I’d like to begin with a disclaimer. This piece is one part thought exercise and one part speculative. It it is no way to be understood as an assertion of any single or group of claims, but rather it is a means of speculating on how recent and current events relate to the grand US…
The Kurdish region of Afrin in northern Syria has become a new geopolitical pivot point in the conflict. With so many actors’ interests overlapping, whose positions will be weakened and whose solidified if hostilities escalate? With so many different agendas now converging along the borderlands, many fear that Turkey’s latest military masterplan and march towards…
In hoping to play the “lesser evil” of the “federalist” Kurds off against the “greater evil” of the invading Turks, Damascus might have inadvertently committed a grave mistake by opening the Afrin gates to the most radical members of the YPG who stand to reverse any “pragmatic” agreements that the government thought they had achieved…
Kurdish media reports that latest Turkish airstrikes have killed three Syrian NDF fighters on the Turkish-Kurdish frontline in northwestern Syria near the Kurdish-held town of Afrin. Earlier this week hundreds of Syrian NDF militiamen from the nearby Shia Arab area of Nubl and Zahraa crossed over into YPG-held Afrin enclave and put themselves at the…
With the exception of the United States which has mastered the art of becoming the airforce and strategic leader of non-state guerrilla/terrorist groups in Syria, the remaining parties to the conflict all stand united against non-state entities. Groups like Daesh, FSA and al-Qaeda are uniformly opposed by the states of Syria, Russia and Iran, while Turkey…
Syria reportedly agreed to the Kurdish PYD-YPG “federalist” militia’s request to enter Afrin and stop the Turks’ military advance, though it still remains to be seen whether Damascus will actually carry through on this decision or not. There have been conflicting reports on this topic all across the past week, but the official “Syrian Arab…
