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Between the PYD and the Islamic State: The Complex Role of Non-state Actors in Syria

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Abstract

The popular uprising in Syria against the Assad regime started as a popular, cross-sectarian, leaderless, and non-violent movement for freedom and dignity. As time went on, domestic and regional dynamics provoked the gradual militarization of the conflict, turning the non-violent movement into a civil war and finally into a regional/international proxy war. Syria became divided into spheres of influence dominated by warlords and militias, among which two non-state actors acquired substantial prominence and challenged their non-state nature by establishing some form of authority in the areas they managed to control: one is the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (PYD), with its armed wing, the People’s Protection Units (YPG) and the other is the now formally extinct self-declared Islamic State/Islamic Caliphate (Daesh). The aim of this chapter is to compare how, despite their differences, both non-state militant actors played a prominent role in creating State-like entities, competing among them and increasing the complexity of the conflict.

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Notes

  1. 1.

    Özden Zeynep Oktav, Emel Parlar dal, and Ali Murat Kurşun, eds., Violent Non-State Actors and the Syrian Civil War: The ISIS and YPG Cases (London: Springer International Publishing, 2018), 1.

  2. 2.

    Daphné Josselin and William Wallace, “Non-State Actors in World Politics: A Framework,” in Non-State Actors in World Politics, ed. Daphné Josselin and William Wallace (New York: Palgrave, 2001), 1–20; Andrew Clapham, “Non-State Actors,” in Post-Conflict Peacebuilding: A Lexicon, ed. Vincent Chetail (New York: Oxford University Press, 2009), 200–212.

  3. 3.

    Stephen M. Walt, “ISIS as Revolutionary State: New Twist on an Old Story,” Foreign Affairs, December 2015, 42; Mehmet Gurses, “Transnational Ethnic Kin and Civil War Outcomes,” Political Research Quarterly 68, no. 1 (March 2015): 142–53, https://doi.org/10.1177/1065912914554042; and Ekaterina A. Stepanova, Terrorism in Asymmetric Conflict: Ideological and Structural Aspects (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008), 39–40.

  4. 4.

    Abu Bakr Al-Naji, “Idarat Al-Tawahhush (in Arabic),” accessed September 6, 2019, https://www.cia.gov/library/abbottabad-compound/20/207DE0C1094BC68A7061C96629DD5C1A_adara_twahsh.pdf. According to Al-Arabiya Institute for Studies, this author’s real identity is Muhammad Khalil al-Hakaymah, author of several books and pamphlets on jihad.

  5. 5.

    Yassin al-Haj Saleh, “Tabaqat Daesh (in Arabic),” Al-Jumhuriya, February 12, 2016, https://www.aljumhuriya.net/ar/content/%D8%B7%D8%A8%D9%82%D8%A7%D8%AA-%D8%AF%D8%A7%D8%B9%D8%B4.

  6. 6.

    Akın Ünver, “Contested Geographies: How ISIS and YPG Rule ‘No-Go’ Areas in Northern Syria,” in Violent Non-State Actors and the Syrian Civil War: The ISIS and YPG Cases, ed. Özden Zeynep Oktav, Emel Parlar Dal, and Ali Murat Kurşun (London: Springer International Publishing, 2018), 40.

  7. 7.

    For example, in March 2016, Mansour Salloum, original co-president of Tell Abyad, was elected to lead the Rojava Constituent Assembly.

  8. 8.

    Ghadi Sary, “Kurdish Self-Governance in Syria: Survival and Ambition,” Research Paper (London: Chatham House, September 2016), 13, https://www.chathamhouse.org/sites/default/files/publications/research/2016-09-15-kurdish-self-governance-syria-sary_0.pdf.

  9. 9.

    Ünver, “Contested Geographies,” 40.

  10. 10.

    Rostom Mahmoud, “Al-Inqisam Wa Masirat al Taharrur Fi l Wijdan al Kurdi al Mu’asir (in Arabic),” Al-Jumhuriya, January 20, 2016, https://www.aljumhuriya.net/ar/34490.

  11. 11.

    Yassin Al Haj Saleh, Al-thawra al-mustahila: al-thawra, al-harb al-ahliya wa al-harb al-amma fi Suriya (in Arabic) (Beirut: Al-mu’assasa al-arabiya li-l-dirasat wa-l-nashr, 2017), 271–86.

  12. 12.

    Willian Graham Elphinston, “The Kurdish Question,” International Affairs (Royal Institute of International Affairs) 22, no. 1 (1946): 100, https://doi.org/10.2307/3017874.

  13. 13.

    Elphinston, 100.

  14. 14.

    Cecil J. Edmonds, “Kurdish Nationalism,” Journal of Contemporary History 6, no. 1 (1971): 103; Elphinston, “The Kurdish Question,” 100–103.

  15. 15.

    A few years after most Arab countries achieved their Independence from the French and the English metropolis, the regimes that came to power had a nationalist character, reinforced by Nasser’s rising star and experiences like the United Arab Republic between Syria and Egypt, which lasted between 1958 and 1961.

  16. 16.

    Edmonds, “Kurdish Nationalism,” 103 This was the result of a tricky census carried out in 1962, which deprived a large number of Kurdish citizens from their nationality. As a result, they became either ajanib (foreigners) or maktumeen (non-existent, concealed), without rights.

  17. 17.

    Kevin Mazur and Kheder Khaddour, “The Struggle for Syria’s Regions,” Middle East Report, no. 269 (Winter 2013): 5.

  18. 18.

    Naomí Ramírez Díaz and Imanol Ortega Expósito, “Relaciones sirio-turcas: la fallida política exterior de Turquía para Oriente Medio,” Revista de historia actual 3, no. 2 (2016): 311–50.

  19. 19.

    Saleh, Al-thawra al-mustahila: al-thawra, al-harb al-ahliya wa al-harb al-amma fi Suriya (in Arabic), 216–17.

  20. 20.

    “Syria’s Kurds: A Struggle within a Struggle,” Middle East & North Africa (Brussels: International crisis group, January 22, 2013), 12, https://d2071andvip0wj.cloudfront.net/syrias-kurds-a-struggle-within-a-struggle.pdf.

  21. 21.

    Al-Qadiyya al-Kurdiyya: Ru’yat Jama’at al-Ikhwan al-Muslimin Fi Suriya (in Arabic) (London, 2005).

  22. 22.

    Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, Mithaq Watani Li-Mu’ajahat Taqsim Suriya (Istanbul, 2017).

  23. 23.

    “Syria’s Kurds,” 9.

  24. 24.

    In an early study of the situation in Syria in 2011, a Kurdish interviewee explained the following: “Kurds started demonstrating quite early because they wanted to prove to the Arabs that they are not separatist and that this country is a country for all, and that all Syrians, be they Kurds, Arabs, Muslims, Christians, Assyrians or whatever, are one body, one flesh, in a united Syria.” In Naomí Ramírez Díaz, “The Syrian Revolution through the Eyes of the Demonstrators,” Working Paper (Toledo International Center for Peace (CITpax), 2011), 15.

  25. 25.

    “Syria’s Kurds,” 17–18.

  26. 26.

    “Syria’s Kurds,” 11.

  27. 27.

    This news piece sums up all the points and delivers similar numbers, among others, by Amnesty International: Dahi Hassan, “Syrian Kurds in the Hope to Regain Their Citizenship,” BBC News (Arabic), January 27, 2011, https://www.bbc.com/arabic/middleeast/2011/04/110401_syria_kurds.

  28. 28.

    Interestingly, Jalal Talabani urged the Kurds not to conflate the fight for their legitimate rights with the dream of a Great Kurdistan: “This is a regime that has repressed you for 40 years, you tell me? Then why is it only now that you wish to rise? Listen carefully, you as Syrian Kurds have rights within the Syrian state that you need to fight for, you must go back now and work on getting them, but you must not confuse that with our dream of greater Kurdistan.” On the contrary, Masoud Barzani, president of the Kurdish Region in northern Iraq, “strongly backed the Syrian opposition, in alliance with Turkey.” See Sary, “Kurdish Self-Governance in Syria,” 7–8.

  29. 29.

    Mazur and Khaddour, “The Struggle for Syria’s Regions,” 6–7.

  30. 30.

    According to the US Department of State, an “ungoverned space” is a place where the state or the central government is unable or unwilling to extend control, effectively govern, or influence the local population, and where a provincial, local, tribal, or autonomous government does not fully or effectively govern, due to inadequate governance capacity, insufficient political will, gaps in legitimacy, the presence of conflict, or restrictive norms of behaviour. Many times, like in this case, there is some form of symbiosis between the non-State actors and the State and, the former can provide local security, and garbage disposal, whereas a state can still be providing electricity.

  31. 31.

    Sary, “Kurdish Self-Governance in Syria,” 16.

  32. 32.

    “Charter of the Social Contract. Self-Rule in Rojava,” January 29, 2014, https://peaceinkurdistancampaign.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/english-version_sc_revised-060314.pdf.

  33. 33.

    Sary, “Kurdish Self-Governance in Syria,” 17.

  34. 34.

    “Syria’s Kurds,” 32.

  35. 35.

    “Syria’s Kurds,” 37. Yet again, the rejection of foreign intervention is problematic here.

  36. 36.

    “Syria’s Kurds,” 40.

  37. 37.

    Abdullah Öcalan, Democratic Confederalism (London: Transmedia Publishing Limited, 2011), 11.

  38. 38.

    “Syria’s Kurds,” 13, 19.

  39. 39.

    This is a good way of showing their alterity with Daesh, where women’s role remains behind the scenes, and they are viewed as devoted mothers and wives.

  40. 40.

    Some of the alleged brigades inspired by the International Brigades of the Spanish Civil War are the International Freedom Battalion (Tabûra Azadî ya Înternasyonal‎) and the Lions of Rojava. The first claim to be fighting both against Daesh and Assad, whereas the second focus on Daesh.

  41. 41.

    Doruk Ergun, “External Actors and VNSAs: An Analysis of the United States, Russia, ISIS, and PYD/YPG,” in Violent Non-State Actors and the Syrian Civil War: The ISIS and YPG Cases, ed. Özden Zeynep Oktav, Emel Parlar Dal, and Ali Murat Kurşun (London: Springer International Publishing, 2018), 149–72.

  42. 42.

    Fadel al-Homsi, “Hal Yatahaqqaq Al-Hulm al-Kurdi Fi Suria? (in Arabic),” Al-Jumhuriya, February 1, 2017, https://www.aljumhuriya.net/ar/content/%D9%87%D9%84-%D9%8A%D8%AA%D8%AD%D9%82%D9%82-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AD%D9%84%D9%85-%D8%A7%D9%84%D9%83%D8%B1%D8%AF%D9%8A-%D9%81%D9%8A-%D8%B3%D9%88%D8%B1%D9%8A%D8%A7%D8%9F.

  43. 43.

    Al-Naji, “Idarat Al-Tawahhush (in Arabic)” explains in his book the ways in which the Umma needs to be ruled as a pre-step to the full establishment of an IS.

  44. 44.

    Mohammad-Mahmoud Ould Mohamedou, A Theory of ISIS: Political Violence and the Global Order (London: Pluto Press, 2018), 90; See also Michael Weiss and Hassan Hassan, ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror (London: Regan Arts, 2015).

  45. 45.

    Ould Mohamedou, A Theory of ISIS, 89.

  46. 46.

    Dabiq, a small town in northern Syria, is, according to Prophetic tradition, the place where the final battle between Islam and disbelief will take place. In fact, Daesh named its now defunct magazine after this town. Nevertheless, its control over the town did not last long and it eventually retreated.

  47. 47.

    Ould Mohamedou, A Theory of ISIS, 97.

  48. 48.

    Ould Mohamedou, 98.

  49. 49.

    Naomí Ramírez Díaz, The Muslim Brotherhood in Syria: The Democratic Option of Islamism, 1 (London: Routledge, Taylor & Francis Group, 2018), 49–75.

  50. 50.

    Fidaa Itani, Al-Jihadiyun Fi Lubnan: Min Quwat al-Fajr Ila Fath al-Islam (in Arabic) (Beirut: Dar al-Saqi, 2008).

  51. 51.

    The story of the three “friends of Sednaya,” featuring prominent Islamist brigades’ leaders explains how Assad resorted to Salafi jihadis in Syrian prisons to make his prophecy a self-fulfilled one. Basel al-Junaidy, “Qissat ‘Asdiqa Sednaya al-Thalatha’: Aqwa Thalathat Rijal Fi Suriya al-Yawm! (in Arabic),” Al-Jumhuriya, October 16, 2013, https://www.aljumhuriya.net/ar/19328.

  52. 52.

    Weiss and Hassan, ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror, 112–13.

  53. 53.

    Mónica G. Prieto and Javier Espinosa, La Semilla Del Odio: De La Invasión de Irak al Surgimiento Del ISIS (Madrid: Penguin Random House Grupo Editorial España, 2017), 417, 472–73.

  54. 54.

    al-Haj Saleh, “Tabaqat Daesh (in Arabic).”

  55. 55.

    Loubna Mrie, “Where Are the Syrians Kidnapped by ISIS?,” The Nation, March 9, 2018, https://www.thenation.com/article/where-are-the-syrians-kidnapped-by-isis/.

  56. 56.

    Aymeen Al-Tamimi, “The Evolution in Islamic State Administration,” Perspectives on Terrorism 9, no. 4 (2015), http://www.terrorismanalysts.com/pt/index.php/pot/article/view/447/html.

  57. 57.

    Al-Tamimi, 411.

  58. 58.

    The usually praised Sahwa in Iraq was not a mere insurrection against the so-called IS in Iraq: many of its integrants were former members of jihadi groups in the country who had opted for a full aesthetic shift. Prieto and Espinosa, La Semilla DePrieto and Espinosa, La Semilla Del Odio, 411.

  59. 59.

    Naomí Ramírez Díaz, “Against All Odds: Defining a Revolutionary Identity in Syria,” in Mediated Identities and New Journalism in the Arab World, ed. Azi Douai and Mohamed Ben Moussa (London: Palgrave, 2016), 83–99; Ünver, “Contested Geographies,” 40.

  60. 60.

    Al-Tamimi, “The Evolution in Islamic State Administration.”

  61. 61.

    Weiss and Hassan, ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror, 162.

  62. 62.

    See Ramírez Díaz, The Muslim Brotherhood in Syria.

  63. 63.

    al-Haj Saleh, “Tabaqat Daesh (in Arabic).”

  64. 64.

    Even if Sunni Muslims in Syria are the least cohesive social sector.

  65. 65.

    Gurses, “Transnational Ethnic Kin and Civil War Outcomes,” 143.

  66. 66.

    Weiss and Hassan, ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror, 158.

  67. 67.

    Weiss and Hassan, ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror.

  68. 68.

    “The Financing of the ‘Islamic State’ in Iraq and Syria (ISIS),” In-Depth Analysis (European Parliament, September 2017), http://www.europarl.europa.eu/RegData/etudes/IDAN/2017/603835/EXPO_IDA(2017)603835_EN.pdf.

  69. 69.

    Fred Abraham and Lama Faki, “Under Kurdish Rule: Abuses in PYD-Run Enclaves in Syria” (Human Rights Watch, 2014), https://www.hrw.org/sites/default/files/reports/syria0614_kurds_ForUpload.pdf; “Syria: ‘We Had Nowhere to Go’—Forced Displacement and Demolitions in Northern Syria” (Amnesty International, October 13, 2015), https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/mde24/2503/2015/en/; International, “Syria: ‘Left to Die under Siege’: War Crimes and Human Rights Abuses in Eastern Ghouta, Syria” (Amnesty International, August 12, 2015), https://www.amnesty.org/en/documents/mde24/2079/2015/en/; and International, “Syria: Harrowing Torture, Summary Killings in Secret ISIS Detention Centers,” Amnesty International, December 19, 2013, https://www.amnesty.org/en/latest/news/2013/12/syria-harrowing-torture-summary-killings-secret-isis-detention-centres/.

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Ramírez Díaz, N. (2020). Between the PYD and the Islamic State: The Complex Role of Non-state Actors in Syria. In: Amour, P. (eds) The Regional Order in the Gulf Region and the Middle East. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-45465-4_10

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