REUTERS/Rodi Said





An unknown number of U.S. special operations forces have surfaced in a Kurdish-controlled city in northern Syria near the Turkish border as the U.S.-led coalition struggles to prevent the war against ISIS from escalating into a full-blown regional conflict, Military Times reports.

A video posted to social media by @AfarinMamosta, an avid chronicler of the Syrian civil war with a large Twitter following, on June 28 appears to shows American troops in Tal Abyad, a city held by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units, or YPG, since the militia seized it from ISIS with the help of coalition airstrikes in 2015.

In the video, U.S. troops are driving machine gun-mounted pick-up trucks, or technicals, affixed with large American flags. Their arrival coincides with an uptick in cross-border skirmishes between the YPG and Turkish troops who have been amassing in northern Syria over the past week, joined by proxy forces fighting under the banner of the Free Syrian Army.

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U.S. forces tour the SDF-held town of Tal Abyad. pic.twitter.com/A1WKdzr6pE

Both the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights and a spokesperson for the YPG told Military Times that there has been shelling in the area in recent days.

“This is a response to the Turkish forces who want to enter this area,” a man in the video says, presumably referring to the arrival of the American troops.

The Turkish government considers the YPG a terrorist organization and, despite their status as a key NATO ally in the region, Turkish forces now seem more focused on fighting the Kurds than on contributing to the campaign to destroy ISIS, which entered a crucial phase three weeks ago when coalition-backed local forces, including members of the YPG and its all-female wing, the YPJ, entered the terrorist stronghold of Raqqa.

As the fight in Raqqa rages on, it’s becoming increasingly clear that not all of the major players in the Syrian Civil War, which erupted from a peaceful protest movement in 2011, see the defeat of ISIS as their primary goal. In southern Syria, along the border of Iraq and Jordan, Iranian-backed militants loyal to the regime of Bashar al-Assad have repeatedly tested the deconfliction zones surrounding the Tanf Garrison, which houses anti-ISIS Syrian fighters and their U.S. and British advisors, each time eliciting a swift and brutal response from the coalition.

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Meanwhile, the Trump administration’s recent decision to arm the YPG threatens to create similar tension between Turkey and the Kurds in the north of the country. That decision has frayed Washington’s relationship with Ankara, and seems to have added more urgency to Turkey’s ultimate mission of preventing an autonomous Kurdish state from being established just south of its border. The Turkish government considers the YPG an extension of the Kurdish PKK, an organization designated a terrorist group by the United States, the European Union, and Ankara. The PKK has been waging an insurgency in southeastern Turkey for decades.

Whether a small number of U.S. troops is enough to deter Turkish forces from entering Tal Abyad and the surrounding region remains to be seen, but so far efforts to quell Turkey’s fears through diplomatic means have proved futile. When coalition officials offered a weak pledge to track and eventually take back all of the weapons doled out to the YPG, Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan responded: “The ones who think they are tricking Turkey by saying they are going to get back the weapons that are being given to this terrorist organization will realize that they are making a mistake eventually.”