NORTHEAST SYRIA – The Trump administration warns Syria might face full-scale civil conflict inside weeks. When CBN Information visited the entrance strains of the battle-scarred nation, we found the brand new conflict has already begun.
Preventing rages throughout northern Syria with Turkish-backed forces clashing with Kurdish models on the Euphrates River whereas sectarian battles erupt within the south. All this comes as the brand new regime led by a former al-Qaeda commander struggles to unify the nation.
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio mentioned, “It’s our evaluation that, frankly, the transitional authorities, given the challenges they’re dealing with, are perhaps weeks, not many months, away from potential collapse and a full-scale civil conflict of epic proportions.”
CBN Information just lately visited the Tishreen Dam which has been within the information because the scene of some heavy preventing between the Turkish-backed forces and HTS and the Kurds. Now the Kurds maintain the dam, and there is a ceasefire that only in the near past got here into impact, which they’re hoping will maintain. The one drawback is the Turks aren’t abiding by the ceasefire, so drone strikes and artillery shelling are nonetheless occurring every day out right here.
Mohammad Ahmed of the Free Burma Rangers mentioned, “Daytime and nighttime… we hear the airstrikes destroyed all this constructing. They by no means cease.”
Syrian Democratic Forces reply by fortifying cities throughout the area—digging tunnels, constructing limitations, and erecting camouflaged walkways to evade drone strikes.
In city fight, you do not need to stroll down the road since you’ll get shot. So the fighters break holes within the partitions to go between buildings with out exposing themselves on the road. We additionally discovered an underground entrance that results in miles and miles of tunnels that go below town of Kobani and throughout this entire area.
Syriac Navy Council President Aram Hanna mentioned his group will not give up to terrorists or tyrants.
“HTS and the Assad regime, and even the FSA and SNA—they attacked us by airplanes or by air assaults. And the Turks are doing the identical. There is not any distinction. We cannot settle for to let our weapons down now. I believe we are going to give our weapons to who? ISIS, which is ruling Syria now? I imply, it is not possible for us,” Hanna mentioned.
The Kurds fought and misplaced over 12,000 lives to defeat ISIS. Now, they are saying the “transitional authorities” resembles the very caliphate they helped destroy.
“I am unable to imagine them as a result of they, earlier than, now ISIS when us assist the brand new authorities. For me, it is so shock why they do this. You understand him (Ahmed al-Sharaa), what he completed prior to now,” Kurdish civilian Samira informed us.
Hanna mentioned, “We’ll keep preventing till we now have an actual plan that include us all—because the Syrians, Christian Syrians, Syriac Syrians, Armenian Syrians, Kurdish Syrians—and all of us. It is our nation.”
Free Burma Rangers, a humanitarian group working in Syria since 2016, stresses the significance of continued U.S. assist to forestall widespread bloodshed.
Dave Eubank, founding father of the Free Burma Rangers, informed CBN Information, “The Euphrates River is the westernmost frontline for (Syrian)Democratic Forces they usually’re holding that very tenuously. With out worldwide assist… simply due to Turkish air energy alone, the Syrian Nationwide Military will push the Kurds out, which implies the Kurds, the Christians, the Yazidis, different minorities will likely be slaughtered.”
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Because the U.S. reduces troops within the area, Kurds within the northeast develop more and more nervous and distrustful of the brand new regime.
“Everyone seems to be grateful and hopeful the U.S. will keep,” Eubank mentioned. “(The) United States can not clear up the issue right here, nor ought to it, however our presence has and continues to create an area for folks to resolve these issues. It creates an area with the Kurds, the Christians, the Muslims, the Azd are working collectively they usually’re working collectively fairly effectively right here within the SDF-controlled space.”
