of President Bashar Assad erupted in March 2011 and then turned into a chaotic civil war in which about 120,000 people have been killed, with nearly several million driven from their homes.

But now the Kurds have become a potent force that's ostensibly against the Damascus regime that subjugated the Kurdish minority for decades.

Yet the Kurds seem to spend more time fighting other rebels groups than they do Assad's Iranian-backed forces, and that's how Assad wants things to stay so he can divide and conquer.

This internecine feuding between rebel groups has plagued opposition forces for much of the 30-month-old civil war and has played right into Assad's hands.

These rivalries have given him the time and space to organize, with the help of his Iranian allies and Lebanon's Hezbollah, defensive operations that leave him in control of most of the capital, Damascus, and the center of the country.

The war has largely stalemated, and while Assad may not be winning, he's not losing either.

If he can restore links between Damascus and the heartland of his Alawite minority in the northwest, with the ports of Latakia and Tartus through which Russia can supply him with arms, he'll be able to hold out more or less indefinitely.

So what the Syrian Kurds do next is crucial.

"As they fight to secure their new autonomous zone in northern Syria, the Kurds must be careful not to fall into the trap of becoming a tool of Bashar Assad against Syrian opposition forces and Turkey," warned Lebanese analyst Hussein Ibish.

"Assad did not act to prevent the Kurds from creating an autonomous region in July 2012 partly because his forces were bogged down fighting for major Syrian cities and strategic areas.

"But he was also hoping firstly to bedevil Turkey [which was backing the rebels] with the specter of a potentially threatening Kurdish presence along its southern border, and secondly to create a conflict between Arab rebels and Kurdish groups. Neither should oblige him."

Iraqi Kurdistan, which has been more concerned with securing its own future than trying to pull the region's Kurdish enclaves in Syria, Turkey and Iran into a long-dreamed of ethnic state, has being inexorably dragged into the Syrian vortex just as Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq are.

On Sept. 29, the headquarters of the Asayesh Gashti, the intelligence and counterterrorism apparatus of the oil-rich Kurdistan regional government, in its prosperous capital Erbil was blasted by five suicide attackers and truck bombs.

The highly synchronized attack in a region that had become an oasis of stability and security, able to attract foreign investment, bore all the hallmarks of a jihadist operation and spillover from Syria.

Observers see no end in sight for the Kurd-jihadist war within a war. "This is just the beginning," warned Kurdish analyst Sirwan Kajjo.

.


Related Links






Comment on this article via your Facebook, Yahoo, AOL, Hotmail login.

Share this article via these popular social media networks
del.icio.usdel.icio.us DiggDigg RedditReddit GoogleGoogle








WAR REPORT
Protest against Iraq PM blocks highway to Syria, Jorda
Ramadi, Iraq (AFP) Dec 23, 2012
About 2,000 Iraqi protesters, demanding the ouster of premier Nuri al-Maliki, blocked on Sunday a highway in western Iraq leading to Syria and Jordan, an AFP correspondent reported. The protesters, including local officials, religious and tribal leaders, turned out in Ramadi, the capital of Sunni province of Anbar, to demonstrate against the arrest of nine guards of Finance Minister Rafa al- ... read more


WAR REPORT
Romania begins work on NATO missile shield base

Upgrades boost ballistic missile defense radar's performance to protect against missile raid

NATO, Russia make no progress on missile defence row

MEADS Tracks Tactical Ballistic Missile for First Time

WAR REPORT
Turkey, US hold talks on China missile deal

Standard Missile-3 IIA completes Critical Design Review

Outside View: NATO needs to talk Turkey

Lockheed Martin Conducts Third Successful Flight Test of New GMLRS Warhead

WAR REPORT
Commercial unmanned aircraft market may be worth $10 billion

Pakistani family recounts drone terror in visit to US

AeroVironment, Eurocopter eye cooperation

AeroVironment and Eurocopter to Evaluate Potential Joint Ventures

WAR REPORT
Northrop Grumman Receives Contract to Retrofit Joint STARS Fleet

Latest AEHF Comms Payload Gets Boost From Customized Integrated Circuits

Northrop Grumman Cobham Intercoms Receives First Order For AN VIC-5 Enhanced Vehicular Comms

Raytheon produces new US Army satellite communications terminals ahead of schedule

WAR REPORT
Chemical arms treaty meets love-gone-wrong in US high court

Northrop Grumman Demonstrates Micro-Gyro Prototype for DARPA Program

US Army, Raytheon complete AI3 live-fire demonstration

Raytheon test fires enhanced Marine Corps anti-tank weapon system

WAR REPORT
Budget cuts will mean leaner US force: Hagel

Russians 'send in big guns to sell arms to Egypt'

Egypt looks to Russia for arms after U.S. cutoff

Israeli companies vie for $1B artillery upgrade contracts

WAR REPORT
Outside View: The American Follies

Ai Weiwei sends defiant message to China at Sweden film fest

S. Korea's Park says no point in Japan summit

Kerry lands in Poland to talk trade, defence

WAR REPORT
Scientists untangle nanotubes to release their potential in the electronics industry

Nano-Cone Textures Generate Extremely "Robust" Water-Repellent Surfaces

Newly discovered mechanism propels micromotors

Densest array of carbon nanotubes grown to date




The content herein, unless otherwise known to be public domain, are Copyright 1995-2014 - Space Media Network. AFP, UPI and IANS news wire stories are copyright Agence France-Presse, United Press International and Indo-Asia News Service. ESA Portal Reports are copyright European Space Agency. All NASA sourced material is public domain. Additional copyrights may apply in whole or part to other bona fide parties. Advertising does not imply endorsement,agreement or approval of any opinions, statements or information provided by Space Media Network on any Web page published or hosted by Space Media Network. Privacy Statement