Syrian Democratic Forces Commander General Mazloum “Kobani” Abdi expressed deep concern to the Arab Gulf States Institute in Washington in a December 11 conversation that Turkish-led proxy forces, the Syrian National Army, with Turkish military support, have begun an offensive against the Kurdish-majority city of Kobane, in northeastern Syria. Abdi referenced the huge strategic changes taking place in Syria in the wake of the fall of the regime of President Bashar al-Assad over the past week, noting they had affected balance of power dynamics across a range of conflict areas in the country. He warned that the Syrian National Army had launched the offensive from Manbij, a city across the Euphrates River that it had gained control of only days earlier, in an agreement with the SDF mediated by U.S. forces in the northeast. The city of Kobane has been subjected to Turkish airstrikes, and Kurdish frontlines guarding the city have been bracketed by artillery. Abdi indicated the Syrian National Army had attempted December 10 to cross the strategic Qara Quzaq Bridge across the Euphrates, to position forces for a ground assault on the city, but they were repelled by Kurdish forces.

Reasons for Concern

Abdi spelled out three concerns regarding the Turkish-led assault on Kobane:

First, it would derail the U.S.-SDF fight against the Islamic State group. At present, the United States has deployed about 900 special forces to the northeast to support the SDF to continue the fight against ISIS. Beyond the regular counterterrorism raids the two forces mount together (with the United States advising and assisting), Abdi zeroed in on the vulnerable prisons across the northeast, where the SDF has detained approximately 10,000 captured ISIS fighters, many of them battle-hardened extremists considered an ISIS 2.0 vanguard if they escape. Abdi noted that a disproportionate number of the Kurdish guards in the makeshift prisons were from Kobane and its environs. They would almost certainly abandon their posts to return to the city to help defend it and their families if the situation worsened. He expressed a similar concern for security at the camps housing ISIS family members, including the sprawling al-Hol camp, housing more than 50,000 people, and for the string of remote bases for U.S. military personnel, for which Kurdish soldiers provide security. Kobane is the most important Kurdish city in the western half of northeastern Syria.

Second, Kobane had been the locus of fierce fighting in 2019, and earlier when the Syrian National Army unsuccessfully attacked during a Turkish-led offensive. Abdi expressed concern these forces would commit revenge-focused atrocities for the previous defeats Kurds in Kobane had dealt them.

Third, Abdi warned that there would be ethnic cleansing if Kurdish forces guarding the city were overrun. He noted such “demographic change” had taken place after similar Turkish-led attacks, citing as an example the northwestern Syrian Kurdish town of Afrin, captured in 2018 by this same mix of Syrian National Army and Turkish forces. Tens of thousands of Kurdish civilians had fled the Afrin assault in extremis and then were not allowed to return to their homes, businesses, and farms, he insisted. Arab families were resettled there instead and administrators from Turkey were brought in to run the town. That and similar flights of Kurds, under assault by Turkish-led forces over the past several years, have overwhelmed civilian institutions affiliated with the SDF, observed Abdi. The Afrin population, resettled in jerry-rigged camps in the Tel Rifaat area, was recently displaced again in the fighting related to the battle for Aleppo in early December, further overwhelming the SDF.

Measured Appreciation for U.S. Support

Asked if he was satisfied with U.S. support in the current crisis, Abdi responded in measured tones, expressing appreciation for a December 10 visit by the commander of U.S. Central Command, General Michael E. Kurilla, and recent statements of support for the SDF by senior officials, such as Secretary of Defense Lloyd J. Austin III’s December 11 remarks during his trip to Japan. Abdi expressed hope that Secretary of State Antony Blinken, in his December 13 visit to Turkey, would press Turkish officials to cease the military offensive against Kobane, citing the critical need to continue the fight against ISIS.

Brushing up Against HTS

The situation in the northeast is also in flux as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham personnel edge into the territory. HTS personnel assumed control of the northeastern town of Deir al-Zour December 10, after the SDF moved out. Abdi told AGSIW his forces had assumed control of the city only a few days earlier, after consulting with U.S. and Russian forces, given the tumult in Syria as the regime was collapsing; his forces moved out as HTS approached but remain in control of much of the sprawling province. Overall, he described relations with HTS as constructive but limited thus far to tactical-level communications, such as facilitating the evacuation of civilians. Abdi was satisfied that thus far HTS had said it was not interested in engaging in combat with the SDF to contest its control of territory in the northeast. He hoped that dynamic would continue but acknowledged the situation was dynamic and that calculations, for example, regarding “natural resources” could eventually change, a somewhat oblique reference to the SDF’s control of much of Syria’s limited but important oil production.

Can the SDF Absorb Another Turkish Offensive in the Northeast?

In the wake of a Turkish offensive into northeastern Syria in the fall of 2019, the SDF ceased all counter-ISIS operations and maintained that posture for weeks. Relations with the United States soured significantly. After a cease-fire agreement then-Vice President Mike Pence negotiated in Ankara, and then Trump’s reversal of his decision to withdraw U.S. forces from Syria, Abdi eventually agreed to resume these critical counterterrorism operations against ISIS. Turkish-led forces targeted Kobani at that time as well, but they eventually focused their efforts on a 15-mile-deep, 50-mile-wide safe zone on the Turkish-Syrian border farther to the east, eventually granted to Turkey as a part of the 2019 cease-fire agreement. In conversations at the time, Abdi insisted that the United States at the highest levels had agreed to tell Turkey to stop the attack on Kobani. Given the importance of Kobani for Syrian Kurds, and especially those fighting in the SDF (Abdi hails from there), if the current offensive escalates and succeeds, with the town of 40,000 ending up ethnically cleansed of its majority Kurdish population, it is difficult to see how Abdi will be able to resume operations against ISIS.

U.S.-Kurdish Cooperation Against ISIS May Not Withstand the Fall of Kobani

There are scenarios by which Abdi and his Kurdish-led forces can maintain their position in northeastern Syria in the coming months and continue the fight against ISIS with the United States, despite all the flux countrywide and likely turmoil in key parts of Syria. None of these scenarios will be easy, but what is certain is that the fall of Kobani will make such scenarios exceedingly difficult. It is unlikely the United States will be able to get Abdi to agree to tacitly accept Turkish gains that involve the loss of Kobani, as Washington did with the 2019 cease-fire agreement. Among other reasons, it is the town where the United States first armed and eventually fought alongside the Kurds in months of bloody fighting to turn back ISIS, a critical early turning point in the fight against ISIS and the source for much of the narrative that supports Kurdish-U.S. collaboration in northeastern Syria. That decisive U.S. support back then, provided by a small group of determined, resourceful U.S. special forces (and the airpower they could call in), helped save Kobani in 2014-15 and opened the way for the extended, immensely successful cooperation with Syria’s Kurds that has followed. If the Kurds lose Kobani, it’s hard to imagine how that cooperation with the United States will continue.