{"id":26688,"date":"2018-12-23T21:23:21","date_gmt":"2018-12-23T21:23:21","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=26688"},"modified":"2018-12-23T21:23:21","modified_gmt":"2018-12-23T21:23:21","slug":"in-areas-backed-by-turkey-syrians-welcome-us-withdrawal","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/?p=26688","title":{"rendered":"In areas backed by Turkey, Syrians welcome US withdrawal"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n

\nAZAZ, Syria: Residents and fighters in territory held by pro-Turkish rebels in northern Syria cautiously welcomed Washington\u2019s decision to pull out troops, viewing it as a chance to push further into Kurdish territory.
\u201cThe withdrawal is positive,\u201d said Mustafa Hamush, a resident of Azaz, a city at the heart of a Turkish zone of influence in Syria\u2019s bewilderingly complex civil war.
\u201cWhen the US withdraws its forces, the Kurdish authorities will automatically be weakened,\u201d said the 20-year-old fashion designer, adding that Turkey and its Syrian rebel allies could seize Kurdish-held regions east of the Euphrates River.
Even before US President Donald Trump shocked allies by announcing the pullout on Wednesday, Turkey had already upped its threats of a new offensive against Syria\u2019s Kurds.
Early this year, Ankara dislodged the Kurdish-dominated Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) from Afrin, seizing a key stronghold in a US-backed federation that accounts for around 30 percent of Syria\u2019s territory.
Washington and other powers in an anti-militant coalition have supported the Kurds as a bulwark against the Daesh group \u2014 another protagonist in Syria\u2019s multi-fronted conflict.
For pharmacist Omar Kazila, also 20, territory under Ankara\u2019s control will increase significantly \u201cif Turkey seizes these regions and replaces the American forces.\u201d
Not everyone in the Turkish-backed rebel zone sees the US withdrawal as an unadulterated positive.
Some residents believe the void left by the planned US departure could see Syria\u2019s military reclaim yet more ground, rather than the Turks extending their own sphere of influence.
Kurdish authorities could mend fences with Damascus, joining forces to better protect themselves against a possible offensive by Ankara, with the Kurds maintaining a degree of autonomy.
The Syrian regime has regained significant ground since Russia intervened on its side in 2015. Opposition groups \u2014 including Turkish-backed forces and a former branch of Al-Qaeda \u2014 now control less than 10 percent of the country\u2019s territory.
For Ahmad Faruh, a resident of Azaz, the American withdrawal risks being exploited by Daesh, allowing it to stage a comeback in Syria.
The extremist group has seen its territory shrink to a few pockets, its once vast self-declared \u201ccaliphate\u201d squeezed by separate offensives by the Washington-backed Kurds and Syria\u2019s Moscow-aligned regime.
\u201cThe US withdrawal and the absence of coalition planes could reinforce IS and (enable it) to control new regions,\u201d the 20-year-old student cautioned.
On the frontline, these fears of a militant resurgence are shared by some Turkish-backed fighters.
But the forces on the ground are up to the challenge, asserted Mahmud Abu Abdullah, a fighter with rebel group Al-Jabha Al-Shamiya.
He said the Ankara-backed rebel factions in Syria are ready to take the fight to IS again, as they did in a major Turkish-sponsored operation in 2016 in Jarablus and Al-Bab.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan vowed this week to eliminate both Daesh and Kurdish militias in northern Syria, on Friday saying an offensive would start in the coming months.
Sporadic clashes have erupted on frontlines separating the Turkish-backed rebels and the SDF north of Aleppo.
On Saturday, an AFP correspondent saw a cloud of smoke rising near the village of Kaljabrin after an exchange of fire between the two camps.
For Raad Najjar, another Al-Jabha Al-Shamiya fighter, \u201cthe US withdrawal will be in our favor because we wanted to lead an operation against the Kurds, but we couldn\u2019t do it\u201d while American troops were present.
His brother in arms, 24-year-old Ibrahim Nehme, agreed.
Hopefully \u201cthe factions will wage a war against Minbej, Raqqa and all the regions\u201d currently under the control of Kurdish forces.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

AZAZ, Syria: Residents and fighters in territory held by pro-Turkish rebels in northern Syria cautiously welcomed Washington\u2019s decision to pull out troops, viewing it as a chance to push further into Kurdish territory.\u201cThe withdrawal is positive,\u201d said Mustafa Hamush, a resident of Azaz, a city at the heart of a Turkish zone of influence in…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":10,"featured_media":26689,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26688","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-middle_east_news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26688","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/10"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26688"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26688\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/26689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26688"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26688"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/qatar-news.org\/qatarnewsEn\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26688"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}