A few days ago we asked the speculative question: Are Green Berets Leading The YPG In Taking The Azaz Pocket? That question was, as we will see, wrong. It is not the YPG that is the relevant part here but some other groups fighting next to it. We wrote:
The Kurds in the Azaz pocket have also some support from a professional military. Their moves are very purposeful and controlled. They are clearly coordinated with the Syrian army. The coordination with the Russian airforce works well and there is ground fire coordination with the SAA.
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Who are the professionals that are helping the YPG to take the Azaz pocket?My first thought was of course Russian Spetsnaz. But I asked around and none of my usual sources would confirm this. The sources acknowledged that the YPG in west Syria has special force support but there was some quite unexpected silence over who these forces were. It is clear to me that these are not Syrian special forces. The YPG does not want to be seen as an adjunct to the Syrian government. No one would confirm to me that these are Russian forces even as that would be of no great surprise to anyone. This leads me to speculate that some U.S. special forces are directing the YPG in the Azaz pocket. This in coordination with the Syrian army and the Russians.
The idea presumed a split between the CIA, which arms the jihadis with TOWs and other toys, and the U.S. military, which helps the Kurds against the Islamic State jihadis in north-east Syria.
At Sic Semper Tyrannis Pat Lang and The Twisted Genius, both experienced and higher level former spec ops, found that unlikely.
But there are now additional data points which support my crazy idea. The "Kurds" besieging the Azaz pocket from the west and the south are not all Kurds. They have local allies with whom they are organized under the label Syrian Democratic Forces. Indeed, according to this report, the Kurds have pulled back from the southern Azaz line and leave it to an allied group. Some of the pro-Syrian troops now there are intimate friends of the U.S. military:
On Feb. 10, the YPG and Jaish al-Thuwar (Army of Revolutionaries), two allied SDF units, seized the Menagh air base south of Azaz and then the nearby villages of Maranaz, Malikiye, Der Jammal and Tell Acar.
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The Syrian rebel group Jaish al-Uswar entered Tell Rifaat on Feb. 15. The next day, Ahmed al-Omar, the group's spokesman, said it had cleared Tell Rifat after four days of battles. Tell Rifaat was a key point for logistics operations between Aleppo and Turkey.After Tell Rifaat, SDF units captured the villages of Ain Dejne, Kfar Naya and toward Azaz and then entered Marea.
My question was wrong. It was about Green Berets accompanying the YPG. But I should have asked about Green Berets accompanying whoever was moving there, the YPG and/or other groups, and fighting on the pro-Syrian side.
Who makes up Jaish al-Thuwar? Established in May 2015, some of its fighters were in the US-supported, but then disbanded, Hazm Movement and the Syrian Revolutionaries Front. Cephed al-Akrad (the Kurdish Front) — made up of Kurds who had not joined the YPG — is another unit of Jaish al-Thuwar. The Seljuks Brigade and Sultan Selim Brigade of Turkmens, which operate separately from the Turkish-supported Turkmen forces, are also part of Jaish al-Thuwar. An alliance of Arabs, Turkmens and Kurds, Jaish al-Thuwar joined the YPG-led Syrian Democratic Forces in October 2015. Most of the fighters hail from settlements on the Azaz-Marea line and areas of Menbic, al-Bab and Jarablus currently controlled by IS. It isn't accurate to call Jaish al-Thuwar fighters outsiders.
After capturing areas near Azaz, the YPG left them to the control of Jaish al-Thuwar and withdrew to Afrin. Some observers in the Turkish government circles interpreted the move as the YPG using Jaish al-Thuwar as a cover. This may be a bit of an overstatement, as the Americans function as a coordinator between these two SDF units.
There is an amalgamation of various small groups, some trained by the U.S. military, which is holding the southern border of the Azaz pocket including the Menagh air base and Tell Rifaat. This group coordinates with the YPG Kurds through U.S. intermediaries.
Who then are these intermediaries and who is really leading or "advising" the quite diverse Jaish al-Thuwar?
Adding another data point that supports my hunch the Pentagon yesterday admitted that the special forces it put down in Syria to coordinate the Kurds fighting the Islamic State are in contact with the Russian forces in Syria:
The Pentagon has asked Russia to stay away from parts of northern Syria where US special operations troops are training local fighters to combat the Islamic State group, military officials said Thursday.
The acknowledgement is significant because the Pentagon has repeatedly stressed it is not cooperating with Moscow as the two powers lead separate air campaigns in war-ravaged Syria.
Lieutenant General Charles Brown, who commands the US air forces in the Middle East, said US officials had asked Moscow to avoid "broad areas" in northern Syria "to maintain a level of safety for our forces that are on the ground."
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Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said Russia had honored the request, and stressed the Pentagon only provided broad geographic descriptions of where the US troops are, not their precise location.There was "one instance in which we have asked, for the safety of our special operators, (the Russians) to not engage in that particular geographical area," Cook said. "We think it's a reasonable request."
The Pentagon last year said it was sending about 50 special operations forces to work with anti-IS fighters in Syria, though officials have said next to nothing about their whereabouts and progress since.
Notice that the AFP report above emphasizes "northern Syria". Not "north-east Syria" or "east-Syria" where the YPG, with acknowledged U.S. air and special force support, is successfully cleaning the Hasakah governate of Islamic State trash. The AP report does likewise.
The insertion of 50 U.S. special operation forces into Syria was announced at the end of October 2015, around the same time the Jaish al-Thuwar joined the YPG to form the SDF named alliance. Jaish al-Thuwar includes people who have been through the Pentagon's training program.
After the Syrian army closed the Azaz pocket the YPG and its allies made fast, elegant and well coordinated moves to take the southern line of the Azaz pocket and to push north from it. A rag-tag force of amateurs would not have been able to operate like that. It is the way that this happened that led me to believe that there were some extraordinary well trained folks involved in it. These folks were coordinating the SDF force itself as well as with the Russians and the Syrian army.
So let me rephrase my earlier question about the Green Berets leading the "YPG":
Are Green Berets leading the SDF and more so Jaish al-Thuwar in taking the Azaz pocket?
If the answer is "Yes" additional questions follow from the above one:
- Does this demonstrate a split between CIA and the Pentagon with each supporting opposing sides?
- Is this the real reason for Erdogan's rage over the U.S. affair with the "YPG"?
- Was this coordinated between Secretary of State Kerry and Foreign Minister Lavrov?
- What does this mean for the future of Syria?