The world can see that the Islamic State (ISIS) is having the resurgence which the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) has warned of for a long time, but they are missing “one of the most important reasons: Turkey”, Nadine Maenza has said.
A recent article by VOA News focuses on the fact that “Slowly but surely, the Islamic State terror group seems to be regaining its footing in Syria, launching new and brazen attacks against forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad”.
VOA pointed to a recent report by the Counter Extremism Project (CEP), which lists at least 69 confirmed attacks by ISIS in central Syria last month.
For the AANES, Turkey’s role in the resurgence of ISIS seems clear. The administration has accused Turkey multiple times of deliberately destabilising the region with frequent drone strikes. The AANES has branded these actions as war crimes, especially amid ongoing operations against ISIS cells by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
Arguing that Turkey is unhappy with the progress the SDF has made, the AANES said, “these gains do not seem to please the powers supporting ISIS, specifically the Turkish state, hence the repeated targeting of our areas”.
Journalist Fehim Taştekin has pointed out that Turkey’s political landscape, shaped by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s ruling Justice and Development Party (AKP), has made the country the most accessible in the region for militants to freely enter, hide and operate, identifying the country as a major recruitment pool for ISIS.
Additionally, Turkey’s pro-Kurdish Peoples’ Equality and Democracy (DEM) Party has highlighted the Turkish government’s responsibility in exploiting ISIS against the Kurds in Rojava, especially following the attack in Moscow on 22 March.
On Saturday, ANHA reported that two members of the National Defence Forces and a Damascus government soldier were killed during an ISIS attack in Deir ez-Zor, Syria, the latest casualties caused by the extremist group.
As Maenza, Chair of United States Commission on International Religious Freedom, pointed out in her post on social media platform X, Turkey has already conducted 94 drone strikes in North and East Syria, also known as Rojava, in 2024, with 24 killed, which follows 198 strikes in 2023 with 105 killed. She argued that ISIS has benefited from this destabilisation in the region.
