Both Kurdish forces in Syria and humanitarian organizations on the ground warned this week that militias backed by Turkey are seizing territory in northern Syria and endangering Kurdish civilians, including potentially engaging in “ethnic cleansing.”
The Syrian National Army (SNA), an amalgam of various militias supported by the Turkish government, announced a military campaign in Syrian Kurdistan this week shortly after Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a jihadist outfit with ties to al-Qaeda, conducted a surprise siege of Aleppo, the second-largest city in Syria. The dictatorship of Syrian leader Bashar Assad lost control of Aleppo last week; reports on Thursday indicate it may have also lost control of the city of Hama.
The clashes between the SNA and Kurdish forces in Syrian Kurdistan do not appear to be in support of HTS. Rather, it is an operation, overtly supported by the…
