Local Arab tribes in eastern Syria and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an armed force backed by the United States, clashed last week in a rare outbreak of violence.
After days of battles that left scores dead, an SDF leader on Sept. 7 pledged to meet the demands of local tribes, promising greater Arab participation in the administration of the volatile region.
In comments to Reuters, Mazloum Abdi, an SDF commander, also announced a “general amnesty” for most of the tribesmen involved in the violence.
“We have already released half of those who were arrested and will release the rest,” Mr. Abdi said.
The SDF was cobbled together in 2015 by a U.S.-led military coalition devoted to fighting the ISIS terrorist group.
Since then, the SDF has carved out an enclave in oil-rich eastern Syria—roughly a fourth of the country—where Damascus exerts little control.
The SDF is trained, armed, and supported by the United States, which maintains a string of military bases in eastern Syria manned by about 900 U.S. troops.
The SDF is dominated by the People’s Protection Units (YPG), the Syrian branch of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), which is viewed as a terrorist group by the United States, the European Union, and Turkey.
Although the YPG is the main component of the SDF, the force also has a sizable Arab contingent.
Damascus views the continued presence of U.S. troops—and their Kurdish-led allies—as an illegal “occupation.”
It’s a view shared by Russia and Iran, both of which have kept military forces in Syria—at Syria’s invitation—since 2015.
Arab Uprising
Late last month, the SDF arrested Ahmed al-Khubail, a leader of the SDF’s Arab contingent in the Deir al-Zor province, which is home to several large Arab tribes.According to the SDF, Mr. al-Khubail was arrested for alleged corruption, drug trafficking, and “collaborating” with Damascus.
In response, Mr. al-Khubail’s tribal associates clashed with SDF fighters for several days, leaving scores dead, including civilians, on both sides.
The U.S.-led coalition, which backs the SDF, repeatedly appealed for calm, saying the clashes were a “distraction” from the fight against ISIS.
But the unrest has also been attributed to long-standing Arab grievances with the Kurdish-led SDF, which with U.S. support maintains control of the oil-rich region.
Local Arab residents, who typically face poor living conditions, accuse the SDF of monopolizing local administration and depriving them of their share of the region’s oil wealth.
“We want [the SDF] out of Deir al-Zor,” Sheikh Mahmoud al-Jarallah, a local tribal leader, said on Sept. 4.
“We want local administration in the hands of the original Arab inhabitants,” he added.
The U.S.-backed YPG, which leads the SDF, has repeatedly stated that it doesn’t discriminate against the local Arab population.
The YPG says it wants to redress historical injustices against the Kurdish people, who, despite numbering in the tens of millions, do not have a state of their own.
The PKK seeks to establish a Kurdish state—by force if necessary—in majority Kurdish areas of Syria, Iraq, Iran, and Turkey.
Blaming Damascus
In hopes of diffusing the inter-ethnic violence, Ethan Goldrich, U.S. deputy assistant secretary of state for Syria, and Maj. Gen. Joel Vowell, head of the U.S.-led anti-ISIS coalition, visited Deir al-Zor earlier in the week.At a meeting with SDF leaders and tribal representatives, they pledged to “address local grievances” with a goal of “de-escalating the violence as soon as possible,” according to the U.S. State Department.
On Sept. 7, Mr. Abdi said he would meet tribal leaders in Deir al-Zor to address their economic and security-related grievances.
He also vowed to restructure the local administration to make it more “representative of all tribes and groups in Deir al-Zor.”
Mr. Abdi also accused the Syrian government of instigating the unrest.
He further claimed that the SDF had arrested several Arab fighters linked to Damascus, who, he said, would not be eligible for the general amnesty.
Mr. Abdi went on to stress that the SDF had no plans to withdraw from the region.
The ISIS Bogeyman
In 2019, the SDF, working in tandem with the U.S.-led coalition, purportedly expelled ISIS from northeastern Syria. Since then, the SDF has retained control of the oil-rich region, where the United States maintains several military bases.U.S. officials claim that the terrorist group still operates “sleeper cells” throughout the region and continues to stage sporadic attacks.
In March, U.S. Army Gen. Mark Milley, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, visited eastern Syria to assess ongoing efforts to combat ISIS.
During the visit, he told reporters that the U.S. presence in Syria was aimed at ensuring “the enduring defeat of ISIS and continued support for our friends in the region.”
On Sept. 5, Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova slammed the continued U.S. military presence, saying it had “failed to achieve any successes, including the resolution of inter-ethnic disputes.”
She accused Washington of relying on “force and political opportunism” in Syria, which, she claimed, had “led to the outbreak of clashes between Kurdish units and Arab militias.”
“The United States has created a situation in which the legitimate Syrian government is unable to exercise its constitutional prerogatives on a significant portion of its sovereign territory,” Ms. Zakharova said.
This, she went on to assert, “can only lead to a resurgence of the [ISIS] terrorist group.”
