Infighting in Syria among US-backed anti-ISIS forces

A Free Syrian Army soldier throws a petrol bomb toward Syrian Army positions in Aleppo’s Saif Al Dawle district on October 3, 2012. (Photo: AP)

A smouldering confrontation between Syrian armed groups backed by the United States but hostile to each other is escalating, complicating the fight against Islamic State of Iraq and Syria in the war-torn country. Syrian Arab rebels under the Free Syrian Army (FSA) banner say they are in a growing struggle against the Kurdish YPG militia that are helping the US wage its campaign against ISIS in Syria. On June 12, one of the many FSA groups in the Aleppo area fired a guided TOW missile at a YPG position, the first attack of its kind, the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and YPG said. The two sides have different priorities in the war, with the FSA rebels battling to oust President Bashar al-Assad, while the YPG is trying mainly to carve out its own areas of control in northern Syria.

Each side also accuses the other of conspiring with its enemies in a struggle with an ethnic dimension pitting groups drawn from Syria’s Arab majority against one that emerged in 2011 with the stated aim of defending the Kurdish minority. “There is a deepening divide between us,” said the politburo chief of the Jabha Shamiya, one of the biggest FSA rebel groups in the Aleppo area. “If there is no quick political solution between the revolutionaries and the Kurds, it is heading towards escalation.”

YPG spokesman Redur Xelil said his group did not aim to spark a battle with FSA groups. But he added: “If they want a war, they will certainly lose.”

The escalating clash between the two US-backed groups has exposed a fault-line that presents a challenge to the anti-ISIS campaign as it moves into predominantly Arab areas east of Aleppo with YPG support, starting with the city of Manbij.

While the YPG has been an effective force against ISIS, the rebels say it cannot stabilise Arab areas captured from the jihadists. They compare it to Shia militias that are fighting ISIS in Iraq but are mistrusted by its Sunni population. The US appears keenly aware of the sensitivities. A US official said more Arabs had been brought into the Syria Democratic Forces (SDF), an alliance formed October 2015 to fight ISIS that draws heavily on YPG firepower. “We’ve been working hard to diversify the force,” the official said. Many of the fighters in the Manbij attack were displaced residents of the city, control of which would be handed to a local holding force once it is captured. “There is a lot of distrust obviously about the intentions, about right of control, about inclusiveness. We are extremely sensitive to that,” the U.S. Official said. The YPG-FSA rivalry is focused in a northwestern corner of Syria where all the main players are engaged in one way or another, including Russia whose air strikes have turned around the fortunes of Assad, their ally in the Middle East. FSA rebels are part of the nationalist opposition to Assad, who is also being fought by al Qaeda-linked groups. A number of groups receive military aid in a covert, CIA-backed programme. The YPG is one of the most powerful militias in Syria and seen as the backbone of the SDF, whose campaign in Manbij is supported by US-led air strikes and American special forces. For rebels, Aleppo province is critical for reasons including its position at the Turkish border.

The YPG, meanwhile, controls the nearby region of Afrin, from where it advanced into rebel areas north of Aleppo earlier this year. The rebels saw it as a coordinated attack with Damascus and Russia.

The anti-Assad opposition views it as part of a separatist project. With the wind in the SDF’s sails, analysts see a risk the YPG may want to advance from Manbij all the way to Afrin, aiming to steamroll the FSA rebels near Aleppo in the process.

The US official, however, said that advancing west from Manbij towards Aleppo was not part of the SDF plan. That may point to US sensitivity over the concerns of neighbouring Turkey which opposes further growth of YPG influence in Syria. Senior International Crisis Group analyst Noah Bonsey said it would be better for all if Turkey, the rebels and the YPG struck a deal on a division of labour to drive ISIS from the northern Aleppo area, and on who would control it afterwards.

But Turkey is deeply suspicious of the Kurdish YPG because of its links with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). Which has waged a three-decade insurgency in southeast Turkey. The YPG-FSA conflict has also spilled into Aleppo itself, whose Sheikh Maqsoud district is under YPG control. Rebels accuse the YPG of aggression by firing on the only road into opposition-held Aleppo. In turn, rebels have shelled it heavily. The TOW missile attack was a notable escalation. The YPG said it had notified the US, saying the weapon was supplied under the US-backed programme.

Reuters could not confirm the attack with rebel officials. Rebels warn of the ethnic dimension to the struggle, fuelled by the displacement of Arabs in YPG offensives. Kurdish officials have consistently denied claims of ethnic cleansing of places such as Tel Rifaat, captured by the YPG in February.

Only a few of the Arabs who fled there have returned, the Observatory says. It attributes that to fear, not a YPG policy to stop them, however. Saleh Muslim, head of the Syrian Kurdish PYD party, says the diversity of the forces in Manbij showed there was no Arab-Kurdish problem.

But Zakaria Malahefji, an official with an Aleppo-based FSA group, said he warned US officials they were naive to believe the YPG would cede control of areas captured from ISIS.