WORLD WORLDWIDE EUROPE FRANCE - news journal UPDATE - (en) France, UCL Press Release: Syria: Islamist offensive, Assad overwhelmed, the Kurdish left in difficulty (ca, fr, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 This is a spectacular repercussion of the war in Ukraine and Lebanon:

the resumption of military operations in northwestern Syria. The fall of
Aleppo in a few hours and the rout of Bashar al-Assad's army surprised
everyone. But the left-wing forces have also suffered major setbacks.
---- Since 2019, a form of status quo has prevailed in northwestern
Syria, with frozen front lines: ---- the Idlib region was under the
control of Hayat Tharir al-Cham (HTS), an Islamist organization born of
jihadism, supported for a time by Ankara and the Gulf oil monarchies,
and whose main enemy is the Bashar al-Assad regime;
the canton of Afrin and a strip of land bordering Turkey was under the
control of the Syrian National Army (SNA), a coalition of Islamist
militias controlled by Ankara. In 2018, the SNA seized the Kurdish
canton of Afrin with the support of the Turkish army, and carried out
ethnic cleansing there. Its main enemy is the Kurdish people, then the
Assad regime;
the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF, Arab-Kurdish, left-wing) held two
autonomous pockets, cut off from the rest of Rojava: the Kurdish
district of Aleppo, called Sheikh Maqsoud; the town of Tell Rifat and
its surroundings, where nearly 120,000 refugees from Afrin survived in
2021. Their main enemy is the jihadists and the Erdogan regime;
Bashar al-Assad's Syrian Arab Army (SAA), supervised by the Russians and
Iranians, surrounded the Idlib region, which was regularly bombed by
Russian aircraft.

Since November 27, this status quo has been shattered.

Two commanders of the Syrian National Army planning the attack on Tell
Rifat. In the background, the flag of the Syrian revolution, next to
that of the Turkish godfather, a portrait of Erdogan, another of Mustafa
Kemal...
Source: Scharo Maroof
The fall of Aleppo in a few hours
The HTS Islamists, on their own initiative, launched an assault on
Aleppo, then Hama. Erdogan protested that he had nothing to do with it.
On the other hand, his SNA auxiliaries took advantage of the situation
to launch an offensive against the SDF and Tell Rifat, and this time it
seems with the support of Turkish artillery.

While its two sponsors, Moscow and Tehran, are busy elsewhere, Bashar
al-Assad's regime is revealing its vulnerability. The large city of
Aleppo, which it took years to recapture in 2016, with the support of
Iranian militias and Russian air force, fell in a matter of hours. The
Assadist Army collapsed spectacularly, fleeing and abandoning its equipment.

The Kurdish left suffers setbacks
The SDF tried to fill the void by taking control of Aleppo airport for a
few hours to stop HTS. But, due to the simultaneous SNA offensive on
Tell Rifat, the SDF had to evacuate. The Kurdish district of Aleppo,
Sheikhh Maqsoud, is surrounded by the Islamists, who have offered the
SDF an evacuation to Raqqa and Manbij. Negotiations are underway.

The situation is more critical in Tell Rifat: the pro-Turkish Islamists
of the SNA have taken control of the city and the refugee camps, and the
SDF is negotiating an evacuation of the population to Manbij and Rojava:
at least 120,000 people are affected.

These upheavals have led to the resurgence of anti-Assad demonstrations
in southern Syria, in the region of Deraa, the cradle of the Syrian
revolution of 2011, where the rather liberal-democratic "Southern Front"
used to operate, supported by the United States and Israel, then
abandoned by these states in 2018, and subjugated by Assad, the Russians
and Hezbollah.

Tens of thousands of people must flee Tell Rifat to Rojava, under the
protection of the SDF.
Source: Scharo Maroof
Towards a new inter-imperialist melee?
This new situation creates additional difficulties for the Kremlin,
already bogged down in Ukraine, and for the Iranian state, whose armed
wing in Lebanon and Syria - Hezbollah - has been crushed by Israel for
months.

And these additional difficulties are in the interest of the United
States, Israel and their European allies.

A new inter-imperialist confrontation is therefore possible in Syria.
The main victim will be the Syrian people, as the main forces in
conflict (HTS, ANS, Assad regime, etc.) are of the same racist and
criminal register. And the Arab-Kurdish FDS (democratic left) have
suffered significant setbacks for the time being. The situation is
worrying for the Autonomous Administration of North-Eastern Syria, which
is trying to bring a confederalist and egalitarian alternative to life
in the region.

The Libertarian Communist Union is following the situation closely, and
is already calling for participation in the European demonstration of
solidarity with the Kurdish left in Paris on January 11, 2025.

Libertarian Communist Union, December 2, 2024

https://www.unioncommunistelibertaire.org/?Syrie-offensive-islamiste-Assad-depasse-la-gauche-kurde-en-difficulte
_________________________________________
A - I N F O S  N E W S  S E R V I C E
By, For, and About Anarchists
Send news reports to A-infos-en mailing list
A-infos-en@ainfos.ca