Al jazeera News, Beirut :
When Jaseem heard President Donald Trump decided to pull US troops out of Syria, he began planning his escape from the northern city of Manbij.
In the days following Trump’s announcement, both the Syrian government and Turkey moved to fill what they assumed would be a vacuum, starting in Manbij. The United States’s military presence guaranteed Kurdish rule in the city since 2016.
Jaseem, whose name has been changed for security reasons, is an ethnic Arab – like most Manbij residents – but he said he preferred rule by the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to either the Syrian government or Turkey-backed Free Syrian Army militias, such as those ruling the rebel enclave of Idlib.
“The SDF made us feel safe,” the 40-year old told Al Jazeera.
“The Syrian government thinks we are all traitors and may arrest us, and we cannot go to Idlib because every day there are explosions and kidnappings there.”
Trump’s decision last month was an unexpected boon, on the surface, for both the Syrian government and Turkey. The SDF controls not only Manbij but most of Syria east of the Euphrates, where the US has guaranteed SDF rule.
The Syrian government, however, wants to retake all of the country, while Turkey regards the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), which dominates the SDF, as a “terrorist” entity that is part of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). Ankara already launched one bloody battle against the YPG in the town of Afrin last February.
Trump subsequently suggested the withdrawal of troops would be “slow” and told the Republican Senator Lindsey Graham he would not abandon the US’s local allies, or leave eastern Syria open to Iranian influence. Lindsey Graham: Trump ‘slowing’ US pullout from Syria (2:15)
“ISIS is mostly gone, we’re slowly sending our troops back home to be with their families, while at the same time, fighting ISIS remnants,” Trump tweeted, referring to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, also known as ISIL.
The New York Times reported from Washington that Trump had extended the deadline for the troops’ return from 30 days to four months. But a day after the report, Trump denied fixing any timeline for the withdrawal, merely emphasizing his intentions. He said, “We are getting out of Syria.”
When Jaseem heard President Donald Trump decided to pull US troops out of Syria, he began planning his escape from the northern city of Manbij.
In the days following Trump’s announcement, both the Syrian government and Turkey moved to fill what they assumed would be a vacuum, starting in Manbij. The United States’s military presence guaranteed Kurdish rule in the city since 2016.
Jaseem, whose name has been changed for security reasons, is an ethnic Arab – like most Manbij residents – but he said he preferred rule by the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to either the Syrian government or Turkey-backed Free Syrian Army militias, such as those ruling the rebel enclave of Idlib.
“The SDF made us feel safe,” the 40-year old told Al Jazeera.
“The Syrian government thinks we are all traitors and may arrest us, and we cannot go to Idlib because every day there are explosions and kidnappings there.”
Trump’s decision last month was an unexpected boon, on the surface, for both the Syrian government and Turkey. The SDF controls not only Manbij but most of Syria east of the Euphrates, where the US has guaranteed SDF rule.
The Syrian government, however, wants to retake all of the country, while Turkey regards the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG), which dominates the SDF, as a “terrorist” entity that is part of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK). Ankara already launched one bloody battle against the YPG in the town of Afrin last February.
Trump subsequently suggested the withdrawal of troops would be “slow” and told the Republican Senator Lindsey Graham he would not abandon the US’s local allies, or leave eastern Syria open to Iranian influence. Lindsey Graham: Trump ‘slowing’ US pullout from Syria (2:15)
“ISIS is mostly gone, we’re slowly sending our troops back home to be with their families, while at the same time, fighting ISIS remnants,” Trump tweeted, referring to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, also known as ISIL.
The New York Times reported from Washington that Trump had extended the deadline for the troops’ return from 30 days to four months. But a day after the report, Trump denied fixing any timeline for the withdrawal, merely emphasizing his intentions. He said, “We are getting out of Syria.”
