QAMISHLI, Syria (North Press) – When it comes to the opinions about the northeast Syrian defense units known as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the Syrian regime, Turkey, and ISIS all have one thing in common: their vitriolic hatred for what they often describe, whether in a veiled or open manner, as a “Kurdish force.”
With tensions running high between the Syrian regime and the SDF in the cities of Qamishli and Hasakah since the beginning of 2021, this rhetoric has once again come to the forefront of many discussions about and accusations directed towards the SDF.
This conception of the SDF as a “Kurdish force” has spread far beyond the borders of propaganda by terror groups and dictatorial regimes, and has become a narrative used by even supposedly neutral analysts and news outlets. But is the SDF a Kurdish force?
“The Kurds will attack you, kidnap your children, and loot your houses.”
This is what ISIS told Ahmed al-Hassan about the SDF during the ISIS occupation of his home city of Raqqa, ISIS’ de facto capital during their takeover of large areas of Syria and Iraq.
These words sparked a kind of cautious curiosity in al-Hassan. Eventually, the SDF liberated his city and village, and al-Hassan, from the Arab al-Afadila clan in Raqqa, joined them in June 2017. Al-Hassan ended up joining and working with the SDF’s media group.
“All of what ISIS said before is now being said by pro-regime sheikhs of Hasakah – that these ‘Kurdish forces’ control Arab regions and implement demographic change,” he stated.
Al-Hassan further explained that Arabs are present in all civil and military institutions of the Autonomous Administration, in Raqqa’s Civil and Military Councils.
“I saw all of them on the battlefield; Muslims and Christians, Kurds and Assyrians, and their guns were all pointed in one direction – at ISIS,” he adds.
The numbers
The numbers don’t lie – the SDF is undoubtedly a multi-ethnic, Arab-majority force by almost every metric.
68.7% of the 391 respondents interviewed by American researcher Amy Austin Holmes during her 2019 survey of the SDF were Arabs, making them the clear majority within the force. Kurds comprised just over 17% of the respondents, and Christians made up 12.5%.*
Holmes recorded the representation of 46 different Arab tribes within the SDF, and over the course of her research has even encountered Arabs far from areas held by the SDF in northern and eastern Syria, from as far away as Aleppo and Homs.
Multi-ethnic roots and leadership
Arab and other non-Kurdish individuals have risen in the ranks of the SDF since its establishment, further countering the narrative that non-Kurdish fighters are relegated to low-ranking positions or cannon fodder.
One of the founders of the SDF, whose story has become almost a legend within the culture of northeast Syria, was himself of mixed Kurdish and Arab parentage. Kobani-born Faisal Sadoun, also known as Abu Leyla, was originally a commander in the Free Syrian Army fighting against the Islamic State and Syrian regime.
Having participated in anti-ISIS offensives in Tel Abyad, Hasakah, Ain Issa, Shaddadi, and Sarrin, he eventually went on to become one of the founders of both the SDF and the Manbij Military Council, and the operation against ISIS in Manbij was named in his honor after his death in action in June 2016.
The tradition of non-Kurds in leadership continues to today. The spokesperson of the Deir ez-Zor Military Council, Lilwa al-Abdullah, is an Arab woman and native of the region who joined the SDF in 2016, fighting in numerous battles against ISIS including Manbij, Raqqa, and Deir ez-Zor.
“There is no difference between Kurds, Arabs, or Assyrians,” al-Abdullah stated in a September 2020 interview with Holmes, in which she asked al-Abdullah about reports of the allegedly “Kurdish-dominated” SDF. “The ones who are mentioning this point are trying to create tension between us.”
Delegitimization and propaganda
If numbers and the words of the SDF’s own members discredit the narrative of the SDF as a Kurdish force, then why are so many regional actors stressing its supposedly “Kurdish” nature as a negative point?
War propaganda will always be utilized by every party to a conflict. However, it is alarming that the false narrative of the “Kurdish” SDF has seeped into discourse which is supposed to be factual and unbiased. France24 has referred to the SDF as a group of “mostly Kurdish” fighters, al-Jazeera has called the SDF a “Kurdish group,” al-Monitor described the SDF as “predominantly Kurdish.” Even Reuters and the German Deutsche Welle have referred to the SDF as “Kurdish.”
The use of this language does not always come from a place of ill intent; some may even be an attempt to highlight Kurdish efforts against the Islamic State or their autonomy within northeast Syria. However, even well-intentioned descriptions play into anti-SDF narratives, giving further ammunition to pro-regime and pro-Turkish-backed opposition figures to frame the Kurds as an interloping minority infringing on the rights of an Arab majority.
“I find it ironic that the Assad regime and Erdogan are both using similar kinds of rhetoric against the SDF by claiming that it’s a Kurdish force, or that it’s only Kurds in the SDF and YPG. In reality, it has been an Arab-majority force…for several years now,” Holmes added in a statement to North Press.
Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan played heavily on fear of “Kurdification” and Kurdish autonomy in Syria during the 2018 Turkish invasion and occupation of Syria’s Kurdish-majority Afrin. The Human Rights Organization – Afrin stated in a report that Kurds previously made up 97% of the population of Afrin, and the Washington Institute for Near East Policy described Afrin as “homogenously Kurdish.”
In his 2018 speech in Bursa, Erdogan claimed that 55% of Afrin’s population was Arab, adding that Turkey aimed to “give Afrin back to its rightful owners.” Turkish media frequently accuses the SDF and YPG of “Kurdifying” Syrian areas and oppressing Arab, Turkmen, Christian, or other ethnic and religious groups in Syria. A pro-Turkish state media puff piece on the Turkish occupation of Tel Abyad asserted that the Autonomous Administration taught classes to schoolchildren in Kurdish only, depriving Arab children of their education, despite the Autonomous Administration’s creation and implementation of a curriculum that teaches both Kurdish and Arabic to all children regardless of ethnicity.
By labelling the SDF as a Kurdish force, the Turkish authority is able to reject the assertions of Syrians of all ethnicities that the SDF is a representation of the Syrian mosaic and brand tens of thousands of non-Kurdish Syrians who have joined the SDF as Kurdish terrorists. In this scenario, Turkey can show itself as a savior for Arabs oppressed by a radical minority.
This propagandizing is not limited to the Turkish state; the Syrian regime also regularly posits the SDF and Autonomous Administration as a separatist entity while denying the long and detailed Kurdish history of Syria in order to stoke fears among Arab populations.
In a 2018 interview with Rossiya-24 network, Syrian President Bashar Assad stated that Kurds living in northern Syria were originally from Turkey, adding, “we are always positive towards the subject of Kurds. The so-called ‘Kurdish issue’ is not true but illusive and a lie.” Kurds were often marginalized in Syrian history, with a 1962 census depriving over 20% of the Kurdish population – many of whom had lived on Syrian soil from long before Syria was even a country – of their citizenship.
Amid recent tensions between the regime and SDF-affiliated Internal Security Forces (Asayish) in the cities of Hasakah and Qamishli, regime governor of Hasakah Ghassan Khalil said in a meeting with pro-regime Arab tribal leaders that the SDF is a “Kurdish force,” and asked, “How can Arabs be ruled by Kurds?”
This othering of Kurds and their portrayal as a foreign and distinctly non-Syrian entity, in recent years, as begun to spread into even writings and analyses by think tanks and observers of the Syrian conflict.
“I would encourage other analysts and observers to make sure they’re not inadvertently repeating that propaganda from Assad and Erdogan,” Holmes advises.
This inadvertent spread of propaganda amounts to tacit approval of Syrian regime and opposition forces’ tendency to “other” and exclude the SDF and the civilians that it protects in Syria, further depriving potentially millions of Syrians in SDF-held areas of having a voice and representation in the future of their country.
*These numbers are based on one survey of 391 individuals; internal statistics from the SDF are unavailable. Graphic is recreated with permission from the author. The 2019 survey of the SDF can be accessed here.