AS IF the war in Syria did not have enough combatants, yet another country has entered the fray. On August 24th Turkey sent tanks, warplanes and special-operations soldiers over the border, driving Islamic State (IS) out of Jarablus, an important supply node for the jihadists.
Turkey’s mission has the backing of America, which is leading an anti-IS coalition. But it is already raising concerns inside Syria, where a five-year-old civil war has killed perhaps 500,000 people. Lately the fighting has become more chaotic. Alliances are shifting between the country’s myriad fighting groups, and their foreign backers. Peace, already a dim prospect, now seems even further off.
The situation in Hasakah, in the north-east, is indicative of the changing landscape. Until recently, the Syrian army of Bashar al-Assad, the country’s blood-spattered president, had mostly steered clear of Kurdish militias—and, at times, seemed to work with them—in order to confront Sunni Arab rebels. The Kurds, for their part, have focused their fire on IS and tried to consolidate their self-declared semi-autonomous region, called Rojava, in the north. But in...Continue reading
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