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What is the future of the Syrian Democratic Forces?
[Al Jazeera] Two Syrian groups are at odds over the sudden departure of a high-ranking Syrian commander who reportedly left for neighbouring ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire.... last week. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a US-backed alliance of Kurdish and Arab fighters, and the ... the more palatable version of the Syrian insurgency, heavily influenced by the Moslem Brüderbund... (FSA), a loose entity of opposition rebel groups, have presented different versions of the reasons behind General Talal Silo's departure. Silo served as the SDF's spokesperson, and his parting marks the first major defection among the forces' top ranks. While the SDF refuses to acknowledge the departure as an official resignation, the FSA says his defection has been "in the works for a very long time". Silo, who belongs to the Turkmen ethnicity, previously served as a high-ranking general within the FSA when the group was first created. "We had several options in front of us, so the best and most feasible one was for Silo to break away from the SDF towards [Turkey]," Abou al-Farouk, an FSA spokesperson and lieutenant in the north, told Al Jazeera. The FSA aided There has been no official comment from Turkey, which perceives the SDF, led by the Kurdish Peoples' Protection Units (YPG), as a security threat for its alleged links to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) separatists inside Turkey. The PKK has waged an armed campaign since 1984 that has killed more than 40,000 people. "In a nutshell, the SDF, who call themselves democratic, have been claiming that they are the representatives of the people - of all the minorities and races - from Arabs to Kurds to Turkmen," Abou al-Farouk said. "So when we work on pulling out people like our brother Silo from the SDF, we would have succeeded in making them lose the diversity tactic that they promote," he added. "In this case, they used Silo's Turkmen origin to promote that they are representatives of a minority and not just Kurds." Posted by: Fred 2017-11-26 |
| http://www.rantburg.com/poparticle.php?ID=502444 |