Elizabeth Tsurkov reports:

In Deir Ezzor, the largest city in eastern Syria, on the banks of the Euphrates River, protesters last week chanted and raised signs calling for the downfall of Bashar al-Assad’s dictatorial regime. But they also raised U.S. and French flags, hoping the anti-ISIS coalition might keep its forces in the region. “I remember when we were taught at a young age about the French colonialist occupier, when the [Syrian] regime pretended to be a champion of national sovereignty,” one of the protesters, a USAID-funded project manager, Abdul Rahman [pseudonym], told me. “And now we got to an unprecedented point, in which we ask an occupier to protect us, and we fail to obtain this [protection]. And protect us from whom? From the criminals of our own country.”

The fast-moving events over the past two weeks in northeastern Syria, precipitated by a green light from President Trump for a Turkish invasion, left the Syrian Democratic Forces—a diverse group of factions aligned with the U.S. coalition against ISIS and, on occasion, Damascus—scrambling for a reprieve from the Turkish onslaught. Rather than endure further mass displacement from northern Syria, the SDF chose to strike a deal with the Assad regime, leading to the return of Syrian soldiers to areas the SDF previously controlled. While the plight of minority Kurds in these regions has been well documented, the return of Assad’s forces is also a terrifying prospect for other activists, NGO workers, and fighters—Arabs, Kurds and Assyrians—currently residing in SDF-held areas, which encompass about a third of Syrian land and are home to over 3.2 million people. By abruptly deciding to withdraw from the region, the Trump administration not only exposed thousands of people to the threat of arrest in Assad’s torture dungeons, but also left them precious little time to plan their escape.

“We know the risk [to NGO workers] is not theoretical; it is very concrete, given the regime’s track record,” said Sasha Ghosh-Siminoff, the executive director of People Demand Change, an organization providing monitoring and research services for international donors operating in SDF-held areas. “It is incumbent upon the U.S. to protect them and, if necessary, help them leave the country to a safer place.” He proposed rapidly taking money earmarked for projects and using it to relocate endangered staff. “To leave them there,” he added, “is to willfully condemn some of these people to death.” [Continue reading…]