There is a misconception in the international media about the U.S.'s partnership with the Kurds in Syria. In contrast to conventional reporting, the U.S. has never supported the militants in Afrin.
The United States-led military coalition wilfully decided not to engage with the People's Protection Units (YPG) in Afrin, Syria, since the beginning of the campaign against Daesh. Then-coalition spokesman Col. Steve Warren explained to journalists that they call the group that held the pockets of Afrin "Afrin Kurds" instead of the YPG or the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
"We refer to them as Afrin-Kurds just because of the geography there," Warren said on February 2016. Warren was encouraging both "Afrin Kurds" and Syrian opposition groups to come together and fight Daesh.
When YPG forces from Afrin had nearly reached the U.S.-backed opposition-held town of Mara from the south in an attempt to take advantage of the tense situation between the Assad regime and the opposition, they faced Daesh. Warren said the coalition was considering whether or not it could provide airpower to support them against Daesh.
Two months later, in April, Warren said they still hadn't made a decision to support so-called "Afrin Kurds." He didn't say it but because at the time they weren't really engaging Daesh anyway. What about the YPG's plan to connect the so-called Afrin and Kobani cantons? Warren was dismissive; he was clearly disinterested.
By October 2016 when Turkish-backed forces and the YPG in Afrin were clashing, then commander of the coalition Gen. Stephen Townsend continued to not recognize forces in Afrin as part of the YPG and the coalition.
The coalition actually didn't need to own Afrin anyway. It was very clear from the military standpoint, if there was no Daesh presence, there was also no need to train, aid and provide air cover to the forces in Afrin. Had the coalition decided otherwise, it might have looked very suspicious for the Turks, and they didn't want that.
The coalition was really only concerned about the YPG presence in Afrin last June when the operation to clear Raqqa of Daesh was underway. Coalition spokesman Col. Ryan Dillon said he was very concerned about anything that takes away from the focus that the coalition had on Raqqa because various reports suggested that the YPG was using the Raqqa operation as leverage against the Pentagon to push them to intervene on their behalf and warn Turks not to hit Afrin.
They threatened the Americans that they would move the forces needed for Raqqa to Afrin to counter the Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army (FSA). These are the facts of the matter. Yet, the U.S. media still talk about the abandonment of the Kurdish allies in Afrin - even though the U.S. has never seen them even as partners. To solidify the Pentagon's view, several statements issued by American spokespeople emphasized that there was no American or coalition presence in Afrin.
"We will not accept any PKK attacks against our Turkish Ally. To clarify, Kurdish forces in Afrin have not received U.S. training, support, or advisors as part of the D-ISIS campaign, which has focused elsewhere in Syria," a U.S. National Security Council spokesman said in a statement on Tuesday, using a different acronym for Daesh.
Pentagon spokesperson Maj. Adrian Ranke-Galloway went even further and warned YPG forces that if some individual units move to Afrin, they would be using the coalition backing.
"If they carry out military operations of any kind that are not specifically focused against ISIS, they will not have coalition support. Let's say a unit of our partner forces in this area [showing northeast Syria on a map], for example a unit of YPG say, ‘Hey, we no longer fight ISIS, and we are going to support our brothers in Afrin.' Then they are on their own. They are not our partners any more," he told Anadolu Agency.
Of course, the U.S. still doesn't want Turkey to set foot in the Afrin town center, but U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson made it clear to Ankara that Americans weren't troubled by the creation of a secure or buffer zone along the Turkish borders, excluding the Afrin town center. Their main concern is the destruction that could happen in the city.
