In post-Assad Syria, Turkey-Islamist alliance against Kurds sounds the alarm in Israel & US

Following the ouster of Bashar al-Assad in Syria, the focus has turned to the brewing conflicts within Turkey and Turkey-backed groups and Syrian Kurds.

After toppling the Assad regime, Islamist opposition groups have joined hands with Turkey to attack Kurds , an ethnic minority that runs an autonomous administration called Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) in northeastern Syria. In last two weeks, they have already attacked Kurds in at least three theatres.

Amid reports that Turkey has amassed soldiers and equipment across the border from Kurdish territories in what appears to be preparation for a full-scale invasion, Israel and the United States are alarmed as a new war by Islamist groups against Kurds could not just compromise counter-terrorism operations in the region but also trigger the resurgence of Islamist groups, including the Islamic State (IS), and bring them to Israel’s doorsteps.

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Even as the United States is leading diplomatic efforts to defuse the situation, Israel has sprung into action and secured territories in Syria's border region with the stated objective of preventing IS-like terrorists from setting a base in the region to target Israel.

Israel to stay inside Syria until security is guaranteed: Netanyahu

In an apparent response to the threat posed by Syria’s new Islamist rulers, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Tuesday (December 17) said that Israeli forces would stay in Syrian territories along the border with Israel “until another arrangement can be found that guarantees Israel’s security”.

Netanyahu visited the Mount Hernon on Tuesday. It lies in the buffer zone that between Israel and Syria that Israel moved into within hours of Assad’s ouster.

Netanyahu said that Mount Hernon, where he patrolled during his military service 53 years ago, had not changed “but its importance to Israel’s security has only grown in recent years, and especially in recent weeks with the dramatic events that are happening here below us in Syria”.

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Separately, Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz, who accompanied Netanyahu on the visit, said that the military is complete prepared for the “extended presence” inside Syria. He further said that “rebels in Damascus who claim to portray a moderate facade but are among some of the most extreme branches of Islamists”.

Turkey-HTS alliance against Kurds worries Israel, US

As Turkey and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the main Syrian opposition group, have opened a new front against Kurds, there are fears in Israel and the United States that an Islamist resurgence may be in the offing.

Senior US officials have told Wall Street Journal that Turkey has mobilised its military, including uniformed commandoes and artillery, along with its militias at the border with Syria’s Kurdish territory in what appears to be preparation for a large-scale incursion.

A US official further said that a cross-border Turkish operation appears “imminent”.

Separately, an Israeli commander inside Syria has flagged the threat of jihadists inside Syria.

Colonel Benny Kata, the commander of 474th Golan Regional Brigade, told The Times of Israel last week that the Israeli military was working to “prevent jihadi groups from reaching here and breaching the fence, just like we prepared until now for the Iranian axis and their proxies”.

Kata added there is a lot of uncertainty following the ouster of Assad’s regime because “what has risen is something unclear”.

Kata said that the Israeli military entered the buffer zone after Syrian soldiers vacated the area over the weekend.

Kata said, “There were Syrian soldiers here up until the weekend and they fled. We were then forced to push forward here and in other places and take control over the area, to defend the Golan Heights residents and the border.”

Kurds fear convergence of Islamists in Syria

General Mazloum Abdi, the commander of Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), said in an interview that if Turkish-led attacks continue as it is, then Syria is headed into another “bloody civil war”. He further warned that Islamists would converge in such a situation.

Mazloum told Fox News, “We expect those Islamists, different factions to unite, to fight with ISIS and that will bring back tougher extremists, terrorist organisations back to the country.”

There are fears that HTS, despite the yearslong rebranding exercise, has not yet given up its terrorist roots. The HTS was the Syrian branch of Al Qaeda for several years and its founder and current leader, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, started out as a leader of the Islamic State before switching to Al Qaeda. Even though HTS and Jolani announced severing ties with Al Qaeda in 2016, there are doubts whether they have ceased to be a terrorist group.

In any case, as Firstpost noted previously , they remain Islamist authoritarians even if not outright jihadists and are certainly not democratic revolutionaries.

There are also fears that Islamic State may ramp up attacks inside Syria and try to free several thousands of prisoners held in Kurdish-controlled prisons. There are up to 40,000 inmates in SDF-run prisons , including around 9,000 well-trained, battle-hardened IS terrorists. The rest are their wives and children. Mazloum has said that prison guards are already being deployed to deal with Turkey-led attacks, leaving prisons thinly guarded.

Mazloum said, “All of the prisons still are under our control. However, the prisons and camps are in a critical situation because who is guarding them? They are leaving and having to protect their families. I can give you one example like the Raqqa ISIS prison, which contains about 1,000 ISIS ex-fighters. The number of guards there have diminished by half which is putting them in a fragile position.”