In north-east Syria, the 12-year conflict is far from over. Russian fighter jets buzz US surveillance drones, threatening to bring them down. Iranian-backed militias occasionally fire rockets at US positions. The Assad regime maintains that it will “regain every inch” of Syria, ending Kurdish autonomy in the north-east.
Meanwhile Turkey — considering the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD) to be part of the Turkish Kurdish insurgency PKK — carries out periodic strikes, following its seizure of part of the border area in October 2019. And the Islamic State, expelled from its last village is March 2019, is still present. Its cells attack civilians and the Assad regime’s military buses, killing at least 23 troops on August 11.
In a multi-sided confrontation where — amid the regime’s deadly repression — no one has “won”, the headline is of a possible Russian-Iranian-US showdown. But that is a diversion from a local story where Syria’s Kurds could be the biggest losers in the north-east.
