Rojava

Over the last week, yet another fake news headline has been making the rounds on social media.  “Cute girl slays 100 ISIS fighters, you won’t believe what happens next!”  This news item was already clichéd during the heyday of ISIS clickbait articles back in 2015.  Now it is just getting embarrassing to watch people share […]

A new model of social organization is taking shape in the Kurdish areas of northern Syria. Rojava, as it is known, comprises three cantons in the western section of the historical homeland of the Kurdish people, which is now divided up among Iran, Iraq, Syria, and Turkey. In terms of social equality, ethnic pluralism, and […]

PJ and I were in the same Peshmerga units before he left to fight in Syria alongside the YPG. He is an exceptional warrior that embodies the spirit of the Marine Corps with a sense of humor that cannot be matched, Semper Fidelis brother.   Kurt: What’s your military background? PJ: 0351 infantry assaultman UCMC […]

Three Americans volunteered for combat alongside Kurdish militia; repatriation was a complicated affair.
Americans don’t need a visa to enter Iraqi Kurdistan, but their passports are stamped there before they are driven into Syria through YPG-controlled border checkpoints. The volunteers don’t get Syrian government visas.

When fighters die in Syria, getting them home is a far more complex affair, and an expensive one. Representatives of the Rojava government paid $43,600 dollars for the cost to return the remains of all three men this time, according to Lucy Usoyan, a Washington-based representative of a Kurdish group that helped organize the return.

A few years ago, relatively early on in the war against ISIS, I was smuggled into Northern Syria along a PKK re-supply route.  Taking a small inflatable boat across the river which acted as the border between Syria and Iraq, my first stop in the Kurdish held areas of Syria (known as Rojava) was a […]

When the suicide bomber exploded in Taksim, they gave my name although I was a captive when the suicide bomber exploded in Taksim. The people in Kobanê allowed me to talk to my family back then.

The ground force, under SDF and YPG Command, has sent forth approximately 25,000 Kurdish and Syrian guerilla fighters.

The Kurdish freedom fighters of the YPG (People’s Protection Units) have been fighting and dying in their war against ISIS in Syria. They’ve put up a noble fight to the utmost of their ability. They are competent on the battlefield and are seeking to establish a democratic state in Rojava. But as easy as it […]

In the footage, troops are clearly behind the lines, as they are operating from recently constructed berms. One soldier is likely operating a Leupold Mk.4 spotting scope on a tripod, while the soldier in front of him is pointing an LA-16U handheld laser marker. The spotting scope contains crosshairs that would give the observer the […]

Al-Shaddadi was liberated, costing ISIS an important foothold in the region and leaving their capital of Al-Raqqah in the sights of the 80,000-strong SDF.

In a scenario eerily reminiscent to US Special Forces deployments to Central America in the 1980’s, Obama announced today that 250 more Special Operations troops would be deployed to Syria to help fight ISIS.  In the 80’s the numbers of Special Forces troops allowed in countries like El Salvador and Nicaragua was capped around 50, […]

Despite the hype and panic in the media, it does appear that the noose is slowly tightening around ISIS. The question remaining is what will Syria look like after ISIS is destroyed?