Kurdish rebels in Syria are abandoning the fight against ISIS to join the battle against the Turks in Afrin

Kurdish fighters attend a funeral. AFP.

Kurdish rebels in Syria are abandoning the fight against ISIS in Syria in order to reinforce fighters in Afrin battling the Turks. AFP. The Kurds have been critical in the battle against ISIS and are continuing to destroy holdouts. However, Turkey's invasion of the Afrin enclave has caused many Kurdish fighters to abandon the fight against ISIS so they can fight in Afrin. More than 1700 fighters have switched battlefields in the past few weeks. The descion has caused the United States to declare an "operational pause" in the battle against ISIS. 

My Comment:

Apologies for using the Daily Mail as a source. They actual news was written by AFP, a respected wire service so it's not like they wrote it. I generally don't like to link to the Daily Mail largely due to the side links that tend to focus on celebrity bodies and not the actual news. In this case I couldn't find a better source. 

Bad news out of Syria and news that I was afraid of when Turkey launched their invasion of the Afrin area. Back then I said that this invasion could very well give ISIS a second chance. It seems very clear that is happening now. 

With major YPG units pouring into Afrin, ISIS has a prime opportunity to take back some territory they have lost in the past months and years. And even if they can't turn this into an offensive they can use the reprieve to rearm and regroup. Given enough time they could even attack the Syrian regime who is bogged down in Ghouta right now. 

The Turkish offensive has put the United States in an unenviable position. Two of our regional allies are fighting each other and neither of them are now fighting against our true enemy in Syria, ISIS. We don't have any good options with this situation. 

If we back the Turks, who are a major ally and a member of NATO, we will be betraying a very good ally that has fought very hard on our behalf against ISIS. If we back the Kurds, we will anger Turkey so much that they might even leave NATO. The status quo isn't great either because as our allies fight each other they weaken each other leaving them both vulnerable to terrorist groups like ISIS. It's a lose-lose-lose situation. 

I generally support the Kurds over the Turks in this battle. I have never liked Turkey and their current leader, Tayyip Erdogan. They had the Kurds because they are not Turkish and they want to do the same thing to them that they did to the Armenians and Greeks. Plus they have been horrible allies in the fight against ISIS, to the point they were essentially allies to ISIS until they turned on them. 

The Kurds have their own problems, being generally on the far left politically, but at the very least they are a lesser evil than Turkey. Generally speaking, I wouldn't like the Kurds at all for their politics if it wasn't for the fact they were fighting people like ISIS and Turkey. 

It remains to be seen if ISIS will take advantage of this or not. ISIS has been so damaged that they hardly have any troops left. The might be able to expand a bit as the Kurds retreat but my guess is that they are still weaker than the Kurds and won't be able to do much. They might be able to attack the Syrian government forces in the area but I doubt they can muster enough forces to even do that. What they need is new recruits but they have no way to get them at this point short of forced conscription.