Jared Szuba traveled to northern Syria at the end of 2018 to report on the situation in Rojava, the Kurdish name for majority-Kurdish lands in northern Syria. Kurds have made up the backbone of the Syrian Democratic Forces, Washington’s local partner in the fight against Islamic State in northern Syria. The SDF has borne the brunt of the casualties in the Coalition’s battles against ISIS.
While awaiting permission to enter Syria, U.S. President Donald Trump announced that he was pulling U.S. troops from the country, leaving Washington’s Kurdish allies stranded.
In a series of interviews conducted across northern Syria, senior figures in the local administration dismayed at Trump's decision said they are willing to engage in talks with all parties to prevent an imminent Turkish military incursion into northern Syria because the U.S. has yet to offer any diplomatic proposals to resolve the crisis.
The U.S. does have a plan to negotiate a peace deal between Syrian allies and Ankara, but no one has told Syrian Democratic leaders, who were left on their own to stave off a host of predatory neighbors as Washington went on Christmas break.
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