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Source: https://www.jpost.com/middle-east/article-884284
Syrian Government Offensive Threatens Pro-West Kurds with Large-Scale Massacre
(Jerusalem Post) Jonathan Spyer - The Syrian Kurds have found themselves abruptly plunged into a war for survival. The Syrian government of President Ahmed Sharaa is very clearly set on creating a centralized, authoritarian, Sunni Islamist regime, under the tutelage of Turkey and with the support of Qatar and Saudi Arabia. This project ruled out any acquiescence to the continued existence of the secular, West-oriented, Kurdish-led autonomous zone. What had held the Syrian government in check until now was a tacit U.S. guarantee to the Kurds. Once that disappeared, an offensive soon followed. Ilham Ehmed, a top Kurdish official, said, "Footage seen in recent days has...[shown that] Damascus's forces have decapitated women - both fighters and civilians." I have seen the footage. It includes the dreadful desecration of corpses, the harassment and tormenting of female prisoners, and that efforts to behead Kurdish women have taken place. We have this footage because the jihadi perpetrators are proud of it and place it online. So the Syrian Kurds, who fought and defeated the Islamic State a decade ago, are now mobilized in their heartlands and prepared for a new jihadi assault, this time carrying the banners of the internationally recognized authorities in Damascus. Government forces, equipped with tanks and artillery and accompanied by a tribal Islamic horde, are waiting at the edge of Kurdish-majority Hasakeh province. The urgent question now is whether the assumption by the Damascus authorities of rule over northeastern Syria can be achieved without a large-scale massacre with which the authorities in Damascus have increasingly become associated.