Qamishli

I heard that the second time when he came together with the public, it was the first one, after a very long time, the first one was during Salih Muslim's funeral.

The second one was on the anniversary, 100 years of Kamishlo, where also Shabani was invited.

where he first mentioned that the forces had dissolved themselves.

It was time for a new period.

Half Kurdish, half Bukarian.

My grandmom was born on the Syrian border with Turkey in a small town called Qamishli.

It's the Kurdish area of Syria.

She came with a donkey and a cart with her dad and two sisters.

I think the plans for the dam started early, before Hafez, but he executed it.

And they were then given farmland in the Qamishli region, in the Kurdish region of Syria.

So historically, nomadic people suddenly became settled farmers.

It took this kind of top-down, massive, magical sweep to happen.

saying that the SDF was formally dissolved.

Now, Ibrahim, many of us who follow the SDF and the Northeast of Syria of the Kurds very closely did not expect this because the messaging from him especially, you know, that interview he gave to Rudao, and then after that, the anniversary of Qamishli, the 100th anniversary party, if you want to call it that, where he said the integration was complete, but never once did he pronounce the dissolution of the SDF.

So what happened, actually? Can you tell us? Were you surprised?

I was not surprised, to be honest.

Totally.

And I think both of us, you and myself, would be very lucky now when we go to Damascus, we will be able to see Mazloum, Elham and Sipan in Damascus.

And of course, We will be even happier to go and visit them in al-Hasakah and al-Qamishli or in Kobani or al-Arab.

But at the same time, that was not possible before.

And then in October 202017-- 2017, sorry, the Turkish troop enter Idlib, and this is where they started establishing observation post under the Astana de-escalation with the approval of Assad at the time, the American, the Russian, et cetera.

And then in January 2018, Turkey launched the Operation Olive Branch, and that is occupying the zone of Afrin when the Kurds of Afrin preferred to abandon, uh, Afrin and go to Hasakah and Qamishli and not to give it to the forces of Damascus.

They had many billion dollars, uh, in what they have collected on the borders, et cetera, and they didn't want to give up on that money.

And then, uh, a year later in October 2019, they launched-- the Turks launched Operation Peace Spring, and they established all the control.

The hope is to strike a deal to end ongoing hostilities, including recent Israeli attacks on a Syrian military airport and the continuing Israeli occupation of Syrian land near the border between the two countries.

Abdul Rahman Dawud is a freelance journalist base in, based in Qamishli, which is a city in the northeast of Syria.

I asked him how significant the recent Israeli attacks had been.

It is very significant, the situation that happening and escalation from the Israeli side since they are not doing the normal patrols as they are used to do in the south of the country of Syria.