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Russia-backed Syrian forces wasted no time in taking advantage of an abrupt United States retreat from Syria on Monday, deploying deep inside Kurdish-held territory south of the Turkish frontier less than 24 hours after Trump announced a full withdrawal.
United States’ Kurdish former allies stated that they invited in the government troops as an “emergency measure” to help fend off an attack by Turkey, launched last week with “a green light” from President Donald Trump that the Kurds describe as a betrayal. The Syrian government’s deployment on Monday is a major victory for President Bashar al-Assad and his principal ally Russia, who gained a military grip across the biggest swathe of the country that had been beyond their grasp. Under their deal with the Kurds, government forces are poised to move into border areas from the town of Manbij in the west to Derik, 400 km (250 miles) to the east. Syrian state media reported that troops had already entered Tel Tamer, a town on the strategically important M4 highway that runs east-west around 30 km south of the frontier with Turkey. State TV later showed residents welcoming Syrian forces into the town of Ain Issa, which lies on another part of the highway, hundreds of km (miles) away.
An SDF media official said he could not confirm these deployments.
in Issa commands the northern approaches to
Raqqa, the former capital of the Islamic State “caliphate”, which Kurdish
fighters recaptured from the militants two years ago in one of the biggest
victories of a US-led campaign. Much of the M4 lies on the southern edge of the
territory where Turkey aims to set up a “safe zone” inside Syria. Turkey said
it had seized part of the highway. An official of the Kurdish-led Syrian
Democratic Forces (SDF) said clashes were ongoing.
Source:
By Rasheed Sobowale (Vanguard)
