The long, bloody bid to run the Islamic State out of Mosul, the militant group’s last major stronghold in Iraq, is in its seventh month. It’s a testament to the time and patience it takes to defeat IS fighters entrenched in an urban environment.
The long, bloody bid to run the Islamic State out of Mosul, the militant group’s last major stronghold in Iraq, is in its seventh month. It’s a testament to the time and patience it takes to defeat IS fighters entrenched in an urban environment.
Count on the same measure of time and patience to retake Raqqa, Islamic State’s de facto capital in war-wracked Syria.
But one crucial steppingstone in the campaign to oust the militant group from Raqqa was finally reached last week, when President Donald Trump decided to arm Syrian Kurdish fighters poised to move in on the northern Syrian city.
The Pentagon will supply Kurdish forces with heavy machine guns, armored cars, anti-tank weapons and mortars — supplies regarded as pivotal against an enemy that fortified itself with trenches, booby traps, car bombs and even tanks taken from Syrian army forces.
Why Kurdish forces?
Because Syrian Kurds have the best track record for retaking territory from the Islamic State.
Arming the Kurds is the right tack for Trump to take, a decision that for months some have urged Trump and his predecessor, Barack Obama, to make. Behind the reluctance by both administrations has been a strong concern about how Turkey will react.
Syrian Kurdish forces, also known as the YPG, are fighting under the umbrella of the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, alongside Syrian Arab forces.
Turkey has long regarded the YPG as a terrorist force linked with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, a separatist group that Ankara has clashed with for decades.
Turkey, along with the U.S. and Europe, lists the party, known as the PKK, as a terrorist organization.
The reaction to Trump’s decision from Turkey, a NATO member and an important ally in the fight against the IS, was swift and blunt.
Its defense minister, Fikri Isik, said Wednesday that the decision plunges Washington and Ankara into a “crisis.”
He warned cryptically that Turkey, which has its own troops in Syria, has the authority to defend its interests in that country.
The Pentagon and State Department will need to work fast to get Turkey to, if not support the decision to arm the Kurds, at least acquiesce to it. The U.S. already made it clear that once Raqqa is liberated, Syrian Arabs rather than Kurds will govern the city.
And American officials stressed that the U.S. will try to ensure the arms supplied to Kurdish fighters aren’t smuggled out for separatist attacks on Turkish interests.
So far, that hasn’t been enough to mollify Turkey.
Trump and his team will get a chance to chip away at Ankara’s objections when Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan visits Washington.
So much is at stake: The U.S. cannot afford to alienate a Turkish government that remains crucial in the ongoing battle against Islamist militancy. But vital to that battle is the defeat of the Islamic State in Raqqa.
Victory for the West there, coupled with success in Mosul, would deprive the Islamic State of its two primary nerve centers in the Middle East.
Arming the Kurds is a good first step.
Safeguarding ties with Turkey is the next.
— Chicago Tribune