Currents News Staff
In Kobani, the graves of Kurdish fighters are still fresh.
Twenty-seven-year-old Mahmoud Rasool was killed less than two weeks ago in an ISIS ambush near the town of Deir Ezzour.
These are the people left behind to mourn. Now they are bracing for the moment they will be left behind again, as the U.S. begins to withdraw its forces from Syria.
“They got what they wanted. They used the Kurds to get rid of ISIS and now they’re leaving us,” said Najma Rasool, the mother of the deceased Kurdish fighter. “America was supposed to have our back,” she added.
Almost every family in this town has lost someone in this war and the very real fear here now is that when the Americans leave, there will be war here once again.
Just across the border is Turkey, which views the Syrian Kurds as terrorists. To the west, is the brutal regime of Bashar Al Assad and its Russian and Iranian backers.
Kurdish military commander Sharfan Darwish says the Americans provided the Kurds with a buffer – in return, the Kurds took the fight to ISIS.
“After all those years that we fought terrorism together, it is their minimum duty to help guarantee our security,” said Darwish.
After an exhausting battle against ISIS, the Kurds may have to defend themselves against more powerful enemies, alone.