In late July, it was announced that the US would be allowed to use Incirlik airbase in Turkey to conduct airstrikes against ISIS. This move came immediately after ISIS claimed responsibility for a bombing in Suruç, Turkey that killed 33 people. It has been widely reported that the US/Turkey deal also included a provision for some sort of safe zone, or ISIS-free, zone along the Turkish-Syrian border.
US officials have denied that this zone would be a true safe zone or no-fly zone, but rather that the US and Turkey would collaborate to clear a zone from ISIS control and look to man it with moderate opposition fighters. According to Foreign Policy, Turkish Foreign Minister Mevlut Cavusoglu has said that the zone will not be an official no-fly zone but will have US air support. President Erdoğan has stated that the zone could allow for 1.8 million Syrian refugees to be repatriated.
News sources are generally in agreement that the zone would extend west along the Syrian border from Jarablus on the Euphrates. Some reports state that the zone will extend as far as Marea, while others state that it will extend as far as A’zaz. The depth of the zone is less certain, but reports indicate that it will be 40-50 km deep. Assuming a depth of approximately 45 km, the zone would look like this if it extends to Marea:
Here is a larger zone extending to A’zaz:
The larger population centers, as well some towns and villages where fighting has recently taken place, are marked with pins. Those marked in black are under ISIS control and those in green are under rebel control. Zahraa, in red, is a Twelver Shiite, regime-controlled city, and Aleppo, in white, is under mixed rebel and regime control. It is worth noting that the eastern portion of the zone is sparsely populated, but Manbij and Al-Bab are larger cities, with populations of ~100,000 and approximately ~60,000, respectively. The Western part of the zone is more heavily cultivated and densely populated; whether the zone would contain the sizeable towns of A’zaz (population ~30,000) and Tel Rifat (population ~20,000) is an important question.
Below is a map of areas of control created by Dutch student Thomas van Linge and updated on August 18. I have overlayed a portion of the map onto a Google Earth view of the zone:
If the zone extends to Marea it will encompass almost entirely ISIS-held territory (shown in gray). Marea itself is under ISIS siege and is controlled by a mix of the FSA, the Islamic Front and Jaysh Al-Mujahideen. A’zaz is controlled by a mix of the FSA and the Islamic Front and Tel Rifat is controlled by a mix of the FSA, Jaysh Al-Mujahideen, the Islamic Front, Faylaq Al-Sham (also known as the Sham Legion–a group of moderate Islamists who have had ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, but are trying to distance themselves from it).
Andrea Taylor and Abigail Kukura have suggested that a coalition of rebels known as the Levant Front (or Jabhat al-Shamiyya) could be at least partially relied upon as a ground force to protect the zone. The Levant Front is an alliance between the Islamic Front (which includes Ahrar Al-Sham), Jaysh Al-Mujahideen, and three other Islamist rebel groups. Ahrar Al-Sham is a hardline Islamist group, that supports the creation of a Sunni Islamic theocracy in Syria. It coordinates tactically with the Nusra Front, but also works with more moderate and secular rebel groups. Ambassador Robert Ford and Ali El Yassir have argued that the US should open a dialogue with Ahrar Al Sham, because it is one of the most powerful rebel groups. Given the composition of rebel groups in the western portion of the zone, the US will be forced to cooperate with Ahrar Al Sham, at least indirectly through Turkey.
The zone has been the scene of significant fighting in the past few weeks. In the following maps, I have once again used Thomas van Linge’s map of areas of control, and marked the sites of recent clashes with red flames. I excluded clashes in Aleppo proper. I obtained information about these clashes primarily from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
There are four primary hotspots:
First, let’s zero-in on the clashes around Marea:
It appears that ISIS is trying to encircle the rebels in Marea. ISIS seized Um Hosh, south of Marea, on August 9 and Tlalin, north of Marea, on August 14. There were also ISIS attacks on the villages of Hawar Al-Nahr and Asunbul, east of Marea on August 16. There have been repeated clashes around Tel Maled, between Um Hosh and Marea. ISIS attacked Marea itself on August 11 and August 16, and has repeatedly shelled the city in recent days.
This area of fighting becomes even more interesting when we add coalition airstrikes to the map (marked by blue planes), reports of which I also obtained primarily from the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
It is clear that there has been tactical cooperation between the US-led coalition and the rebels fighting around Marea. The coalition carried out airstrikes in several areas where there have been clashes, including Um Hosh, Tel Maled, Hawar Al-Nahar and Sawran. The coalition carried out an airstrike on Tlalin on August 15, the day after ISIS seized it, which coincided with rebel shelling of the town. The coalition has also carried out airstrikes on the ISIS-controlled towns of Dabiq and Akhtarin.
Now let’s focus on the area near the Turkish border:
Around August 9, the Nusra Front withdrew from a few villages on the Turkish-Syrian border on its front with ISIS, including Harjale and Dahla. Nusra’s stated rationale was that it didn’t want to cooperate in any way with the US-Turkey safe zone initiative. However, Aaron Stein of Atlantic Council believes that Turkey pressured Ahrar Al-Sham of the Levant Front to push Nusra to withdraw. This, he claimed, would make it easier for the US to cooperate with the rebels in the area. Nusra ceded Harjale to the Levant Front, who took it over on August 9. In the following days, the Levant Front seized Karah Mazraa and a gas plant from ISIS. I marked what appeared to be the gas plant on the map.
These two areas provide a window into the challenges of protecting this zone. While the Levant Front has made some small gains along the Syrian-Turkish border, the rebels appear to be struggling to hold off the ISIS offensive around Marea after losing Um Hosh and Tlalin, despite Coalition airpower. This raises the question of what the US and Turkey plan to do to bolster these rebels, if they are indeed the rebels whom they envision being the main force in the area. If these rebels are struggling to hold Marea, how will they capture Dabiq, which ISIS will defend fiercely because of a prophecy that a Muslim victory at Dabiq will signal the coming of Judgement Day? In addition, how will they capture the much larger cities of Al-Bab and Manbij, deep in ISIS territory? In addition, there are reports that the US and Turkey intend to rely on Turkmen fighters trained in Turkey, which I will discuss further shortly.
Further complications are revealed when we examine the areas in which the rebels and the regime have been clashing closer to Aleppo City.
Both of these areas raise the question of how close the zone will come to regime-held areas in the Twelver Shiite cities of Zahraa and Nubl as well as to the regime-held areas just north of Aleppo city. The US has so far appeared keen to avoid direct confrontation with the Assad Regime, so it will have to tread lightly if it intends for cooperation with the rebels to extend this far south. On August 4, the regime shelled rebels in Kafr Naya, just south of Tel Rifat, which less than 25 kilometers from the Turkish border.
The ethnic composition of the zone further complicates matters. Here is an overlay using a map compiled by Michael Izady of Columbia University for the Gulf/2000 Project:
From this map, it is clear that the pre-war ethnic composition of the proposed zone was heterogeneous, though the degree to which the ethnic composition has shifted during the war is more difficult to determine. The western portion of the zone, which is currently under rebel control, is mainly Sunni Arab, with some Christians and Kurds near the northern outskirts of Aleppo, as well as some Circassians and Kurds north of A’zaz. The area under ISIS control is comprised of Bayat and Dulgadïr Turkmen in the northwest, Sunni Arabs in the northeast around Jarablus and in the southeast, and Kurds in most of the remaining area. There is also another pocket of Circassians around Manbij.
This map shows Al-Bab as Kurdish and Manbij as not containing Sunni Arabs, but other sources suggest otherwise. Kheder Khaddour and Kevin Mazur describe Al-Bab as a relatively homogenous Sunni Arab city, while Manbij is a mixed Arab, Kurdish and Circassian city with many Naqshbandi Sufi inhabitants. There are, however, certainly Kurds around the area of Al-Bab. The town of Qabasin (population ~11,000) is Kurdish, and ISIS kidnapped dozens of Kurds both there and in Al-Bab on August 16-17. Other similar incidents have ocurred in the past.
According to Al-Monitor, the Syrian Kurds tend to lay claim to all of the cities near the Syrian-Kurdish border, including Jarablus, Al-Bab, Manbij and A’zaz, viewing them as areas of historic Kurdistan. Regardless of the exact ethnic composition of Al-Bab and Manbij, it is clear that there are Kurds living in the eastern portion of the zone. Joint US-Turkish involvement in creating a zone that is not only ISIS-free but also YPG-free would almost certainly create tension betweem the US and the YPG, who have cooperated to defeat ISIS in Kobane and Tel Abyad.
The Turkmen, by contrast, will support the creation of the zone. The Turkmen have historically had close ties with Turkey and have been viewed with suspicion by both the Kurds and the Assad regime. While Izady’s map labels them as mainly Alevi, other sources state that they are mainly Sunni. It was reported in early July, long before the late August announcement of US-Turkish counter-ISIS cooperation that Turkmen from across Syria had met in Gaziantep, Turkey to plan for the creation of a joint Turkmen military force capable of confronting the YPG. The Turkmen have accused the YPG of ethnic cleansing and expulsion of Turkmen, especially around Tel Abyad. The joint Turkmen military force that the leaders envisioned was to contain 10,000 men, with the largest number in Aleppo province. The leader of the Turkmen National Assembly expressed concern that the YPG was planning to expand westward into Jarablus and A’zaz. It was also reported at that time that Turkey was providing special forces training to Turkmen units.
In recent days, Turkey has reportedly dispatched Turkmen fighters to the area around A’zaz, with reports that the US and Turkey planned to rely primarily on the Turkmen to create and protect the zone. There was preexisting tension between the YPG and the Turkmen around the area of A’zaz and the arrival of the Turkmen fighters has exacerbated those tensions. In addition to the Turkmen being used as a military force, Turkey is reportedly planning to train 1,500 to 2,000 Turkmen as police to patrol the zone. Given recent and historic tensions between the Turkmen and the Kurds/YPG, this reported joint US-Turkey plan to use the Turkmen as the primary force in the “safe” zone could create tensions with the indigenous Kurdish population, as well as tensions between the US and the YPG. Turkey’s motives for creating this zone have been much-debated. The use of the Turkmen to create and patrol this zone would reinforce those who claim that Turkey’s main motivation is to counter the YPG, rather than to counter ISIS.
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