WORLD WORLDWIDE MIDDLE-EAST SYRIA - news journal UPDATE - (en) US, BRRN[Rojava]: Statement from Tekosîna Anarsîst on Developments in Syria: "We Are Not Afraid of Ruins!" (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 The Black Rose/Rosa Negra International Relations Committee (IRC)

republishes this statement from our International Anarchist Coordination
(IAC) sibling organization Tekosîna Anarsîst (Anarchist Struggle). ----
Background ---- On November 27th the loose coalition of forces that has
been engaged in a years-long military conflict with the government of
Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, broke out of a containment zone in the
country's North Western Idlib province. In a matter of days they were
able to drive out government forces and claim control over Aleppo, the
country's most populous city.

While made up of a variety of discrete factions, the group responsible
for leading the lightning advance is Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a
Sunni militant organization and successor to Jabhat al-Nusra, the former
al-Qaeda franchise in Syria.

The advance of HTS has threatened areas held by the Autonomous
Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), colloquially referred to
as Rojava. Both HTS and the anti-Assad Syrian National Army (SNA) are
backed by Turkey, which seeks the elimination of AANES. In response to
these developments, AANES has called for a general mobilization of the
constituent militias in the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), including
Tekosîna Anarsîst.

Though this brief background is insufficient to fully grasp the rapidly
developing situation, we present it here in order to better
contextualize the statement from Tekosîna Anarsîst reproduced below.

This statement is unedited, save for the explication of acronyms.

We Are Not Afraid of Ruins!
Tekosîna Anarsîst - December 3, 2024

More than five years ago the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) brought the
caliphate of ISIS to an end. Now, with the new offensive of Hay’at
Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), we risk a rebirth of their atrocities. HTS has
united many jihadist groups with ex-fighters of the caliphate in their
ranks. Recently they started a big offensive, breaking through the seige
of Idlib and making the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) collapse. Aleppo has been
the first big city they captured, seizing big amounts of advanced
weapons left behind by regime soldiers.

SDF reacted fast, sending reinforcements to protect the kurdish
neigborhood of Sheh Maqsoud in Aleppo as well as the refugee camps of
the Sheba region. But the proxy force of the Turkish army, the Syrian
National Army (SNA), started a new offensive coordinated with HTS,
invading that same region of Sheba. The refugees displaced by the
Turkish invasion of Afrin in 2018 are, once again, forced to leave their
homes at a point of a gun. More than 100,000 people are now looking for
shelter in improvised tents on the shores of the Euphrates river, still
threatened by further advances of jihadist groups.

These new developments aggravate the instability of middle east, and
should be observed together with other conflicts ongoing on the region.
The Israeli occupation of Gaza, together with their attacks against
Hezbollah, weakened Iran's position in Syria, limiting their ability to
support the SAA. Russian troops, also weakened after almost three years
of war in Ukraine, abandoned several ground positions and are brutally
bombing Idlib and Aleppo from the sky.

The US tries to keep outside of the conflict, knowing that Trump may
push to withdraw their troops from Syrian soil. Turkish soldiers are not
openly involved for now, but Turkish state is pulling the strings of SNA
to continue their genocidal policies against kurdish people. Assad is
trying to rally some international support from other Arab countries,
and Iran already started to send reinforcements for a combined
counter-offensive with the SAA. In between this chaos, the Rojava
Revolution and the Kurdish Liberation Movement resist as the main hope
for revolutionaries in the Middle East.

The largest realignment of forces in Syria in the past five years is
under way, and it may have implications we can not yet forsee. It is a
complex situation, and we see how many journalist are stuggling to grasp
it. Many western media have been encouraged by the march of HTS, even
calling them a revolutionary opposition, "rebels" against the
dictatorship of Assad. We also wish for the fall of the regime, but HTS
and their "salvation government" is not a liberatory solution. Their aim
is to replace the Assad dynasty with Sharia law and an Islamic State,
little different from what the Taliban are doing in Afghanistan or what
the Islamic Republic of Iran have done since 1979. This is not a future
we can accept, and many Syrians won't accept it either.

We, as anarchists and as internationalists in Rojava, will play our role
in these challenging times. We will fight alongside the SDF to defend
and spread the revolutionary project, building a stateless society where
the principles of democratic confederalism, pluralism and women's
revolution prevail. We call for all anarchist and other revolutionary
forces, now more than ever, to defend Rojava!

We know that war brings suffering and destruction, but it can also open
opportunities of free life for those who are ready. We saw what the
victory over ISIS made possible here, and we are ready to continue
fighting for a better future. Because we are not afraid of ruins!

The original version of this statement can be found here:
https://tekosinaanarsist.noblogs.org/we-are-not-afraid-of-ruins/

You can follow Tekosîna Anarsîst on Twitter at @TA_Anarsist.

https://www.blackrosefed.org/ta-statement-dec-3-2024
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