Episode Notes:

Dozens of people are reported to have been killed in clashes between the Syrian Democratic Forces and Arab tribal fighters in Eastern Syria in the past week. Amberin Zaman, the chief correspondent reporting from the Middle East, North Africa and Europe for Al-Monitor, joined the WarCast to explain what’s going on.

[:39] What has been happening?

[4:29] What is the history of these tensions?

[7:04] What has been the U.S. reaction?

[9:30] How could this play out?

Episode Transcript

Erin O’Brien: My name is Erin O'Brien, and I'm the membership editor at War on the Rocks. You are listening to the War Cast, the members-only podcast for what you need to know now.

Dozens of people are reported to have been killed in clashes between the Syrian Democratic Forces and Arab tribal fighters in Eastern Syria in the past week. Here to tell us more about what's happening is Amberin Zaman, the chief correspondent reporting from the Middle East, North Africa, and Europe for Al-Monitor. Welcome to the War Cast, Amberin.

Amberin Zaman: Thanks for having me, Erin.

Erin O’Brien: Could you start off by telling us just a bit more about what's been happening in Eastern Syria these past few weeks with these clashes?

Amberin Zaman: Basically what happened is that over the past, roughly I'd say 10 days or so, you've seen major clashes between Arab tribes and the Syrian Democratic Forces, which is the United States' top ally against Islamic State. And so it sort of started when the SDF, that's the acronym for the Syrian Democratic Forces, arrested this Arab guy in Deir el-Zour, which is this eastern province, which is majority Arab that borders Iraq. And that's split between the British-led administration and Syrian government. And there's the river, the Euphrates, that sort of divides those two areas. And the reason they arrested him was because this guy was involved in all kinds of line activities, drugs. His brother was accused of killing and raping two women, just generally criminal activities. And this had been going on for a long time. But of course paradoxically, this guy also happened to be, for long years, an ally of that administration and also of the US-led coalition in helping degrade and defeat ISIS.

And he was the head of the local military council there. So he was actually part of that setup, but there was some kind of an inflection point where they decided to finally move against him. And I happened to interview the SDF commander-in-chief late Wednesday night and asked him, "Why did it take you so long?" And he said, "Well, we discovered that he had been assembling these forces in cahoots with the regime with Iran and was planning to move against us, and the goal being to drive us and the coalition out of this area. And so we thought, we can't hold off anymore. We've got to do something." And when they did, of course they were initially faced with reaction from his loyalists. But then very rapidly this escalated, this spiraled into fighting that went beyond the areas where his guys were.

And you saw other tribal leaders calling for the SDF to sort of withdraw, for the tribes to unite against them. And so things got kind of out of control for a while there. And then of course, the US came in and you had a delegation of US diplomats and military officials come to the region, sort of hold court with these tribal leaders, allowing them to air their grievances. And so that's kind of what happened. And I think the fact that the US spoke up was helpful. But equally, let's not forget that these tribes, certainly the ones who were involved in this and who have the backing of the Syrian regime, at least that's the allegation, were never any match anyway for a US-trained war-hardened force like the SDF. But that's not to say that we can just write this off as, "Oh, this guy got arrested and things kind of went crazy." No. There have been long simmering tensions in that area. And we can talk about that a little more if you like.

Erin O’Brien: Could you tell me a little bit more about these tensions and the divide between the SDF and these tribes and these tribal fighters?

Amberin Zaman: Well, it was never an easy proposition, was it, to have the Kurds come into this area and sort of be the big boss. However much you had this facade of the Arabs being a given responsibility for their own areas where you saw the SDF and its civilian arm set up these councils, civilian and military councils putting local Arabs in place. Everybody knew who the real bosses were and it was more obviously on... the Kurds and the Americans gave them that kind of a mandate, in fact. And of course this is a bit of a flipping of roles because for long years, for decades in fact, it was the Kurds who were subjugated and the Arabs who were subjugating them under Ba'ath rule for long, long time. I mean, Kurds had a pretty rotten deal. And so against that background, you have this very uneasy relationship.

And at the same time you had IS cells sort of operating in that region, it's a desert region, and mounting attacks. And so when you had the SDF come in and go after them, they were apparently using pretty heavy handed methods. And you saw innocence getting caught up in the net, disproportionate force being used. But at the same time, as I said earlier, it's home to quite a bit of oil and gas. And there was this abiding sense among locals there that their oil was quote, unquote, "being stolen," and that the resources... they were not benefiting from that. And of course, as in much of the rest of Syria, economic conditions there are absolutely appalling, all compounded of course by drought and natural phenomenon, but equally by the fact that Turkey has been cutting off our water supplies. Turkey controls the headwaters of the Euphrates River, that river that runs through Deir el-Zour, and that which is critical to agriculture in the region. And of course, unremitting Turkish attacks to degrade the Kurdish led administration there. So against this background, it almost is surprising that something like this didn't happen sooner.

Erin O’Brien: Could you dig a bit more into the US reaction to these clashes? And if you think the US as the backers of these Kurdish fighters, as the backers of the SDF will do anything further to make sure this doesn't continue to escalate?

Amberin Zaman: Well, clearly, of course for them, keeping that region stable is absolutely key to their ongoing effort to degrade and destroy the Islamic state, which as I said, is seeking to resurrect itself. I'm not suggesting that they're [inaudible 00:07:35], they're terribly successful. But you've seen these attempted prison breaks which have resulted in heavy casualties. We know that there are ongoing attempts by them to infiltrate these camps where IS families are being held notably in the Al-Hol camp and where we know that there's indoctrination going on by those women and of young boys. It's just really a mess. Very violent in there. So obviously it's very much in the United States' interest to tamp those tensions down.

But let's not forget that on a micro level, yes, the Pentagon seems very committed to that effort. But at the same time, we also know that the United States' priorities have shifted and that Syria is really not on the top layer of that inbox at the White House, Brett McGurk's intray. They're looking much more... well, trying to fix relations between Iran and Saudi Arabia, they sort of attempt to bring Israel and Saudi Arabia together. Ukraine, of course, is hugely time consuming. And Ukraine at the same time means that the United States has had to deal with Turkey far more carefully because Turkey has, once again, thanks to its geographic location, and its President Erdogan's rather unique relationship with Vladimir Putin as a very important actor, one that you don't want to really piss off. So when you look at that, obviously you question how much more energy is the US willing to invest in that region. And if I were a Kurd sitting on northeast Syria, I'd reckon not all that much.

Erin O’Brien: And finally, how do you expect this all to play out? Do you expect these clashes to kind of tamper and fade out, or do you expect them to come up again?

Amberin Zaman: Well, it of course depends to a certain degree on how the SDF deals with the situation going forward. In my interview, the commander-in-chief of the SDF, Mazloum was very clear that he was very committed to addressing the grievances. And it was quite astonishing to hear a Middle Eastern leader acknowledge that they were legitimate. That's quite... much, much more used to hearing that from people in Europe. So that was quite refreshing, to be honest. He wasn't defensive about it at all and said, "Yeah, we have problems and we're going to try and fix this." But obviously the tools that he has at hand are limited, and there is this unremitting pressure from Iran, from the regime and from Turkey to try and subvert the tribes there.

So it's not going to be easy. And blood was spilled. Blood was spilled and of course that is not going to go away very fast. However, throughout this situation, it became very rapidly clear that the bulk of those tribal leaders that do not want the United States to go away, they would just rather simply be dealing with them directly than having to go through the SDF. But I do not believe that the United States will go for that because I don't think they want to upset the status quo, the current balance of power that sees their main partner there, Mazloum being the top dog, as it were.

Erin O’Brien: All right. Well obviously there's a lot to look out for, but thank you so much for coming on and for giving us an update.

Amberin Zaman: Not at all, Erin, thanks. It was great to be on this show again.