This strategy aims to prevent Islamic State militants from returning to areas recently conquered from them, U.S. officials say. Washington’s focus on providing military support to Syrian Kurds battling the Islamic State, however, has always been rife with contradictions, experts say. The Kurds in Afrin were not involved in fighting the Islamic State and have not received American assistance, U.S. officials say. “Back in 2011, Turkish officials stressed to me that their nightmare scenario was a break-away Syrian Kurdish region in northeast Syria. “What the Turks are doing here is keying into the illogic of the American campaign” against the Islamic State, he said.

Source: Washington Post January 27, 2018 10:00 UTC