Arab Tribal Fighters vs. The Syrian Democratic Forces: Interview

While it seemed that the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) had suppressed the tribal uprising in the SDF-controlled territories in the eastern Syrian province of Dayr al-Zur last autumn, the roots of local disillusionment and opposition to the SDF remained unaddressed, and in recent days there has been a notable uptick in tribal insurgent activity against the SDF in those regions.

Some supporters of maintaining SDF control over the region continue to hold that the uprising is not genuinely local but is rather some sort of conspiracy engineered by the Syrian government and Iran. It may be true that the Syrian government and Iran have provided support to these tribal insurgents, and some participating and supporting the uprising may be supportive of the Syrian government and Iran, but that does not mean the uprising is not genuinely local. For comparison, few would deny that there has been extensive foreign involvement in supporting the insurgency against the Syrian government that broke out in 2011. However, that foreign involvement does not mean that the insurgency did not have genuine local roots, or that the original grievances were fake or manufactured.

Portraying the events as a conspiracy deflects from the deficiencies and problems in the SDF administration, which is still fundamentally dominated by cadres linked to the Kurdistan Workers Party. By not addressing local disaffection, the SDF has surely alienated people who might otherwise provide local intelligence to suppress Islamic State insurgent activity, which has certainly increased to some extent over the past year or so in SDF-held areas.

In addition, the portrayal of the uprising as a Syrian government/Iranian conspiracy is at odds with messaging being conveyed by at least some of the participants in the uprising, who actually highlight a connection with the original ‘revolution’ and the old ‘Free Army.’ Below is an interview conducted today with a media activist running one of the more prominent Telegram channels covering the “Forces of the Clans and the Tribes”- a general moniker applied to the tribal insurgents fighting the SDF. Any parenthetical insertions in square brackets are my own.

Q: It seemed that the SDF had eliminated the tribal revolution last year, but the revolution has arisen again.

A: The revolution did not end since it broke out last year on 28 August.

Q: Which tribes are participating in the revolution?