New Batch of US-backed Forces Finish Border Training in Northern Syria

By Rikar Hussein, Zana Omar January 22, 2018

The U.S.-led coalition fighting Islamic State in Syria concluded a training course for 500 members of the Syrian Democratic Forces this week. The goal is to prepare them to protect their borders after the removal of IS in northern Syria.

Without giving a timetable, Kurdish commanders at the training camp in the northern Syrian city of Hasakah told VOA the new graduates will join a 30,000-strong border army that the coalition announced it would form last week.

"All borders of Syria should be protected by the people of Syria, and this force takes on itself that responsibility," Kani Ahmed, a Kurdish commander of the Syrian Democratic Forces, told VOA.

Ahmed, dressed in a green uniform bearing the image of a red star with the words YPG – signifying the People's Protection Units, the Syrian Kurdish armed group with whom Turkey says it is at war – said this week's training was the second effort in preparing new fighters. Another group of 500 men received their training in late December.

The men will be deployed to the northern Syrian towns of Kobani, Tal Abyad and Suluk along the border with Turkey, Ahmed said.

"The force consists of all Syrian components, including Kurds, Arabs and Chaldeans," he told VOA. "Our objective is to protect Syrian borders wherever we can reach."

The announcement by the U.S.-led coalition last week to form the controversial border force infuriated Turkish officials, who accused Washington of creating an "army of terror" along their border with Syria.

The announcement followed a Turkish cross-border military intervention Saturday on the Kurdish enclave of Afrin.

Turkey considers the Kurdish-led YPG, the backbone of the SDF, a terrorist organization. Turkey alleges the group is an extension of the Kurdish separatists inside Turkey, known as the PKK, which is designated a terrorist organization by both the U.S. and the EU.

But Washington rejects Turkey's claims and considers the YPG a key ally in fighting IS.

A VOA reporter who visited the schoolyard training site for the new border force in southern Hasakah this week was told by Kurdish commanders that the training was supervised by the U.S.-led coalition.

WATCH: Graduation Ceremony Takes Place in Hasakah

Izet Omer, one of the graduates of a training program in the city of Kobani, told VOA his training was directed by American commanders stationed in Syria as a part of coalition's anti-IS operation.

"We are very happy that America is supporting us, and we hope they increase this type of support," Omer said, as he was celebrating his graduation.

American military supervisors in the camp declined to be interviewed.

Another graduate, Adhem Heyder, told VOA that the training included instructions on how to entrench along border points and prevent cross-border infiltration.

"They instructed us on how to dig trenches and how to expel the enemy from a trench," Heyder said. "They also trained us on how to move in convoys along the border and how to retreat with minimum loss when the enemy attacks."

Erdogan's threat

Last week, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan threatened to "strangle" the U.S.-backed force "before it's even born."

In an effort to calm tensions with Turkey, U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, in an apparent about-face last Wednesday, said the U.S. had no intention of building a border force, adding that the issue was "misportrayed."

"That entire situation has been misportrayed, misdescribed. Some people misspoke. We are not creating a border security force at all," he said while traveling back to Washington after hosting a meeting on North Korea in Canada.

"I think it's unfortunate that comments made by some left that impression. That is not what we're doing."

But U.S. assurance has failed to convince Turkey, which along with its allied members of the Free Syrian Army, continues its offensive in Afrin for a third day.