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By Arian Mufid:
When civil war broke out in Syria in 2011, the Assad Regime lost control over Syrians. The Kurdish area became an autonomous area of its own called Rojava which was founded in July 2012. The remainder of rebel-held areas were under the control of ISIS and similar organisations such as HST, Nusra and other Al-Qaeda adjacent groups. Rojava, meaning West in Kurdish, refers to the Kurdish-majority areas of northern and northeastern Syria. Its goals reflect liberation, socialism, direct democracy, gender equality, eco-socialism and federalization of Syria. Rojava has survived since 2012 with the help, from late 2014, of air cover from allied forces. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) were set up and supported by the US. The main ambition of ISIS in Syria was to dismantle SDF and build a Caliphate state. Their leader Al Baghdadi was killed by US forces but they struggled to eliminate ISIS without the help of the SDF. SDF forces comprised of Kurds and Arabs.
Rojava’s main enemy is Turkey because Turkey sees such a successful model of autonomy for Kurdish people in the western part of Kurdistan as a threat. Turkey has made several attempts to destroy Rojava since 2013. All these attempts have been documented by the Peoples Tribunal in Belgium in March 2025. Turkey has used several plans to bring down the hope and aspirations of Kurds for their independent state and self rule. Turkey held secret negotiations between Hakan Fidan, Head of MIT the Turkish intelligent services, President Erdogan and Al Qaeda forces of Ahmed Shibani and Ahmed Shariq in Idlib Syria. They decided to send $18 billion support for Syrian affiliated Al-Qaida forces to overthrow the Bashar Al Assad regime, on this one condition: that Turkey would be in full control of the new government, allowing Turkey to smash Rojava self rule. On December 8 ,2024 the Syrian Regime toppled by forces of Sharrah belonging to HTS. On 4th Jan 2026, the Syrian provisional government, with the help of the Turkish secret agency MIT, has launched ethnic cleansing style attacks similar to what happened in the former Yugoslavia, starting from Aleppo, in order to target the Kurds over the last several days. Although a ceasefire was declared on Tuesday, foreign observers’ predictions are not optimistic.
The betrayal of the Kurds goes back even further, to the Sykes-Picot agreement of May 1916, in which Britain and France redrew the map of the Middle East. As part of this imperialist scheme to divide the Ottoman Empire, the Kurdish homeland was carved into parts of what would become Turkey, Iraq, Syria, and Iran. The Kurds were left stateless, divided among British, French, and Russian spheres of influence. The agreement ignored Kurdish national aspirations entirely. Fearing Allied retribution for their perceived role in the Armenian genocide, and with no political allies, the Kurds found themselves isolated and vulnerable. For Britain, the Kurdish cause was not a priority especially in the face of appeasing central governments like those of Iraq, Iran, and Turkey.
Despite this, the Kurdish struggle for self-determination continued. On August 10, 1920, the Treaty of Sèvres acknowledged the desirability of a Kurdish homeland. Britain and France promised the full and final liberation of peoples oppressed by the Ottoman Empire, including the Kurds. Article 62 of Section III on Kurdistan empowered a commission composed of British, French, Italian, Persian, and Kurdish representatives to determine changes to Ottoman boundaries. However, this promise was never fulfilled. The Allied powers, especially Britain, abandoned Kurdish self-determination after World War I, prioritizing their colonial interests and the strategic value of the region.
When Iraq became an official state in 1932 under British mandate, the Kurds were again used as pawns in regional politics. The British deliberately maintained a complex stance: on one hand, acknowledging Kurdish concerns, but on the other, consistently favoring Iraq’s territorial integrity under British influence. This position continues on. In the 2017 Kurdish independence referendum, Britain refused to support full Kurdish independence, reaffirming its commitment to a federal Iraq.
The Kurdish movement continues as aspirations for Kurdish self rule are crushed by Ex Al Qaeda affiliated groups of the new Syrian state and their leader. Kurds in Rojava have been stung following abandonment by the US administration, who have supported Rojava for the last eleven years and now they’ve been left at the mercy of the Syrian state which is backed by Turkey. Rojava has protected the Western world from the criminal thugs of ISIS. It is the moral obligation of the Western world to protect Rojava from the attacks by Syrian Army forces affiliated with HTS and Al Qaeda.
