The War Within the War for Raqqa

AIN ISSA, Syria — Just 30 miles from Raqqa, the de facto capital of the Islamic State, Kurdish fighters are cleaning houses of mines and erecting barriers around this former ghost town. Some buildings are still covered with the jihadi group’s black flag, and civilians are not allowed to return to the Arab-majority town due to its proximity to the front lines. The town, which was captured from the Islamic State in July 2015, will serve as a launching pad for future offensives on the city of Raqqa.

It was difficult to find an Arab fighter among the men in Ain Issa who were cleaning up the rubble. But Heval Amed, the nickname of an Arab fighter from the northeastern Syrian city of Qahtaniyah, was willing to talk. “I joined the Syrian Democratic Forces [SDF] because I believe in them,” he said. “It’s not just a Kurdish force; it’s a Syriac, Arabic, Kurdish force. We have all religions and ethnic groups in the SDF.”

On May 24, the Kurdish-led SDF announced the launch of a campaign to retake northern areas of Raqqa province back from Islamic State control. That has led to criticism from Arab opposition groups, which have argued that the Arab city of Raqqa should not be taken by a Kurdish force.

But though analysts and critics see the SDF as a strictly nationalist Kurdish force, dominated by the People’s Protection Units (YPG), the reality is that it is increasingly becoming a multiethnic power that boasts many Arab fighters in its ranks.

The Democratic Union Party (PYD), the dominant Syrian Kurdish party and the political wing of the YPG, follows a leftist ideology that adheres to old Marxist slogans calling for the fraternity of the peoples. The PYD announced on March 16 that it will establish a multiethnic federal system for northern Syria and “Rojava,” a Kurdish term that refers to Syrian Kurdistan, headed by a Kurd and an Arab from Tal Abyad.

While some Syrian opposition groups have attacked the PYD for not doing enough to integrate Arabs, it has also been criticized by other Kurdish parties for doing too much. The PYD’s main rival — the Kurdish National Council (KNC), part of the Syrian opposition backed by Masoud Barzani, the president of the Iraqi Kurdistan region — has accused the PYD of advancing a non-Kurdish project. The KNC says it wants a “Kurdistan region” for Syrian Kurds only, which would not include predominately Arab areas.

One Syrian Kurd from the city of Qamishli who supports Barzani echoed that sentiment to me, arguing he doesn’t want the PYD to work with Arabs. “I want a strong Kurdish army, led by Kurds,” he told me. “We cannot trust Arabs.”

PYD officials make the case they are working to integrate other ethnic or religious groups into their new homeland. They contrast their approach with the ethnic federalism of Iraq, which attempts to divide Arabs and Kurds into separate fiefdoms rather than unite them as one common nation.

“The KNC says they want an Iraqi model, with regions for Sunnis, Shiites, and Kurds,” said Aldar Xelil, a senior Kurdish official with Tev-Dem, a coalition of six parties that the PYD formed to govern liberated areas of northern Syria “We don’t think like this; we want a democratic society system where all nations can live together.”

Many YPG-supporting civilians in the northern Syrian city of Kobani also prefer that the YPG does not enter Raqqa and do not want to include the city in a federal northern region. They fear it could lead to tensions with Arabs in the future and would rather Free Syrian Army-affiliated groups, such as Liwa Thuwar al-Raqqa, take the city.

“Raqqa and northern Raqqa are [Arab areas], and they don’t accept us,” said Ahmad Altash, a 33-year-old Kurdish civilian in Kobani. “We will be like Iraq with problems, bombings, and explosive cars.”

Many Kurds share Altash’s conviction that liberating the predominantly Arab areas of Raqqa is a potentially costly and dangerous sideshow. The real priority, they argue, should be linking up the YPG’s territory in northwestern Syria, which the Kurds refer to as the canton of Efrin, with the areas they hold further east. The YPG-held territories are currently divided by a strip of land occupied by the Islamic State, as well as a small area controlled by Turkey-backed Syrian rebels. In the future, they hope to unite these territories in one federal region.

Kurdish officials also admit they are focused on connecting the Kurdish enclaves. They have already set up a civilian and military council for the town of Manbij led by mostly Kurds and some Arabs. Last week, the SDF launched a big offensive on the area around Manbij, capturing at least 20 villages from the Islamic State with heavy support from coalition airstrikes. Between May 31 and June 2, 40 airstrikes targeted Islamic State targets in the area, according to Centcom press releases.

“It is more important to open a road between Kobani and Efrin, which is still controlled by ISIS,” Xelil said, using an alternate acronym for the Islamic State.

The task of liberating Raqqa itself, some suggest, should go to Arab forces aligned with the SDF.

“It’s better that Arab groups like Liwa Thuwar al-Raqqa, Shams al-Shamal, or Sanadid go to Raqqa, and we should go to Efrin,” said Delil Reber, 31, who runs a coffee shop in Kobani, naming some of the SDF-aligned brigades.

These Arab forces, however, still need to be stronger before they can hope to wrest Raqqa from the Islamic State’s grip by themselves. The U.S.-led coalition has a considerable stake in bolstering these groups: Col. Steve Warren, the spokesman for the anti-Islamic State campaign, in May said a group of 200 Arab fighters finished their training for future operations in Raqqa. The Arab force “is continuing to gain strength, it’s continuing to grow, and we’ll continue to build up in posture for an eventual move against Raqqa,” Warren said.

SDF spokesman Sharvan Darwish said Arab fighters account for more than 40 to 50 percent of the forces fighting in the northern Raqqa operation.

“Soon a new group will join with people from Raqqa” to liberate the city, he promised. “We don’t look in a sectarian way and differentiate between Arabs and Kurds.… The SDF is for all of Syria; we do not recognize any borders.”

As the effort to capture new territory from the Islamic State continues, the PYD is also trying to better integrate Arabs in already liberated areas. The party has appointed local Arab tribal leaders to head local councils and is recruiting more Arab fighters into its ranks for the police and militia forces. In some predominantly Arab towns, like Shadadi, Arab fighters run most of the checkpoints. This has gone a long way in convincing some Arabs in northern Syria to accept the new system created by the PYD.

“They don’t deal with us as if we are slaves. They treat us equally,” said Abdullah Qattab al-Saif, a leader of the Shield Brigade, a local 80-man group that considers itself part of the Free Syrian Army, in a small village close to the front lines near Ain Issa.

Arab fighters within the SDF are keen to point out how it is a coalition, rather than a single force, and that Arabs lead many of the component factions. As more Arab towns and villages are liberated, they hope their numbers will grow.

“The leadership is still mainly Kurdish, but the number of Arabs is increasing, since the liberated Arab areas are joining the SDF forces, like in Shadadi,” said Abu Ali Raqqawi, a 27-year-old fighter based in Tal Abyad, who fears for the security of his family still in Raqqa.

Not all Syrian Arabs are so optimistic. The anti-Islamic State group Raqqa Is Being Slaughtered Silently, for example, claimed the YPG’s role in the offensive to liberate Raqqa had caused many of the city’s residents to join the jihadi group.

But Arabs I met in Syria rejected that claim. “This is a lie, because we are in touch with Raqqa on a daily basis, with civilians in Raqqa,” Raqqawi said. “They ask people from the mosques to join the jihad to attack, but the people of Raqqa don’t care who controls them. They just want to get rid of ISIS.”

Trying to determine what the residents of Raqqa truly believe while the city remains in the Islamic State’s grip, others suggested, was a fool’s errand.

“The people live in fear. You cannot say anything, and you could be killed easily,” said Hazem Hamidi, an Arab engineer living in Tal Abyad, who used to work in Raqqa. “Those people in Raqqa, they welcome the SDF or YPG to release us from [the Islamic State]. There is no difference between us: We all want to fight ISIS and kick it out.”

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