U.S. begins sending arms to Syrian Kurdish fighters: Pentagon

U.S. begins sending arms to Syrian Kurdish fighters: Pentagon

Posted on May 31, 2017

WASHINGTON,— The United States on Tuesday began providing small arms to Kurdish fighters battling the Islamic State group in Syrian Kurdistan (northern Syria), the Pentagon said, fulfilling a pledge that has infuriated Turkey.

The weapons transfers have begun ahead of an upcoming offensive to recapture Raqqa, the last major bastion for IS in Syria.

“We have begun to transfer small arms and vehicles to the Kurdish elements” of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), Pentagon spokesman Major Adrian Rankine-Galloway said, referring to a Kurdish-Syrian Arab alliance fighting IS.

The weapons include AK-47s and small-caliber machine guns, Rankine-Galloway added.

President Donald Trump this month approved arming the fighters from the Kurdish Peoples’ Protection Units (YPG), drawing strong condemnation from Turkey.

Ankara says the YPG is linked to Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) separatists, who have waged an insurgency since 1984 that has killed more than 40,000 people inside Turkey.

Turkey’s concerns about the YPG were significant enough for Ankara to launch its own military operation inside Syria in August 2016, dubbed Euphrates Shield.

The operation had the dual goals of targeting IS and the Kurdish militia, particularly to prevent the YPG from controlling a contiguous strip of territory along the Syria-Turkey border.

While the Kurds have failed to link up the two “cantons” under their control in the northeast with the Afrin region to the west, the Turkish operation has largely floundered.

The SDF have now advanced to within a few miles of Raqqa on several fronts, and this month captured the strategic town of Tabqa and the adjacent dam from the jihadists.

Washington has sought to placate Ankara by saying the weapons will be handed out judiciously, and that it will monitor these to make sure they don’t go into Turkey.

The Pentagon insists the SDF are the only fighting force currently on the ground capable of seizing Raqa.

U.S regards the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party PYD and its powerful military wing YPG, which is part of SDF alliance, as key ally against Islamic State and the most effective fighting force against IS in Syria and has provided them with arms, air support as well as the military advisers.

The Kurdish YPG, which has 60,000 fighters, has seized swathes of Syria from IS [Daesh].

Syrian Kurdistan’s ruling PYD has established three autonomous zones, or Cantons of Jazeera, Kobani and Afrin and a Kurdish government across Syrian Kurdistan in 2013. On March 17, 2016 Syria’s Kurds declared a federal region in Syrian Kurdistan.

http://ekurd.net/us-sending-arms-syrian-kurdish-2017-05-31