A two-pronged advance to capture key urban strongholds of the Islamic State and its self-styled capital of Raqqa has underlined a quiet convergence of strategy between the U.S. and Russia to defeat the extremists, with Syria’s Kurds emerging as the common link.
The dual advance toward Raqqa by the Syrian army from the southwest and the predominantly Kurdish Syria Democratic Forces from the north and west puts further pressure on the militants as they fend off simultaneous attacks on bastions such as Fallujah, and potentially Mosul, in neighboring Iraq.
The Kurdish involvement is proving vital to the interests of Washington and Moscow.
For the U.S., the predominantly Kurdish SDF has proven the most capable actor in northern Syria in defeating the extremist group, a point it made when its predecessor, the Kurdish YPG, held off the militants in Kobani, in 2015. That battle was seen by many as a turning point in the war on ISIS.
For Russia, the SDF advance has drawn ISIS fighters away from the front with the Syrian government and allowed the Kremlin’s allies in Damascus to advance, showing that Moscow is participating in the battle against ISIS.
“In terms of direct coordination of activities on the ground, that is not happening,” Pentagon press secretary Peter Cook said. “I know there have been discussions about changing that, but at this point, our position is the same.”
Asked about it Monday, President Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters: “We exchange information with the United States on a daily basis, twice a day, that’s all I can say.”
U.S. officials have consistently said that there are frequent conversations about flight safety issues and daily phone line checks to make sure the two nations can communicate quickly when necessary.
Lina Khatib, head of the Middle East and North Africa program at the Chatham House think tank, said it was hard to imagine such dual attacks on ISIS happening without prior agreement between the U.S. and Russia. Cooperation between the two global powers, which back opposing sides of the war, has marked the Syrian conflict in recent years.
“The Syria Democratic Forces is playing a complementary role to the (Syrian) army, and that is the product of a military agreement between Russia and the U.S. that is translating into a division of labor between the two forces on the ground,” Khatib said.
Syria’s Kurds, who make up 10 percent of Syria’s prewar population of 23 million, have played an outsized role in the civil war, now in its sixth year. The U.S. has struggled from the beginning to find moderate, effective partners in the chaos of the conflict, the armed wing of the Kurdish PYD political party – has emerged as Washington’s most trusted associate.
The Syria Democratic Forces – a mixed-religion anti-ISIS coalition made up of Kurdish and Arab groups – is dominated by the YPG. The U.S. provides critical air support to the SDF, and hundreds of U.S. special operation forces help train the group. Russia has also offered support to the Kurds, partly to gain leverage over Turkey, which considers the PYD to be a terrorist group.
In a way, the situation is a bit similar to the offensive on Fallujah in Iraq, where the Iraqi army works alongside Shiite militias against ISIS.
Both the Syrian and Iraqi armies do not have the capacity to be the sole actors in the battle against ISIS.