The Syrian National Army (SNA), a militia formerly known as the Free Syrian Army (FSA) with ties to Turkey, began attacking Kurdish forces in Aleppo province, Syria, this weekend after the jihadists of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) laid siege to the city of Aleppo, reportedly ousting the forces of dictator Bashar Assad.
The SNA’s attacks on the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a coalition of militias led by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG/YPJ), appear to be an independent operation from HTS’s reported conquest of Aleppo. HTS, formerly the al-Nusra Front, is a Sunni jihadist al-Qaeda affiliate opposed to Assad that has played a major role in the Syrian Civil War since its onset in 2011.
The Syrian Civil War had stagnated for nearly a decade before the surprise attack on Thursday following the collapse of the Islamic State “caliphate” capital in Raqqa and Assad cementing his control of Aleppo. The Syrian Kurdish forces maintained control of much of the northeast of the country, which Kurds refer to as Rojava, with little objection from Damascus.
During that time, however, the Turkish government under Islamist President Recep Tayyip Erdogan repeatedly invaded Syria to attack Kurdish forces, claiming the YPG and their all-female counterparts in the YPJ were indistinguishable from the Marxist Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a U.S.-designated terrorist organization. The United States cooperated closely with the YPG and YPJ in the fight against the Islamic State and the SDF were instrumental in the liberation of Raqqa. Erdogan hinted at another invasion of Syria in May.
Turkish state-run news agency Anadolu reported on Sunday that the SNA launched an attack called “Operation Dawn of Freedom” against the Kurds shortly after the HTS jihadists invaded Aleppo and depicted it as largely successful, listing 23 villages captured by Turkey’s allies from Kurdish control. Much of the fighting is reportedly occurring in Aleppo province over the city of Tel Rifaat in an attempt to disconnect the city from Manbij, another Kurdish city near the Turkish border.
“The Syrian National Coalition affirms the right of the Syrian people, with all its components, to regain their country and land after it was stolen by the [Bashar al-] Assad regime and the Iranian militias that support it, as well as the PYD militia,” the SNA reportedly said in a statement announcing the attack. PYD is another acronym associated with the Syrian Kurdish forces.
On Sunday, Anadolu claimed the SNA had “liberated” Tel Rifaat from Kurdish control for the past eight years, which it referred to as an “occupation.”
“The PKK/YPG, supported by Russian airstrikes, seized Tel Rifaat and surrounding areas in February 2016. This occupation displaced approximately 250,000 civilians, who fled to regions near the Turkish border,” according to Anadolu.
The Kurds have similarly accused Turkish forces and their proxies of ethnic cleansing and forced displacement in Rojava for years. In 2019, after Erdogan launched an invasion he branded “Operation Peace Spring,” the SDF claimed that Turkey “began to occupying [sic] Christian villages and trying to break into Tall Tamir predominantly Assyriens [sic], threatened with annihilation.”
The SNA, formerly known as the Free Syrian Army, has long been one of the main rebel groups fighting in the Syrian Civil War since its onset in 2011. In its current iteration, established in 2017, it has been referred to as a “contractor structure for Turkey’s foreign operations” in addition to simply opposing Bashar Assad, as it was formally reconstructed to aid Turkish military operations, allegedly against the Islamic State.
Kurdish control of Kurdish areas in Syria, Anadolu reported, created a “terrorist corridor” that presented a national security threat to Turkey. Anadolu notably did not explain why the SNA, which Turkey claims is a friendly but independent Syrian anti-Assad militia, would have an interest in preserving Turkey’s security.
The Kurdish news outlet Rudaw reported Sunday that Kurdish leaders announced a “mobilization” to raise troop levels in response to the attack.
“We urge everyone to heed the call for public mobilization and to coordinate closely with the SDF and Internal Security Forces,” the SDF reportedly urged, calling for “the youth of the region, including Kurds, Arabs, Syriacs, Assyrians, Armenians, and Circassians, to fulfill their historical role by joining the resistance fronts.”
Rudaw reported that, beyond the fighting over Tel Rifaat, a motivating factor for the SNA attack appeared to be the fact that the SDF reinforced control over parts of Aleppo to prevent an expansion of the attack by HTS, the Sunni jihadists.
“As a coalition of rebel forces led by the jihadist Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) marched on Aleppo and sent regime soldiers fleeing,” Rudaw narrated, “the SDF took control of strategic locations in eastern Aleppo and formed a corridor to the city from the Euphrates River, briefly capturing key sites such as Aleppo International Airport on Saturday.”
The Kurdish outlet claimed the SDF largely “tactically withdrew” from some of those areas.
The U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights appeared to confirm the news of the fall of Tel Rifaat on Sunday, expressing concern that the lack of contact with the city could create an opportunity for “massacres” of the estimated 200,000 Kurds in the area.
In Aleppo city, the Assad regime reportedly responded to the surprise success of the HTS terrorists with a flurry of airstrikes this weekend, aided by its longtime ally Russia.
