Is Turkey trying to provoke a new conflict in Manbij, Syria?
The SDF have been backed by the US to fight ISIS since 2015.
By SETH J. FRANTZMANUpdated: JUNE 2, 2021 11:56A Turkish flag, with the New and the Suleymaniye mosques in the background, flies on a passenger ferry in Istanbul, Turkey, April 11, 2019.(photo credit: MURAD SEZER/REUTERS)
Turkey is angling for a meeting with US President Joe Biden and is seeking to host the US UN envoy. Turkey’s narrative is that it wants to reconcile with the US after years of bashing Washington, detaining and harassing Americans, accusing the US of plotting a 2016 coup attempt, and even threatening US soldiers in Syria. Turkey has also acquired Russia’s S-400 system, provoked increased conflict in Syria, Iraq, Libya, and Azerbaijan and is increasingly radicalizing young men to carry out extremist attacks. Turkey has hosted Hamas, threatened Israel and Greece. Isolated, Ankara now wants friends again. However, it may also be provoking conflict in a sensitive area of Syria called Manbij.Over recent days protests in Manbij targeted the Syrian Democratic Forces. The SDF have been backed by the US to fight ISIS since 2015. However the SDF was not widely supported inside the former US administration and its liberation of Manbij from ISIS was never considered a major goal. Manbij became a kind of distraction because the town is close to Turkey and Turkey invaded Syria in 2016 to stop the SDF from advancing. Turkey claims the SDF is linked to the PKK, which Turkey is fighting a war against. Despite no evidence of the SDF engaging in any activity against Ankara, Turkey has used the SDF’s presence as an excuse to bomb and attack Syria. This has put Manbij in the crosshairs of Turkey for years. The SDF was initially based on the Kurdish YPG, however after the US became more involved after 2015 the SDF was expanded to include numerous Arab fighters against ISIS. Manbij has a large Arab population. Turkey, which backs its own Syrian National Army in northern Syria, has sought to get Syrian Arabs to fight the SDF, working through local tribes and others. The goal here from Turkey’s view is to get Syrians to fight each other, to distract each other from the original Syrian rebellion against Assad. As long as Syrians fight each other, Turkey can benefit and increase control. During the Trump era Turkey tried to sell Trump on the theory that it would fight ISIS in Syria if the US left. However former US commanders and local US commanders knew there was no evidence of Turkey fighting ISIS and that in fact most foreign ISIS members came to Syria via Turkey. Many then fled to Turkey when the SDF defeated ISIS in Raqqa. ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was found near the Turkish border in Idlib in 2019. Turkey may have traded information on Baghdadi’s whereabouts in exchange for the Trump administration signing off on Ankara’s invasion of Syria in October 2019, and the US withdrawal. Now Manbij is in the crosshairs again. According to reports mass protests in the city and attacks on the SDF led to live fire being used against crowds of people. Up to eight may have been killed. The reports here appear to show that locals resent the SDF presence and claims are that they don’t want to be “conscripted.” It’s not entirely clear if they are being conscripted. The Assad regime has also sought conscription of Syrians, while Turkey has hired poor Syrians to fight in Azerbaijan and Libya as mercenaries, often leaving them there without pay. This leaves questions about if the story is conscription or wider resentment or attempts by Turkey and others to undermine SDF control through locals. Poverty and economic failure are also alleged to be a root cause of the tension.Why is there poverty? The UN and international community have cut off the cross-border crossings into Syria in recent years. This has had the affect of strengthening the Assad regime while weakening the economy of eastern Syria and keeping Turkish-occupied northern Syria totally dependent on Ankara. Syrians are left with few choices. Recent news says the US may cut some support for the SDF and that a small oil concession has also ended in the US-influenced part of Syria. This may all be due to Turkish pressure. Turkey has increased its military role in northern Iraq’s Kurdistan region, building new roads and threatening to send soldiers to Sinjar and other areas, to fully cut off eastern Syria from Iraq. Turkey doesn’t want Syrian oil flowing to Iraq. While Turkey laundered ISIS oil during the war, it doesn’t want any revenues benefiting the SDF. Turkey and Russia have largely partitioned other areas of Syria such as Idlib, where each side gains something. This means that destroying the economy of places like Manbij to starve them and encourage protests against the SDF is part of the Ankara goal and also a result of the international community’s work with the Assad regime. Manbij itself is close to Assad regime lines, it’s not entirely clear if the SDF were to leave if the area would simply revert to regime control. Another side of this issue is that one of the inherent contradictions in the US policy with the SDF was that while Turkey was permitted to get the US to withdraw from Kurdish areas such as Kobani that had resisted ISIS, the US successfully got the SDF to defeat ISIS near Baghuz and Raqqa, areas with large Arab tribes. What this means is that Turkey’s goal appears to have always been to eject the SDF from Kurdish areas and leave the US with an SDF that controls Arab areas in Syria around Raqqa and the Euphrates. Then Turkey, Iran and the Syrian regime can try to pry those areas loose from the US by encouraging local tribes to resist the SDF. Economically starved and cut off, the SDF would face too many challenges to be effective. Manbij may be the first new attempt by Ankara to reduce SDF influence. It is a small, symbolic example. It may also be simply that the SDF is facing other threats in Manbij based on the impossible economic situation. The fact that Ankara’s media is heralding the US envoy visit to discuss Syria and that it is publishing stories about Syrian opposition to the SDF role, indicates Ankara is watching closely and seeking to benefit.
