On 15 March, several thousand people protested in the German city of Cologne against the recent massacres of members of the Alawite minority in Syria.
The agreement provides for the integration of the armed forces of the Syrian Democratic Forces and the de facto autonomous administration under its control with the Damascus regime. It is part of the efforts of US imperialism, together with Israel, to dominate the Middle East.
The killing of at least 745 civilians in massacres targeting the Alawite minority in Syria exposes the criminality of the NATO powers that support and legitimize the Islamist HTS regime.
The bitter experiences of the past century have proved that a progressive solution to the Kurdish question, which is intertwined with a deepening imperialist war in the Middle East and involves four countries in the region, cannot be found within the capitalist nation-state system.
The operation against the Peoples’ Democratic Congress, a coalition of nominally left parties led by the Kurdish Peoples' Equality and Democracy Party, is part of a much broader campaign of repression.
Imperialist and regional powers are helping the new regime gain international legitimacy by giving the impression that it has put its al-Qaeda past behind it, and they are also endeavouring to gain influence over the country.
Since the Islamist HTS militia seized power in Syria, reports of excessive violence and executions of members of religious minorities have increased.
Socialist Alternative’s Omar Hassan is roaming around al-Qaeda controlled Syria, presenting its imperialist-backed takeover as an exciting new stage in a “revolution.”
Only the inquiry team and representatives from the Ministry of Defence have been allowed to attend the closed hearings, preventing the lawyers for the bereaved families, the general public, and the press from observing the proceedings.
The new administration’s first visit to Ankara comes amid an intensifying struggle for the partition of Syria between the states behind the overthrow of the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad by jihadists led by the al-Qaeda-linked Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).
The appointment of trustees and other attacks on democratic rights by the government show that the renewed negotiations between Ankara and the PKK, which Ankara has been trying to suppress for 40 years, have nothing to do with the claim of “peace and democracy”.
The call, combined with various promises of economic and constitutional support to the Islamist regime led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, a former al-Qaida affiliate, demonstrates how the imperialist powers intend to use Syria’s regime change to step up their war on Russia and prepare an all-out conflict with Iran.
When Green foreign minister Annalena Baerbock presented her “Guidelines for a Feminist Foreign Policy” in March 2023, we wrote that this project, as absurd as it is reactionary, was “ultimately about enforcing geostrategic and economic interests.” If necessary, this would also be done in “close cooperation with the most reactionary regimes in the world.”
The US is building a new $1.2 billion fortified embassy on a 43-acre site near Beirut whose declared purpose is to counter the “Axis of Resistance”, meaning Iran. Its scale, out of all proportion to the country’s size, is indicative of US geo-political interests in Lebanon, with its strategic location and newly found sources of gas and oil under the eastern Mediterranean Sea.
After the jihadist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham took power in Syria, several attacks on the country’s Alawite and Christian minorities sparked mass protests.
Fidan’s visit is part of Ankara’s efforts to increase its influence over the future of Syria and the HTS leadership, and to eliminate the Washington-backed Kurdish forces.
Despite the rhetoric about a global war against Islamist terrorism, the US has long utilised reactionary Islamist groups in the Middle East and Asia. In Syria, it is partnering with a HTS regime that traces its roots directly to al-Qaeda.
The pseudo-left groups backed a war in which nearly 500,000 people lost their lives, nearly half of all the conflict-related deaths worldwide over the same period.
After the regime change in Damascus, while Israel was invading Syria and destroying its defense infrastructure, Blinken visited Turkey and Turkish intelligence chief Kalın went to Damascus to meet with HTS leader al-Jolani.
Politicians and media outlets of all stripes are celebrating the takeover of Damascus by Islamist militias, demanding a stronger role for German imperialism in Syria and throughout the region, and calling for the rapid return of refugees to the war-torn country now terrorized by Islamists close to Al-Qaeda.
