The Shakeup in Syria

US re-enters Kobani—Ocalan has Turkish visitors

Abdullah Ocalan

In my last report about Rojava I suggested we beef up our ‘defense’ force in northern Syria and as the news knows, the US Defense Department has raised our troop population there from 900 m/l to 2,000 of the same. This commitment is further enforced by the US military seen moving back into Kobani, a symbolic town in northeast Syria, aka Rojava.

According to Howard Altman in The War Zone, Jan. 2, 2025, London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights “wrote Thursday morning SOHR activists have reported seeing … a convoy of 50 trucks carrying cement blocks to SDF-controlled areas in north-eastern Syria,” aka Rojava. “The convoy was accompanied by a military vehicle of SDF,” the military wing of Rojava.

“According to SOHR sources, this comes as a part of US forces efforts to boost their bases and establish a new military base in Ain Al-Arab” (Kobani) “in light of the growing security and military tension in that region.”

Troops from Rojava, the Syrian Democratic Force, accompanied the convoy. Five years ago the SDF watched them go.

It was in 2019 when the Trump Defense Department shocked the SDF by pulling US troops out of Kobani. The Russians moved in to the former factory the US had retrofit as their coalition’s command center. Now with the Russkies out the US, in something more than a symbolic gesture, is moving back.

In the opinion of Murad Ismael and Nadine Maenza (M&M) in The Hill, Kobani is “a city symbolic of resistance against ISIS. It was in Kobani that the United States and Kurdish forces forged an alliance that ultimately reversed ISIS’s expansion.”

That coalition effort has evolved into Defeat ISIS or as Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin put it D-ISIS. The shakeup in Syria has the west wondering what’s next. On Christmas Eve day, Austin met with his German counterpart to discuss just that. (Unconfirmed sources say they were heard to sing, ‘Al-Sharaa, Sharaa/whatever will be will be/the future’s not ours to see/Al-Sharaa, Sharaa.’)

M&M say Turkish backed rebels have taken control of what is left of the Syrian army with ground and air support from NATO’s second largest army, Turkey. “The battle is no longer an even contest…It would take nothing short of a miracle for the SDF to achieve victory in an open war.” That’s why it’s so significant that the US take the more active role as they are showing in Kobani. Where’s NATO when you need ‘em?

This is a show of strength, a doubling down, on the attacks by Turkish proxy Syrian National Army. Turkey has made it clear it wants the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) aka Rojava gone from the Earth.

This is an act of annihilation as sure as Israel is annihilating the Palestinians, the natural people of the homeland of Jesus. Rojava is fighting for its life and by this act the US throws its weight behind AANES, though the military establishment would rather think of it as SDF, the military wing of AANES.

This is the US poking its finger at Erdogan, proxy or no proxy.

Turkey has always been known for protecting its self-interest. Could it be a coincidence that the Turkish Speaker of the Parliament met last week with a small delegation to be informed about their recent visit to Abdullah Ocalan? Ocalan is the ideological leader of the movement that spawned both the PKK, a militant wing listed as a terrorist organization by Turkey who convinced both NATO and the US to do the same, and AANES aka Rojava with SDF, its military wing. Yet he has never seen them. He has been locked up in isolation for 25 years on an island prison in the Sea of Marmara?

After years of isolation, he has had two visitors recently. In October a relative of Ocalan's was allowed to visit. Then on December 28t he met with the Turkish delegation led by the deputy speaker of the Turkish parliament.

The Kurdish Digest calls this Turkish delegation’s visit an oblique overture for peace. Ocalan told the delegates he had a plan for peace between Turkey and the Kurds that would include both Erdogan and the alt-righters.

Besides learning that Ocalan now 74 is in good health and high spirits, that ultimately was the message. Ocalan has an avenue to peace in the raging conflict now underway for the survival of Rojava, an egalitarian, multi-religion, bottoms-up direct democracy which is a model of direct democracy applicable anywhere because it does not demand boundaries. It’s a long story, but saving Rojava is keeping alive the hope for a better way of living in situ and in peace. It is the future if we will it. We can’t let Rojava go!

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