Kobani: Syria anti-IS forces must keep 'special status'

HASAKEH - Any deal between Syria's Kurds and Damascus should respect the "special status" of Kurdish-led forces who fought the Islamic State group, a top Kurdish commander of those forces said.

"Any political agreement should include the special status" of the Syrian Democratic Forces after they fought IS "on behalf of all humanity and even the Syrian army", SDF commander-in-chief Mazloum Kobani said.

"This is our red line and we will not concede this" in ongoing talks with the Damascus regime, he said in an exclusive interview on Thursday.

The SDF control around a third of Syria after expelling jihadists from a large northeastern swathe of the war-torn country with backing from the US-led coalition.

The Kurdish-led alliance "protected northeastern Syria... liberated these areas, and have the right to continue protecting the region", said Kobani, who was speaking near the northeastern city of Hasakeh.

President Bashar al-Assad's government has gained ground against rebels and jihadists with key Russian backing since 2015, and now controls almost two-thirds of the country.

It is determined to reassert its authority over SDF-held areas, which make up the lion's share of the rest.

But after years of marginalisation, the Kurds are determined to keep some of the autonomy they gained during the eight-year war.

The SDF could "agree to be part of the national army of a future Syria, but only on the condition they keep their special status", Kobani said.

Damascus has rejected self-rule in northeastern Syria, but Kurdish leaders started talks with the government in July in a bid to seek some form of decentralisation.

"The discussions are ongoing but have not yet reached any positive result," he said.

The regime "keeps on thinking it can go back to the way it was before 2011. It still hopes it can take military control of the whole region".

"It needs... to understand that is impossible."

Kobani said the SDF were however prepared to "protect the Syrian border and the unity of Syrian territory".

And they would "accept the results of centralised elections if they occurred".

Defeating "caliphate"

Kobani said military operations against IS in Syria were wrapping up and the last pocket of the jihadists' "caliphate" will be flushed out within a month.

"The operation of our forces against IS in its last pocket has reached its end and IS fighters are now surrounded in one area," Kobani said.

With backing from the US-led coalition, the SDF are in the last phase of an operation started on September 10 to defeat the jihadists in the Euphrates Valley in eastern Syria.

"We need a month to eliminate IS remnants still in the area," said Kobani.

A few hundred IS fighters are defending a handful of hamlets near the Iraqi border, the last rump of a "caliphate" which the jihadist organisation proclaimed in 2014 and once covered territory the size of Britain.

"I believe that during the next month we will officially announce the end of the military presence on the ground of the so-called caliphate," Kobani said.

Intense fighting in the area known as "the Hajin pocket" has left hundreds of fighters dead on both sides, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor.

IS lost the town of Hajin late last year and the subsequent collapse of its defences saw the Kurdish-led SDF conquer one village after another.

Kobani said their battle had been complicated by the jihadist group's shifting strategy after the fall of their de-facto Syrian capital of Raqa in 2017.

New tactics include "sleeper cells everywhere, secretly recruiting people again, and carrying out suicide operations, bombings, and assassinations", he said.

"We expect there will be an increase in the intensity of IS operations against our forces after the end of their military presence," Kobani said.

IS has retained a presence in Syria's vast Badia desert and has claimed a series of attacks in SDF-held territory.