Syrian Democratic Forces


The Syrian Democratic Forces ; Hêzên Sûriya Demokratîk is an alliance in the Syrian Civil War composed primarily of Kurdish, Arab, and Assyrian/Syriac militias, as well as some smaller Armenian, Turkmen and Chechen forces. The SDF is militarily led by the People's Protection Units, a mostly Kurdish militia. Founded in October 2015, the SDF states its mission as fighting to create a secular, democratic and decentralized Syria. The updated December 2016 constitution of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria names the SDF as its official defence force.
The primary opponents of the SDF are the various Islamist and Arab nationalist rebel groups involved in the civil war, in particular the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant, the Turkish-backed Free Syrian Army, al-Qaeda affiliates, Turkey and their allies. The SDF has focused primarily on the Islamic State, successfully driving them from important strategic areas, such as Al-Hawl, Shaddadi, Tishrin Dam, Manbij, al-Tabqah, Tabqa Dam, Baath Dam, and ISIL's former capital of Raqqa. In March 2019, the SDF announced the total territorial defeat of the Islamic State in Syria, with the SDF taking control of the last stronghold in Baghuz.
Since the defeat of the Islamic State, the SDF has increasingly been involved with combating the growing Turkish occupation of northern Syria.

Establishment

Foundation

The establishment of the SDF was announced on 11 October 2015 during a press conference in al-Hasakah. The alliance built on longstanding previous cooperation between the founding partners. While the People's Protection Units and the Women's Protection Units had been operating throughout the regions of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, the other founding partners were more geographically focused.
Geographically focused on the Euphrates Region were the YPG's partners in the Euphrates Volcano joint operations room, several mainstream Syrian rebel factions of the Free Syrian Army, who had helped defend the Kurdish town of Kobanî during the Siege of Kobanî. Liwa Thuwwar al-Raqqa was also in Euphrates Volcano, and it was expelled by the al-Nusra Front and ISIL from the city of Raqqa for being allied with the YPG since April 2014. The group participated in the capture of Tell Abyad from the Islamic State.
Geographically focused on the Jazira Region in northeast Syria were the Assyrian Syriac Military Council and the al-Sanadid Forces of the Arab Shammar tribe, both of whom had cooperated with the YPG in fighting ISIL since 2013. The MFS is further politically aligned with the YPG via their shared secular ideology of democratic confederalism, which in the Assyrian community is known as the Dawronoye movement.
Geographically focused on the Manbij Region was the Army of Revolutionaries, itself an alliance of several groups of diverse ethnic and political backgrounds, who had in common that they had been rejected by the mainstream Syrian opposition for secular, anti-Islamist views and affiliations.

Signatory groups

The following groups signed the founding document:
  1. People's Protection Units
  2. Women's Protection Units
  3. Al-Sanadid Forces
  4. Syriac Military Council
  5. Liwa Thuwwar al-Raqqa
  6. Euphrates Volcano
  7. Army of Revolutionaries
  8. # 99th Infantry Brigade
  9. Brigade Groups of al-Jazira
On 10 December 2015, after a two-day conference, The Syrian Democratic Council was established as a political platform of the SDF. Human rights activist Haytham Manna was co-chairman at its founding. The Assembly that established the Syrian Democratic Council was made up of 13 members from specific ethnic, economic and political backgrounds.

Syrian Arab Coalition

The Syrian Arab Coalition is called by the U.S. government as an alliance of programmatically exclusively ethnic Arab militias established during the Syrian Civil War. In this narrative, it consists of exclusively ethnic Arab component groups of the SDF alliance, such as the al-Sanadid Forces, the Deir ez-Zor Military Council, Arab units within the Army of Revolutionaries, along with smaller factions.

Size, growth and composition

2015

At the time of its founding in late 2015, The Economist described the SDF as "essentially a subsidiary of the Kurdish YPG".
With continuous growth in particular due to Arab groups and volunteers joining, in March 2016 only an estimated 60% of the men and women in the SDF fighting force were ethnic Kurds. Growth in particular of Arab, Turkmen and Assyrian participation in the SDF has since continued. In an interview on the first anniversary of the SDF's founding, spokesman Talal Silo, an ethnic Turkmen and former commander of the Seljuq Brigade, stated that "we started with 13 factions and now there are 32 factions", and that "90 percent" of the SDF growth since it began its operations were ethnic Arabs. In the context of the November 2016 Northern Raqqa offensive, The Economist said the SDF fighting force to be composed of "about 20,000 YPG fighters and about 10,000 Arabs". The next month in December 2016, Colonel John Dorrian, the Operation Inherent Resolve spokesman, stated that the SDF contained around 45,000 fighters, of which more than 13,000 were Arabs.
According to a March 2017 statement of the Spokesman for the International Coalition forces, U.S. Colonel John Dorrian, 75 percent of the SDF forces fighting in Operation Wrath of Euphrates to isolate ISIL's de facto capital of Raqqa were Syrian Arabs, a reflection of the demographic composition of that area. "The Syrian Democratic Forces are a multi-ethnic and multi-sectarian organization, and that is one of the reasons why we're working with them and they have continued to build the Arab element of their force." Concerning the SDF in general, Lieutenant General Stephen Townsend in the same month said that "I'm seeing what is probably a pretty broad coalition of people and the Kurds may be providing the leadership, because they have a capable leader who's stepped up to this challenge. And they are providing some of the organisational skill, but I see a large contingent about 23 to 25, 000 so far and growing, Arabs, who are marching to liberate their part of northern Syria. So, I don't see a Kurdish state. I see a multi-cultural, multi-party, multi-ethnic, multi-sectarian Syrian region being liberated from ISIS. Over."
Late June, an analysis by the Counter Terrorism Center at West Point said "growing acceptance of the SDF by Sunni Arab rebel groups" and more generally "growing legitimacy of the SDF". Another analysis as of late June described the YPG as "only one faction of many within the SDF", however that "it's the YPG that makes the SDF reliable and effective. The SDF's other components function as auxiliaries to the SDF's 'backbone', the YPG, which ensures effective, unitary command and control."
in February 2017, one of several APCs that were supplied by the United States to the SDF.
Stryker armoured vehicles drive through Qamishli and head to the Syria–Turkey border after Turkish–YPG April 2017 border clashes.
coalition train SDF commandos in live stress-fire, mid-July 2019
On 15 March 2017, a video surfaced that showed members of the Northern Sun Battalion reportedly torturing an ISIL fighter, who had been captured while planting mines. One of these mines had reportedly killed nine fighters of the battalion, leading five others to take revenge on the ISIL militant. The Manbij Military Council condemned the act, and announced that the involved Northern Sun Battalion fighters would be held for trial for violating the Geneva Conventions. The five accused were arrested on 17 March.

Ethnic cleansing and forced displacement

In June 2015 the Turkish government and Amnesty International reported that the YPG was carrying out an ethnic cleansing of non-Kurdish populations as part of a plan to join the Jazira and Euphrates regions into a single territory.
The U.S. State Department reacted by stating they would 'scrutinise' Amnesty International's accusations. The U.S. State Department stated it had to determine if there was "any veracity to the claims", but showed concern by calling for any administrator in the area to rule "with respect for all groups regardless of ethnicity". The report makes accusations of looting, coercing civilians to join their armed forces and the forced targeted displacement of 1400 families in the Turkman villages of Hammam al-Turkman, 800 Turkmen from Mela Berho and Suluk residents. The report offers unnamed witness testimony from reported victims, cross referenced with photo and video evidence, media reports, and satellite imagery to substantiate these reports.
In a report published by the United Nations' Independent International Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic on 10 March 2017, the Commission refuted Amnesty International's reports of ethnic cleansing, stating that "'though allegations of 'ethnic cleansing' continued to be received during the period under review, the Commission found no evidence to substantiate reports that YPG or SDF forces ever targeted Arab communities on the basis of ethnicity".
In interviews, YPG spokespersons acknowledged that a number of families were in fact displaced. However, they placed the number at no more than 25, and stated military necessity. They stated that the family members of terrorists maintained communications with them, and therefore had to be removed from areas where they might pose a danger. They further reported that ISIL was using civilians in those areas to plant car bombs or carry out other attacks on the YPG.

Recruitment of minors

In June 2014, Human Rights Watch criticized the YPG for accepting minors into their ranks, picking up on multiple earlier reports of teenage fighters serving in the YPG, with a report by the United Nations Secretary General stating that 24 minors under age of 18 had been recruited by YPG, with 124 having been recruited by the Free Syrian Army and 5 by the Syrian Arab Army. In response, the YPG and YPJ signed the Geneva Call Deed of Commitment protecting children in armed conflict, prohibiting sexual violence and against gender discrimination in July 2014, and Kurdish security forces began receiving human rights training from Geneva Call and other international organisations with the YPG pledging publicly to demobilize all fighters under 18 within a month and began to enact disciplinary measures against commanders of the units that had involved in corruption and accepting recruit under age of 18 to their ranks. In October 2015 the YPG demobilized 21 minors from the military service in its ranks.
In response to reports issued by international organisations such as Human Rights Watch, the general command of the SDF issued a military order prohibiting the recruitment of children. On 29 June 2019 Abdi, as representative of the SDF, signed the action plan of the United Nations aiming to prevent the enlistment of child soldiers in the armed forces. The action plan was signed to address the inclusion of the YPG in the SDF.
In 2020, United Nations reported SDF as the largest faction in the Syrian civil war by the number recruited child soldiers, with 283 child soldiers followed by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham with 245 child soldiers.