Under the active US air protection, the YPG fighters have fought alongside the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) for the past months and pushed back the ISIS militants from areas surrounding the jihadist bastion of Raqqa in the north of the country.
As they fight on, the YPG and other forces are getting closer to the gates of Hasaka in the northeast and Aleppo in the northwest of the war-torn country. This will famously facilitate the integration of the separated cantons of Afrin and Kobani with Jazira in the east and give Kurds the territorial sovereignty that they need to declare a cohesive polity in Syria’s Kurdistan.
But before that, Kurdish authorities have said, the YPG forces need to secure the town of Manbij, some 50 kilometers south of Kobani, currently under ISIS control and which has proved to be difficult since Ankara started shelling the advancing Kurdish troops in the area.
“Many people think that the unification of the three cantons is an illusion,” said Nasir Mansour, a YPG spokesman and an advisor to the SDF military command.
“Sometimes military and political tactics dictate different conditions, but that does not mean that the grand strategy will be abandoned. We are committed to unify the three cantons,” Mansour said.
The capture of Gire Sipi (Tell Abiad) located between the cantons of Jazira and Kobani last year pushed the unification of the enclave a step further after intensive clashes and Ankara’s open opposition to the YPG’s control of the border gate.
Manbij, located between Kobani and Afrin cantons, seems to have similar significance as Gire Sipi to the further unification of Kurdish enclave that currently stretches from northeastern Syria to the westernmost corner of the country.
“Manbij and the other areas around the Euphrates River have strategic importance for both the SDF and the Kurdish forces,” said Idris Naaman, former spokesperson of Kobani canton.
“Both try to take this area, but Turkey’s loud opposition and even some regional interference has indefinitely postponed the liberation of Manbij,” Naaman told Rudaw.
