Comment BAGHDAD — A U.S.-backed Syrian enclave is bracing for attacks by Turkish forces as its top commander called on Washington to do more to oppose the threatened ground invasion. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s forces launched airstrikes, drones and artillery on towns and cities in northeastern Syria for a fourth day on Wednesday. About 18 civilians and three soldiers were killed in the attacks, according to the Syrian Democratic Forces, the US-backed forces in the region. The escalating violence has sent ripples of fear through a region that is no stranger to threats from its neighbor. The Turkish government has fought Kurdish militants at home for decades and views the Kurdish-dominated SDF as a threat to its national security. Turkish forces last invaded the enclave in 2019 after what Erdogan’s government appeared to see as a green light from then-President Donald Trump. Turkey blames Kurdish militants for deadly Istanbul bombing Erdogan is threatening to repeat that effort with new ground forces, calling the strikes retaliation for an attack in central Istanbul that killed six people and wounded dozens on a busy street last week. No group has claimed responsibility for the attack. “Those who condemn the Istanbul attack with crocodile tears revealed their true colors with their reactions to the operation we launched immediately after,” Erdogan said in a speech to members of his party gathered in Ankara. “We have the right to take care of ourselves.” A US-led military coalition joined the fight against Islamic State forces in 2014 after the militants seized a huge swath of land in Syria. Three and a half years after the group’s official defeat, hundreds of American troops are still stationed in territory outside the control of the Syrian government. It was a partial US withdrawal in 2019 that reshaped the map of northeastern Syria again, paving the way for Turkey to invade as it ceded territory once patrolled by US forces to a Turkish-backed Syrian militia and elsewhere to the Syrian army and its Russian supporters. In an interview with the Washington Post, General Mazloum Kobane Abdi, the SDF’s top commander and Washington’s strongest ally in Syria, urged Western allies to strongly oppose further Turkish attacks, arguing that Western pressure could prevent a ground offensive. business. “It is not news to anyone that Erdogan has been threatening the ground operation for months, but he could start this operation now,” said Mazlum, who goes by his name. “This war, if it happens, will benefit no one. It will affect many lives, there will be huge waves of displacement and a humanitarian crisis.” As US completes withdrawal from Afghanistan, US allies in Syria watch warily Violence puts the United States in a bind. Its decision to back a Kurdish-led ground force in the fight against Islamic State put it at odds with NATO ally Turkey, and it has since struggled to balance commitments to both. So far, the Biden administration has carefully avoided being seen as taking sides. “What we’ve said publicly is that these strikes, on all sides, are jeopardizing our mission, which is to defeat ISIS,” Sabrina Singh, the Pentagon’s deputy press secretary, told reporters on Tuesday. “We’ve been consistent on that,” he said, when asked if the US was concerned about expanding military operations in Syria. “We are opposed to all the strikes going on right now from all sides.” But James Jeffrey, a former US envoy to the anti-Islamic State coalition, said the US and Russia, another major player in northeastern Syria, were less ambiguous in private. “Russia and the US, both of which have troops near where the Turks would operate, have urged Ankara not to act and that could prevent at least one major operation.” By Tuesday night, the SDF reported that at least 45 locations had been hit — among them, several medical facilities and a school building. In the border town of Derik, a reporter for the Kurdish Hawar news agency, Essam Abdullah, was killed in a Turkish airstrike while reporting on an earlier attack in the same area, the agency said. Colleagues found his body. In a post on Twitter, SDF spokesman Farhad Shami retweeted a message from Biden in 2019 accusing Trump of abandoning the US-backed force. “Today under your presidency, the same is happening,” Shami wrote. “Our people and our forces have a right to know your position on the Turkish attack on our people.” James Jeffrey, former ambassador to the US-led coalition, “There is a real possibility of a Turkish ground attack or at least a ground incursion somewhere in Syria,” said James Jeffrey. “Russia and the US, both of which have troops near where the Turks would operate, have urged Ankara not to act, and that could prevent at least one major operation.” In the city of Kobani near the Turkish border, residents slept in corridors as strikes shook their window frames. On Tuesday night, families packed their belongings into backpacks, fearing they would soon have to flee. Others dragged their mattresses to sleep in nearby orchards in the hope that they would be safer there. They usually have no idea what’s causing the explosions around them, it’s just that more are likely to follow. Nesrin Salim, 32, said she had run home through the night to grab blankets, then rushed her children to a stand of trees where other local families were gathering. “We were in a panic. we were confused. We didn’t know when we would be hit,” Salim said, recalling the attacks as she hung her children’s clothes to dry on Wednesday morning. “My only concern is my children. I can’t think of anything else. I don’t want them to hear those explosions.” Fears that Washington’s interest in northeastern Syria is waning has left the SDF increasingly dependent on the Syrian government and its ally Russia for protection from Turkey. Alexander Lavrentiev, Russia’s special envoy to Syria, said on Wednesday that Moscow’s “close contact” with the Turkish Defense Ministry could prevent an escalation. As Turkish attacks continue, there have also been volleys fired from Syria into Turkey. A child and a teacher were killed and six people, including a woman who was 5 months pregnant, were injured on Monday when mortars hit a border area in Turkey’s Gaziantep province. Mazloum denied that the SDF was responsible for the strikes, saying the force was only seeking to de-escalate the situation. But in other public media, the SDF has vowed revenge. “They have killed many of our people and we will retaliate,” Shami wrote on Monday. Mustafa al-Ali in Kobani, Syria, Karoun Demirjian in Washington and Sarah Dadouch in Beirut contributed to this report.
