“This has become a matter of American national security, regardless of the administrations, because this is an American commitment to the current and next administration. The partnership between the US and the local authority in northeast Syria, the SDF, has practically contributed greatly to confronting ISIS,” Walih Phares, a Lebanese-American conservative pundit and former Trump advisor, told Rudaw.
He stressed that the threat of ISIS is still prevalent in Syria, which worries Washington, especially with the presence of tens of thousands of ISIS fighters in SDF-held prisons.
“It is better for the Trump administration to control the current situation and prevent the spread of ISIS, because the second ISIS will be stronger and more ferocious than the first ISIS,” Phares warned.
Kurdish forces in northern Syria are under intensified attacks by Turkey and Turkish-backed militants, who have taken the strategic towns of Tal Rifaat and Manbij since late November, at the same time the Islamist-led Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) was amid a blistering offensive that toppled Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
The clashes are especially intense near the crucial Tishreen Dam and Qere Qozaq bridge on the Euphrates River that leads to the symbolic Kurdish city of Kobane on the Turkish border.
US forces in Syria are the primary backers of the SDF, which territorially defeated ISIS in 2019 and ended a five-year so-called “caliphate” of the group, two years after they were defeated in neighboring Iraq.
But attacks by Turkey and Turkish-backed Syrian National Army (SNA) militia groups are threatening Kurdish-held territories in the north, forcing them to scale back anti-ISIS operations to redeploy on the northern frontlines.
Turkey considers the People’s Protection Units (YPG) - the backbone of the SDF - as the Syrian front for the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a designated terrorist group by Ankara.
Speaking of the complex situation in Syria, Phares said that Trump will face complex challenges in the country and stressed that he will need a capable team to properly interact with the volatile situation since the fall of Assad.
Earlier in January, US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said that American troops need to stay in Syria to counter ISIS and prevent its resurgence.
The US has recently upped its presence of troops in Syria from 900 to around 2,000 after the HTS ousted Assad.
