Does anyone still remember that city? ---- In the West, it seems not. ---- In recent days, Syrian government forces, along with various jihadist groups (which in practice are now so indistinguishable that it is almost impossible to tell where one ends and the other begins), have launched an all-out offensive against the territory of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), which includes Rojava. The Syrian Democratic Forces, despite having respected successive ceasefires, have been systematically betrayed, forced to retreat, and pushed to withdraw into predominantly Kurdish areas.
Turkey, a NATO member, is not only bombing, but also financing, coordinating, and directing this operation. The United States, once again, is standing back and giving the green light. The European Union remains silent. A deafening silence.
The mainstream media, which at the time provided constant coverage when the fight was against the Islamic State, now, when Western interests have shifted, look the other way. Memory is short when it ceases to be profitable.
And so the betrayal is complete.
Kobane, alongside the YPG and YPJ forces, was a symbol of hope in the face of the jihadist barbarity of the Islamic State. It was there that it was demonstrated that ISIS was not invincible. These were the forces that resisted, that fought, and that finally defeated the caliphate, even liberating Raqqa, its capital. However, while the West has spent decades waving the banner of the "fight against jihadist terrorism" to justify security-driven, repressive, and colonial policies, today it shamelessly endorses Jolani's presidency.
Jolani, the former leader of Al-Qaeda's Syrian branch, came to power without elections or any democratic legitimacy. Until recently, he was on the most wanted terrorist lists. All it took was swapping his uniform for a suit and tie for the doors of Western chancelleries to open for him, for him to be offered millions for the supposed "reconstruction" of Syria.
But we are now seeing what Jolani's government truly represents: a puppet state at the service of Turkey, deeply jihadist, which releases ISIS prisoners despite its public rhetoric, and which imposes a centralist project that denies any form of autonomy, pluralism, or self-government.
Meanwhile, every attack committed in the West by individuals linked (actually or rhetorically) to the Islamic State is used as an excuse to reinforce authoritarianism, mass surveillance, and the securitization of society. Emergency laws are expanded, the curtailment of freedoms is normalized, and a discourse that points to the "enemy within" is legitimized. All of this is accompanied by an alarming increase in Islamophobia, racism, and hatred of the other, especially against migrant and Muslim communities.
However, this narrative obscures a fundamental reality: the vast majority of the victims of the Islamic State are not in Europe or the United States, but in Syria, Iraq, and the Middle East as a whole. It is Arab, Kurdish, Assyrian, Yazidi, Christian, and Muslim populations (of various denominations) who have suffered massacres, enslavement, ethnic cleansing, and destruction. And it is also these same populations who, to a large extent, have risked their lives to fight ISIS on the ground.
At the same time, the main states that finance, support, and disseminate the ideology that fuels these terrorist groups (such as Qatar and Saudi Arabia) are among the West's preferred partners. They are sold weapons, energy agreements are signed, and they are presented as strategic allies, while the fiction of a "war on terror" is perpetuated, a war that never questions its true political and economic roots.
The situation is critical. The emancipatory project built in Rojava and the AANES, based on democratic confederalism, feminism, ethnic and religious pluralism, and grassroots self-government, is more threatened today than ever before. Not only by bombs and military offensives, but also by international isolation, diplomatic hypocrisy, and the deliberate abandonment by those who profited from their struggle when it suited them.
Just as happened in Gaza, we are about to witness, live and with full awareness, a genocide.
Faced with this barbarity, we can do nothing but act with all the means at our disposal to try to influence the course of events. We are fully aware that our forces are limited. But if our comrades were willing in 2014 to stand up and die in Kobane in a battle that seemed lost from the outset, and today we are facing a repetition of that struggle, then for dignity, justice, and solidarity, we cannot afford to remain passive.
Silence and passivity, here too, would be complicity.
https://regeneracionlibertaria.org/2026/01/22/kobane-resistencia-traicion-y-silencio/
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Link: (en) Spain, Regeneration: Kobane: Resistance, Betrayal, and Silence - Is the West Looking the Other Way? By EMBAT (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]
Source: A-infos-en@ainfos.ca
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