Tuesday, October 8, 2019

Here's Who Controls Syria Now

Skye Gould/Business Insider

Business Insider: A brutal dictator, warring US partners, and a former al-Qaeda branch: Here's who controls Syria now

* Who controls which parts of Syria has changed dramatically since the civil war began in 2011.
* While Kurdish forces control a large swath of northeastern Syria, a Turkish incursion threatens to change that.
* Syrian President Bashar Assad, who used chemical weapons against his own people, now controls about half the country.

Since the Syrian civil war started in 2011, who controls what parts of the country has changed dramatically.

President Donald Trump's abrupt decision to pull US forces from Kurdish-controlled areas in northeastern Syria, which Turkey threatens to invade, cast renewed attention on Syria's territorial divisions.

As of October, Kurdish forces, loosely allied under the banner of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), control much of northeastern Syria, from the northern border with Turkey, encompassing the former ISIS capital in the city of Raqqa, south to al-Qaim on the Syria-Iraq border, as well as a bit of territory in western Syria, north of Aleppo.

Read more ....

WNU Editor: The Syrian regime's control on much of the country is tenuous at best. The Kurds do not have the manpower or resources to control eastern Syria. Turkey is saying they are going to intervene in northeastern Syria. If they do, this map is going to change once again.

2 comments:

Andrew Jackson said...

I thought the war was over.

Bob Huntley said...

As the saying goes "it is not over until the fat lady sings".

Unfortunately, that fat lady is long dead and can no longer sing, so the wars just keep going on, until, as in the case of Vietnam, the other side wins.