Orientul Mijlociu

Abstract: Over the past decade, nowhere in the world has exerted as profound and transformative an impact on the global jihadi landscape as Syria. For al-Qaida, Syria had once been the source of its greatest hope, where dozens of its most experienced leading operatives were dispatched to enhance prospects of building a jihadi state. But in recent years, al-Qaida’s Syrian affiliate distanced itself and then broke away altogether, establishing a new locally oriented movement: Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). In pursuit of local dominance and ultimately survival, HTS has broken one jihadi taboo after another, including turning against al-Qa`ida and the Islamic State and dealing crippling defeats to both in Syria’s northwest. The implications and consequences of these developments are manifold. On the one hand, not only does HTS no longer represent the international terrorism threat that its predecessor once had, it has also almost entirely squashed the global threat posed by its more extreme rivals and played a role in maintaining the longest ceasefire in a decade of war in Syria. On the other hand, however, HTS’ de facto rule of northwestern Syria threatens to ‘mainstream’ a local jihadi model that looks set to experience a substantial boost by the Taliban’s surge to power in Afghanistan. Should conditions dramatically change, it could also come to represent a strategically significant terrorist safe haven once again—on Europe’s doorstep.

Over the past decade, nowhere in the world has exerted as profound and transformative an impact on the global jihadi landscape as Syria. It was on Syrian soil that the Islamic State in Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) first emerged in 2013 and where its behavior then sparked its expulsion from al-Qaida. That break-up and the Islamic State’s mid-2014 unilateral declaration of a caliphate caused shockwaves worldwide, catalyzing a split of the jihadi community into two rival and later globally hostile movements. As the world collectively mobilized against the Islamic State, al-Qaida was left reeling when faced by the Islamic State’s unprecedented challenge to its authority.

In response to the Islamic State’s transnational challenge, al-Qaida chose Syria as the focal point for its push back, dispatching many of its most senior and experienced operatives there to reinforce al-Qaida’s standing, through its affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra. While the arrival of the so-called “Khorasan Group” drew U.S. counterterrorism strikes, it also catalyzed internal tensions and an erratic process of introspection within Jabhat al-Nusra that eventually led to its departure from al-Qa`ida in 2017 and the advent of a third model of salafi-jihadi activity: Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and its nationally oriented effort.

Nechirvan Barzani, a powerful Kurdish leader in northern Iraq, argues that Turkey is targeting terrorists, not ‘the Kurds’.

The international outcry against the Turkish operation, which aimed to eradicate YPG presence from border areas in northern Syria, was based on one false premise: that the operation is targeting ‘the Kurds’, not terrorists. Now, Nechirvan Barzani, a powerful Kurdish leader, in Iraq has said that the Turkish military action has nothing to do with the Kurds, but is aimed at the PKK.

“Turkey’s problem, in the beginning, was not Kurds in Syria, it was the PKK. They were clear in saying one thing: ‘We cannot bear seeing the flag of the PKK on our borders with Syria,’” Barzani said, during a panel organised by the Erbil-based Middle East Research Center (MERI).

The YPG is the Syrian wing of the PKK, which has waged a decades-long terror campaign against the Turkish state, leading to tens of thousands of deaths across the country.

“Turkey had one demand, for Kurds to distinguish themselves from the PKK. Unfortunately, the PKK wanted to get legitimacy through Syrian Kurds,” Barzani said.

Barzani believes that the Turkish operation eventually happened “because of this wrong policy” conducted by the YPG in northern Syria.

The YPG has claimed large territories across northern Syria, manipulating the Syrian civil war as a pretext to form so-called ‘cantons’ in mostly Kurdish-populated areas.

The terror group took advantage of its longstanding relationship with the Assad regime to rule over Syrian Kurds, whom Damascus trusted to limit Kurdish opposition to the regime after reaching a deal with PKK leadership, located in northern Iraq’s Qandil mountains.