Juan Cole - Can Leftist Kurdish Militia cut ISIL/ Daesh off from Turkish Supply Routes and Kill the Caliphate?
The
intrepid Liz Sly of the Washington Post gets the story of the attempt
of the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) and their Arab allies, the
Euphrates Volcano, to cut Daesh (ISIL, ISIS) off and kill it. Sly’s insightful
report is buttressed by one from Ahmad al-Sakhani at the Dubai-based al-An
TV.
Daesh holds Raqqah Province in Syria, up to the small town
of Tel Abyad on the Syrian-Turkish border, through which it receives weapons,
ammunition and volunteers smuggled through Turkey. On either side of Daesh
territory in northern Raqqah Province are two cantons of the Kurdish belt known
as Rojava. The two are Kobane and Jazira. Jazira is much bigger and abuts the
Kurdistan Regional Government of Iraq. Altogether there are probably about 2.2
million Kurds in Syria (a country of 22 million), though it may be less since
several hundred thousand were forced to flee to Turkey from Raqqah.
The YPG, the paramilitary of the far-left Democratic Union
Party, and its Arab allies have taken 12 villages near to Tal Abyad away from
Daesh in recent fighting. An important point: According to al-An TV, this
advance has only been possible because of close coordination between the ground
forces and the US Air Force, which is bombing Daesh targets once they are
identified by the rebel fighters. In other words, this fight looks a little
like the battle for Mt. Sinjar in Iraq, where Kurdish fighters got practical
air support from the US and its coalition partners, which intensively bombed
Daesh positions and equipment on their behalf. At Mt. Sinjar, YPG units played
an important role, but the major push came from the Peshmerga of the Kurdistan
Regional Government, Iraqi Kurdistan, who knew how to call in US air strikes.
Some 12,000 residents of the latter town have fled,
expecting that a battle royale in the center of the town is in the offing
between Daesh on the one hand and the YPG alongside the Free Syrian Army units
calling themselves Euphrates Volcano on the other. Some 5,000 refugees are
huddling along the border with Syria. If the Kurds can take the northern Raqqa corridor along the
Turkish border, including Tel Abyad, they can link two of their scattered
cantons and can cut Daesh off from resupply routes in Turkey.
Abu Isa, the leader of the 2,000 Arab fighters of the Arab
side of the Euphrates Volcano joint operations room, called on villagers to
remain in their homes, promising them they would be safe. His demi-brigade
seems to be well armed, having medium and light weaponry, suggesting that the
US is provisioning them. Al-An maintains that a lot of Daesh fighters have pulled
back from the north to the capital city of Raqqah, and that the remaining
fighters have warned local inhabitants to stay inside on threat of condign
punishment.
There is a saying in the military that everyone wants to do
strategy, but real men do logistics. That is, the supply train for the army is
often more crucial than the big concept plan of battle. Liz Sly showed that she
is the ‘real man’ of this somewhat sexist saying.
There has been a lot of back and forth between Daesh and the
Kurds in the northeastern Jazira region, especially at the city of Hasaka. What
is promising here is that the anti-Daesh forces appear to be getting good air
support from the American-led coalition. It helps that Euphrates Volcano has
not gone jihadi and is what is left of the Free Syrian Army.
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