• The Syrian Democratic Forces, a US partner in Syria, downed an MQ-9 Reaper drone.
• The incident shows the SDF has acquired air defenses of some sort.
• It's very possible that the SDF downed a low-flying Reaper with a shoulder-fired missile.

America's ally in Syria accidentally shot down an advanced US drone, suggesting these Kurdish-led forces have acquired some kind of air defenses.

A $30 million MQ-9 Reaper drone wasn't the only victim. A day later, the Syrian Democratic Forces — who partnered with the US to fight the Islamic State in Syria a decade ago — purposely shot down a Turkish drone.

A US official confirmed to Defense News that the SDF misidentified the MQ-9 as a threat on December 9 and shot it down, without specifying what kind of weapon was used; the SDF hasn't publicly acknowledged the incident. However, the SDF did release footage purportedly showing its forces shooting down Turkey's Aksungur drone.

"The SDF would need more capable air defense systems than older MANPADs (man-portable air defense system) like the Strela-2 to shoot down an MQ-9 Reaper unless the drone was flying far below its typical operating ceiling, possibly due to mission requirements or technical issues," Freddy Khoueiry, a global security analyst for the Middle East and North Africa at the risk intelligence company RANE, told Business Insider.

A Reaper drone has a 66-foot wingspan and can fly up to 50,000 feet in altitude, beyond the range of shoulder-fired Strela-2 missiles. The remotely piloted aircraft frequently carry Hellfire ground-attack missiles.

"A SHORAD (short-range air defense) or medium-range radar-guided SAM (surface-to-air missile) system would be required to effectively engage a Reaper drone operating at its standard altitude," Khoueiry said.

It is more likely that the SDF has shoulder-fired missiles due to their proliferation, which also have the benefit of being harder to spot than truck-mounted missile launchers. If the MQ-9 was downed by a MANPAD, it suggests it was flying very low, Khoueiry said.

The Aksungur is a much larger and more advanced drone than Turkey's widely exported Bayraktar TB2, but it is not in the same league as the American MQ-9.

"Aksungur drones are capable, 'middle-class drones' that are typically used for intelligence, surveillance, and reconnaissance, although increasingly modified to carry weapons," Nicholas Heras, senior director of strategy and innovation at the New Lines Institute, told BI.

Syrian soldiers abandoned their bases and weapons stockpiles during the dramatic fall of President Bashar al-Assad's regime in early December. Israel has already moved in and bombed large quantities of them. Turkey has also moved to prevent the SDF from capturing weapons. Turkish intelligence destroyed 12 trucks with missiles and other heavy weapons in the northeastern Kurdish city of Qamishli, and Turkish drones targeted abandoned tanks, armored vehicles, and rocket launchers strewn across northeast Syria.

"It is unlikely that the SDF captured and were able to quickly operationalize Syrian regime air defenses within the past week," RANE's Khoueiry said. "Furthermore, Israeli strikes have significantly degraded such systems across Syrian territory, making it even more difficult for a US-backed militia to acquire and effectively operate them."

Turkish media reported earlier this year that US troops in northeast Syria were training the SDF how to use the AN/TWQ-1 Avenger short-range air defense system, which fires Stinger missiles. However, sources in Syria cited by the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said only US troops operate the Avengers, which protect their bases against Iran-backed militia drone attacks.

"The challenge for the SDF to use systems such as the SA-2s (Soviet-made S-75s) or Avengers is that these anti-air systems require a logistical network to operate that is cumbersome for a non-state actor, especially if that non-state actor doesn't have accompanying anti-air capabilities to protect those systems," Heras said.

Ceng Sagnic, chief of analysis of the geopolitical consultancy firm TAM-C Solutions, believes it is possible the SDF is "independently operating" some air defenses in Syria.

"However, it should be noted that Kurdish groups have long had access to short-range air defense missiles, particularly those acquired from the black market and not NATO standard," Sagnic told BI. "There is also a possibility that an operator of one of these systems got lucky that day."

"In any case, the incident demonstrates the readiness of Kurdish groups in Syria to respond to drone operations, especially those conducted by Turkey," Sagnic said.

The Kurdistan Workers Party, commonly known by its PKK acronym, had Strela-2 missiles as far back as the 1990s and shot down two Turkish helicopters over northern Iraq in 1997.

The Middle East Eye news outlet reported earlier this year that Iran had transferred air-breathing anti-drone loitering missiles to the PKK. One such munition purportedly brought down an Aksungur over Iraqi Kurdistan in May. Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Houthis in Yemen have used the Iranian-made 358 missile to shoot down Israeli and American drones, including a number of MQ-9s.

It's unclear if the SDF — whose main Kurdish component Turkey charges with inextricable PKK links — acquired such a system.

"The claim that Iran supplies the PKK (and, by extension, the SDF) with a significant number of anti-drone missiles is highly questionable," Sagnic said. "Only a consistent pattern of successful anti-drone strikes by the SDF in the near future could indicate enhanced capabilities by the Kurdish group, and a single drone interception is not sufficient proof."

"However, there have been at least two reported interceptions of Turkish drones over northern Iraq in recent months, suggesting that Kurdish groups are adapting to the so-called drone wars, though their continued success remains uncertain."

Paul Iddon is a freelance journalist and columnist who writes about Middle East developments, military affairs, politics, and history. His articles have appeared in a variety of publications focused on the region.

• Undersea cables between Finland-Germany and Lithuania-Sweden were cut, potentially sabotaged.
• The incident is one of a number of similar incidents in recent years, highlighting the vulnerability of these lines.
• NATO is enhancing surveillance and coordination to protect critical underwater infrastructure.

Last month, an underwater data cable between Finland and Germany and another between Lithuania and Sweden were discovered cut within a day of each other. The damage to the cables, which European officials said appeared deliberate, highlights just how vulnerable these critical undersea lines are.

Yi Peng 3, a Chinese-flagged cargo ship that had departed from Russia's Ust-Luga port in the Gulf of Finland three days before and was tracked loitering near the two locations, is suspected in connection with the incident. It is said to have dragged an anchor over 100 miles, damaging the cables.

"No one believes that these cables were accidentally cut," German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius said in November. "We have to assume it is sabotage," he added.

In a joint statement with his Finnish counterpart, Pistorius said the damage comes at a time when "our European security is not only under threat from Russia's war of aggression against Ukraine but also from hybrid warfare by malicious actors."

As Russia received added scrutiny, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov denied Russian involvement in the incident, saying that "it is quite absurd to continue to blame Russia for everything without any reason."

Critical but vulnerable

In recent years, a string of incidents involving damage to underwater infrastructure has occurred, many of them in the same region.

Last year, Newnew Polar Bear, another Chinese cargo ship, damaged a gas pipeline running between Estonia and Finland. China's investigation concluded the damage was accidental; however, Estonia and Finland's investigation is still ongoing.

In 2022, a Norwegian underwater data cable was damaged, and there were indications of human involvement in that incident. In 2021, a 2.5-mile-long section of another data cable disappeared from waters north of Norway.

The incident that received the most attention, though, was the sabotage of the Nord Steam gas pipelines between Russia and Germany in September 2022. There have been indications that Ukrainian elements might have been behind the sabotage, but this has not been confirmed.

Underwater infrastructure is increasingly critical to modern life. The vast majority of internet traffic passes through underwater fiber-optics cables, and underwater energy pipelines are common in many regions. But protecting this infrastructure, which can stretch for hundreds or thousands of miles, is difficult.

"There's no way that we can have NATO presence alone all these thousands of kilometers of undersea, offshore infrastructure," then-NATO leader Jens Stoltenberg said in 2023. Yet, NATO can be better at collecting and sharing information and intelligence "and connecting the dots," he added.

Indeed, NATO and the European Union are trying to do that.

In May this year, NATO held its first Critical Undersea Infrastructure Network meeting and launched its Maritime Centre for the Security of Critical Undersea Infrastructure to better coordinate the capabilities of its members and increase collaboration between them.

Further, the EU is funding several initiatives to develop uncrewed surface and underwater systems to surveil critical areas and detect threats early.

But there are also legal difficulties to protecting underwater infrastructure, as it usually traverses the territorial waters of several countries and can also pass through international waters.

The usual suspects

Although it can often be difficult to establish a culprit whenever such infrastructure is damaged, officials have pointed out that Russian activity near underwater cables has intensified.

In 2017, the US admiral in charge of NATO's submarine forces said the alliance was "seeing Russian underwater activity in the vicinity of undersea cables that I don't believe we have ever seen."

The war in Ukraine has added another dimension to this matter.

"There are heightened concerns that Russia may target undersea cables and other critical infrastructure in an effort to disrupt Western life, to gain leverage against those nations that are providing security to Ukraine," David Cattler, NATO's intelligence chief, said last year.

Russia has developed a number of underwater capabilities and has a specialized unit, the Main Directorate for Deep Sea Research, committed to the task.

GUGI, as the operation is also known, is an elite Russian unit that employs specialized surface and underwater vessels capable of underwater sabotage and surveillance. Yantar, one of GUGI's special-purpose spy vessels, which nominally acts as a survey vessel, has often been spotted near underwater cables.

Furthermore, a joint investigation released in 2023 by the public broadcasters of Sweden, Denmark, Norway, and Finland discovered that Russia, over the past decade, employed a fleet of 50 boats — masking as research or commercial vessels — to gather intelligence on allied underwater cables and wind farms in the Nordic region.

"When you look at the evidence of their activities now, the places they are doing surveys, overlaid with this critical undersea infrastructure … you can see that they are at least signaling that they have the intent and the capability to take action in this domain if they choose," Cattler said.

• Israel invoked a WWII precedent in trying to justify its pre-emptive strikes in Syria.
• During WWII, the Royal Navy attacked the fleet of its former ally to keep it from Nazi control.
• Both operations were borne in atmospheres of fear and crisis.

When Israel sank six Syrian warships at the port of Latakia this week amid larger attacks on the military remnants of the ousted Assad regime, Israel's leader invoked a precedent from World War II.

"This is similar to what the British Air Force did when it bombed the fleet of the Vichy regime, which was cooperating with the Nazis, so that it would not fall into the Nazis' hands," Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said.

Though Netanyahu's history was faulty — it was the Royal Navy rather than the RAF that struck the French fleet — his analogy was revealing. The attack on the port of Mers-el-Kebir on July 3, 1940, has gone down as either a courageous decision that saved Britain — or a treacherous and needless backstab of an ally.

At the least, it is one of Britain's most controversial decisions of the Second World War. Like Israel today, the British acted amid an atmosphere of crisis, haste and uncertainty. The Israeli goal is to keep the now-deposed Syrian government's huge arsenal — which includes chemical weapons and ballistic missiles — from falling into the hands of rebel groups, which are dominated by Islamic militants. For Britain, the goal was to keep Adolf Hitler's hands off the French fleet, the fourth-largest navy in the world in 1940.

In that chaotic summer of 1940, the situation looked grim. The German blitzkrieg had just conquered France and Western Europe, while the cream of the British Army had barely been evacuated — minus their equipment — from Dunkirk. If the Germans could launch an amphibious assault across the English Channel, the British Army was in no condition to repel them.

However, Operation Sealion — the Nazi German plan to invade Britain — had its own problems. The Kriegsmarine — the German Navy — was a fraction of the size of the Royal Navy, and thus too small to escort vulnerable troop transports. But Britain's Prime Minister Winston Churchill had to contemplate a situation he had never expected: a combined German-French battlefleet.

Technically, France had only agreed to an armistice — a permanent cease-fire — with Germany rather than surrender. France would be divided between German-occupied northern zone, and a nominally independent rump state of Vichy comprising southern France and the colonies of the French Empire. Vichy France would be allowed a meager army, and the French Navy would be confined to its home ports.

The British didn't trust French promises that its ships would be scuttled if the Germans tried to seize them. Why had France signed a separate peace with Germany after earlier pledging not to? Why didn't the French government choose to go into exile, and continue the war from its North African colonies as the British urged? London was well aware that the right-wing Vichy government — under Field Marshal Philippe Pétain, hero of the First World War — had more affection for the Third Reich than it did for Britain. With Germany master of Europe, Pétain sneered that Britain would soon "have its neck wrung like a chicken."

After Vichy rebuffed pleas to send the fleet to British ports, Churchill and his ministers decided the risk was too great. In late June 1940, the Royal Navy received orders for Operation Catapult. A task force — including the aircraft carrier Ark Royal and three battleships and battlecruisers — would be dispatched to the French naval base at Mers-el-Kebir, near the Algerian port of Oran. A powerful French squadron of four battleships and six destroyers were docked there, including the new battleships Dunkerque and Strasbourg.

The French were to be given six hours to respond to an ultimatum: sail their ships to British ports and fight the Germans, sail them to French Caribbean ports and sit out the war, demilitarize their ships at Mers-el-Kebir, or scuttle their vessels. When the local French commander tried to delay while summoning reinforcements, the British opened fire.

The ensuing battle was not the Royal Navy's most glorious. Caught in every admiral's nightmare — unprepared ships anchored in port — the French were simply smothered by British gunfire. The battleship Bretagne and two destroyers were sunk, two other battleships damaged, and 1,297 French sailors perished. The British suffered two dead.

This was no repeat of the Battle of Trafalgar, when the Royal Navy smashed a Franco-Spanish fleet off Spain in 1805. Most ships at Mers-el-Kebir were damaged rather than sunk, and the French fleet quickly relocated its scattered vessels to the heavily defended French port at Toulon (where they were scuttled in November 1942 when German troops occupied Vichy). Though Vichy didn't declare war on Britain — and only retaliated with a few minor attacks on British bases — it confirmed old French prejudices about British treachery and "perfidious Albion."

Britain's attack on Mers-el-Kebir was political as much as military. In the summer of 1940, many people — including some in the United States — believed that the British would be conquered or compelled to make peace with a victorious Germany. Churchill argued that Britain had to show its resolve to keep on fighting, not least if it hoped to persuade America to send tanks, ships and war materials via a Lend-Lease deal. Attacking a former ally may have been a demonstration of British resolve.

Israel's situation does not resemble that of Britain in 1940. Syria has never been an ally of Israel. The two nations have had an armistice since 1949, punctuated by multiple wars and clashes over the years. Britain acted out of a sense of weakness, while Israel is confident enough of its strength to hit targets in Syria.

Yet by citing Mers-el-Kebir as a precedent, Netanyahu proved a golden rule of international relations that applied in 1940 and still applies today: Nations always act in their own interests. Faced with a choice between respecting a former ally and defending Britain from invasion, Churchill chose the latter. Netanyahu didn't hesitate to do the same.

Michael Peck is a defense writer whose work has appeared in Forbes, Defense News, Foreign Policy magazine, and other publications. He holds an MA in political science from Rutgers Univ. Follow him on Twitter and LinkedIn.

• Russia faces the prospect of losing key bases in Syria but still has moves left.
• Keeping its bases may come down to lucrative deals with the now victorious groups it had attacked.
• These bases are critical to Russian influence in the Middle East and would not be easily replaced.

Syria has been central to Russian plans to project power across the Middle East — as evidenced by the recent signing of a 49-year lease for Syrian bases.

But after the ouster of the ally it propped up, Syrian President Bashar Assad, Russian officials face the likelihood its days in Syria are numbered.

"Russia's certainly doing everything in its power to maintain a presence in Syria while preparing for the possibility that this is the end," Ben Dubow, a nonresident senior fellow with the Democratic Resilience Program at the Center for European Policy Analysis, told Business Insider.

Moscow is doing so by "not only leaving their ships out at sea but, according to [Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham's] official Telegram channel, disbursing weapons to local Alawite groups," Dubow said. "Reaching out to the new leadership is both an act of desperation and an acceptance of the new reality."

This is a look at the dimming options Russia now faces.

Reduced footprint

Shortly after Assad fled to Russia, a deal was reportedly reached with the interim authorities, led by the victorious Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham Islamist movement, guaranteeing the security of these bases, and the armed opposition presently has no plans to attack them. Still, it's far from clear that the future leadership in Damascus is willing to tolerate a long-term Russian military presence.

For now, some Russian warships are anchored outside the Tartus base as a precaution, and there are other Russian military movements in Syria.

"There is quite a lot of military equipment that has been hastily withdrawn to the coastal region or is being withdrawn at the moment from various remote regions," Anton Mardasov, a nonresident scholar with the Middle East Institute's Syria program, told BI. "So, the ships that are going to Syria from the Baltic Fleet and the military transport planes that are coming to Hmeimim may be taking out this excess equipment."

Alongside its Tartus naval base, Russia also has a sizable airbase in Latakia named Hmeimim, which it has used as a launchpad to conduct airstrikes throughout Syria since intervening in the country's bloody civil war in 2015.

"It may not be a question of a complete evacuation of the bases right now," Mardasov said. "Rather, a new government, possibly appointed after March 2025, should issue a decree denouncing or legitimizing Damascus' past treaty with Moscow."

A bare minimum force in Syria would "deprive" Russia of its capacity to counter NATO on its southern flank, Mardasov said.

Renewed access

Russia signed an extendable 49-year lease agreement with Assad's regime in 2017 for these bases, seemingly entrenching its forces in the Middle Eastern country for generations to come. The treaty even granted the Russian military legal immunity for its personnel in the country, meaning they would not be held accountable for killing Syrians.

"I can't speak to whether the 2017 agreements are binding, but at this point, only Russia could enforce them, and there's no sign they have the will or capacity to do so," Dubow said. "If Damascus orders Russia to leave, Moscow would be hard-pressed to withstand a siege."

Russia's best hope may be to try to extend its access until new deals can be made with the new Syrian leaders. The offers will likely have to be very lucrative to win over a Syrian opposition inured to Russian airstrikes and ruthless mercenaries.

Russia would likely offer money and other economic incentives, such as discounted refined fuel products, in return for Syria's new rulers tolerating its military presence.

But these would likely be short-term arrangements.

"In the long run, it is unlikely Russia's use of the facilities can be preserved considering considerable antipathy to Russia among Syria's new authorities after Russia's years of support to the Assad regime," said Matthew Orr, a Eurasia analyst at the risk intelligence company RANE.

Syria's interim authorities could even benefit from a continued Russian presence in the short term, he said. That could counterbalance the US presence on the other side of the country and serve as a bargaining chip in negotiations with other powers.

Complete withdrawal

Russia's choices are stark if it can't reach a deal. It can try to guard bases in an uneasy stand-off with HTS-led forces, which comes with risks of its troops being harmed or captured and subjected to trials that would humiliate Russia. Or it can airlift out its forces and materiel.

Orr, the RANE analyst, doesn't anticipate a hasty Russian withdrawal from Syria. Instead, Russia is probably preparing "for an orderly withdrawal from the facilities, likely after failed attempts to negotiate their preservation in the coming months," Orr told BI.

"Their loss would harm Russia's power projection because they are crucial logistical points for Russian military operations in Africa, the Middle East, and Russia's global naval operations, and Russia does not have immediately available alternatives to the facilities."

Tartus remains Moscow's only naval facility in the Mediterranean, making it vital for any extended Russian Navy deployment south of the Black Sea and Turkish Straits. Along with Hmeimim, it serves as a hub for supporting Russian military and mercenary deployments in Africa.

Moscow has had access to Tartus since the Soviet era in the 1970s. Furthermore, Russia invested in its expansion in the 2010s, making its potential loss all the more painful.

One alternative Russian port outside of Syria could be Tobruk in eastern Libya, which is controlled by the Libyan warlord Khalifa Haftar. CEPA's Dubow is skeptical that the Libyan port near Egypt could be any substitute.

"Tobruk would not come close to making up for Tartus and Latakia," Dubow said. "It's both smaller and much further from Russia. Even a significant reduction of Russian presence in Syria would immensely damage Russia's power projection capacity."

In this case, could Russia's loss be Turkey's gain? Turkey is close to the HTS-led coalition, but it too may lack the cachet to win permanent bases.

"The Turkish Navy doesn't need the Tartus base, and the possibility will depend on security conditions on the ground, which are still unclear many months from now, so it doesn't seem likely in the near term," RANE's Orr said.

"But in general, the Tartus port is something that if there is a unified government in Syria, they will definitely try to leverage for security and economic ties with a great power, or remove the base as part of geopolitical balancing between powers."

Paul Iddon is a freelance journalist and columnist who writes about Middle East developments, military affairs, politics, and history. His articles have appeared in a variety of publications focused on the region.

• China's special forces have serious problems that would limit their effectiveness in a Taiwan war.
• Chinese manuals suggest these forces would perform the most dangerous missions before landings.
• China lacks units with the highest levels of training but their bigger challenge would be coordination.

If China invades Taiwan, China's special forces would be key to its success, the first forces ashore to clear obstacles for inbound troops and then to scout for command centers and air defenses for airstrikes.

China has expanded the ranks of its special operators, but they lack the combat experience and esprit de corps that defines the world's most elite operators — raising questions about their utility in a major operation. Indeed, some commando units have been brought to strength by conscripts.

Special operations forces, or SOF, "likely would play important supporting roles in an amphibious assault on Taiwan," according to analysts John Chen and Joel Wuthnow in a new book published by the China Maritime Studies Institute at the US Naval War College.

Special forces have long been integral to amphibious warfare. In World War II, US Navy Underwater Demolition Teams scouted beaches and removed obstacles prior to an invasion. In the 1982 Falklands War, the main landing wasn't authorized until British special forces could assess Argentine defenses, even if this required the Royal Navy to sail into the teeth of Argentine air attacks to get within helicopter range of the islands.

China's SOF comprises 20,000 to 30,000 personnel, according to a 2023 U.S. Department of Defense report; US Special Operations Command, by contrast, has 70,000 active and reserve personnel. China's SOF includes 15 army brigades, as well as special operations units in the People Liberation Army Marine Corps, Airborne Corps, and Rocket Force. Even the People's Armed Police (PAP) — a paramilitary organization tasked with internal security — has counterterrorist special operations units that could be used to spearhead an invasion or suppress Taiwanese guerrillas afterwards.

Chinese military manuals suggest that these elite forces would perform the most dangerous missions that start before the main landings. These include "monitoring weather and hydrological conditions; scouting enemy positions and movements, as well as enemy obstructions in the main landing approaches; tracking high-value enemy targets; identifying and illuminating targets for conventional precision-guided missile strikes; and conducting battle-damage assessments," Chen and Wuthnow wrote.

Chinese special forces seem fairly well-trained and have better equipment than regular formations. They have "priority access to modern equipment, such as individual-soldier communications systems and night-vision equipment," wrote Chen and Wuthnow. "They also are likely to have access to special-mission equipment that would be vital in an amphibious assault on Taiwan," such as underwater transport vehicles.

While Western special forces would be horrified at the thought of being assigned conscripts, China does select the better draftees. "Their SOF units do use some conscripts to fill the enlisted ranks as with other parts of the PLA," Wuthnow told Business Insider. "That said, they use rigorous screening and selection procedures to weed out less capable troops. For the PLANMC SOF Brigade, their attrition rate is advertised at 50% or higher in the first three months due to the rigorous training. So it would be considered an honor in their system to be selected and make it through the initial onboarding."

But China's special forces have serious problems that would limit their effectiveness in an assault on Taiwan. Chinese SOF have many differences from their Western counterparts: some brigades converted from conventional formations into commando units as China expanded its special operations capabilities, which lack the elite teams that train for the most complex and difficult missions.

"PLA SOF brigades are similar to our Green Berets, who do conduct unconventional operations, such as direct raids or deep reconnaissance behind enemy lines," Wuthnow said. "What the PLA lacks is what we call Tier One SOF Forces such as Delta Force or Seal Team 6, which conduct exceptionally difficult operations abroad, often in very small or clandestine teams."

"I think they look on our ability to conduct those types of operations with a certain envy, especially because their troops have no similar experience," Wuthnow added.

Special forces units are also supposed to attract soldiers who can take initiative. But Chinese special forces suffer from the same rigid command and control, as well as political monitoring, that hampers China's regular military units, and Russian forces in Ukraine.

"Generally, there is a tension between the Leninist emphasis on centralization and the need to grant autonomy to lower-level PLA commanders," according to Chen and Wuthnow. "This could be especially problematic in special operations; centralized command could lead to poor performance if small units fail to act because of a lack of explicit authorization, or if they are forced to maintain radio communications and thus reveal their positions to the enemy."

Perhaps the biggest problem with Chinese special forces is lack of integration. A proper amphibious invasion is like a Hollywood musical: an intricate, coordinated mix of ground, naval and aerial forces, as well as missiles, drones and information operations. The US military emphasizes joint operations, and China has taken a step toward that by creating five multiservice theater commands.

But for lightly armed commandos infiltrating Taiwan before the main assault on the beaches, tactical integration is key. "The lack of permanent joint structures below the theater level could diminish the effectiveness of joint operations involving special forces, potentially leading to catastrophic results similar to the failed U.S. hostage-rescue attempt in Iran during Operation Eagle Claw," wrote Chen and Wuthnow.

Still, despite their limitations, Chinese special forces could disrupt Taiwanese defenses enough to enable an amphibious assault to succeed. "Even partly effective special operations could hamper Taiwan's defenses and thus should be addressed explicitly in defensive concepts," Chen and Wuthnow warned. The authors recommend that Taiwan "identify PLA weaknesses, such as a lack of technical proficiency, limited jointness, and potential overreliance on radio communications for command and control, and tailor responses accordingly."

"PLA SOF would be integral to any amphibious invasion of Taiwan," said Wuthnow. "They could also be employed in smaller-scale island seizure campaigns such as we might see in the South China Sea. That being said, it's also the case that these troops have essentially no real-world experience and as an untested force would face difficulties in these high-risk missions."

Michael Peck is a defense writer whose work has appeared in Forbes, Defense News, Foreign Policy magazine, and other publications. He holds an MA in political science from Rutgers Univ. Follow him on Twitter and LinkedIn.

• Syria's embattled president is losing ground to advancing rebels after years of stalemate.
• In the past, Iran orchestrated the interventions that stopped the opposition forces' momentum.
• "I'm not sure Iran can muster the numbers in time to turn this situation around," an analyst said.

Since the early stages of Syria's bloody civil war that began in 2011, Iran has supported Syria's strongman president, Bashar Assad. Now with the loss of Syria's second city, Aleppo, to Assad's opponents, Tehran has vowed to continue this support — but it almost certainly has less to offer than a decade ago.

Syrian rebel forces spearheaded by the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham militant group seized Aleppo in a shock offensive last week, surprising the world and returning the Syrian conflict to the headlines for the first time in years. The rebels did not stop there. Advancing in the face of Russian and Syrian airstrikes, they overran Syria's fourth-largest city, Hama, on Thursday.

"The Syrian government has lost a lot of terrain, including the city of Aleppo. You can't really overstate the seriousness of that," Aron Lund, a fellow with Century International and a Middle East analyst at the Swedish Defence Research Agency, told Business Insider. "Aleppo is a huge city, a really large urban area that will be difficult to retake once lost if Assad is unable to move on it before the insurgents dig in."

Earlier in the Syrian conflict, Iran helped orchestrate interventions on Assad's side by its powerful Lebanese proxy Hezbollah in 2013, and Russia in 2015.

These decisive interventions helped him turn the tide, culminating in a ferocious, scorched-earth campaign against opposition groups in east Aleppo in 2016.

The latest offensive has prompted some outside intervention. Hundreds of Iran-backed militiamen in Iraq are entering Syria. Russia has carried out airstrikes to impede the opposition's advance. However, these are small-scale compared to past interventions. And Hezbollah isn't intervening for now.

"I'm not sure Iran can muster the numbers in time to turn this situation around," Lund said. "Hezbollah, which was Tehran's primary instrument in Syria over the past decade, is now stuck in Lebanon, tending to its wounds and trying to get back on its feet after being mauled by Israel over the course of a two-month war."

Hezbollah is estimated to have upwards of 100,000 fighters and a vast missile arsenal, but those have been battered by Israel's airstrikes and occupation of southern Lebanon.

"The Lebanon ceasefire is really brittle, and as long as conflict could re-erupt at any moment, I don't think Hezbollah has the manpower to spare," Lund said. "Even if they're able to send some men Assad's way, I doubt it would be a game-changing number."

Iran's other options are mobilizing more Iraqi militias or sending personnel from its own Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps paramilitary or its regular army.

"It's possible that Iran will try to send more arms and ammunition," Barbara Slavin, a distinguished fellow at the Stimson Center in Washington and founder and former director of the Future of Iran Initiative at the Atlantic Council, told BI.

"It is also probably counting on Russian airstrikes to stall the HTS offensive and it is clearly having back-channel talks with Turkey," Slavin said. "The Turks may be angling to get Iran to turn a blind eye to new attacks on the Kurds in return for urging HTS to hit pause."

HTS is not a Turkish-controlled proxy like the self-styled Syrian National Army coalition of opposition militias that is also advancing across Aleppo province. However, Turkey has closely coordinated its army's deployment in Syria's Idlib with HTS, which has been the predominant power in that northwestern Syrian province for years now.

"Iran is also looking to cultivate a relationship with Trump, which further limits its freedom of maneuver in the region," Slavin said.

"Iran is in a terrible situation currently without the necessary military, economic, and political capacity to spare," Arash Azizi, senior lecturer in history and political science at Clemson University, told BI.

"Its myriad of problems includes the fact that many Iraqis are reluctant to get involved in a renewed war in Syria."

While Iran will undoubtedly remain committed to supporting Assad, it's unlikely to prove capable of organizing a 2016-style counteroffensive to recapture Aleppo.

"That would require a lot of planning and a lot of diplomatic bargaining with Turkey and other powers," Azizi said.

Century's Lund recalled that the last time Iran intervened to help Assad recapture Aleppo, it did so in close collaboration with Russia.

"If they're going to replicate that success now, the Russians would probably need to bring the air component," Lund said. "Iran has no air force to speak of and if Iranian jets were to show up in Syria, Israel would go after them immediately."

Russian jets and air defenses afford Iran some protection since Israel is more hesitant to clash with Russian forces than they are with Syrian or Iranian ones.

But it remains to be seen how much airpower Russia can spare with its fighters and bombers engaged in the invasion of Ukraine.

"It's worth noting that the Syrian conflict is so small-scale compared to Ukraine that even a relatively small contribution of assets could have an impact there," Lund said.

The Iraqi militiamen entering Syria are more likely to serve as a holding force to help Assad avoid losing more territory.

"Assad needs to hold onto the capital and its immediate environs if he has a chance to survive as Syrian leader," Stimson's Slavin said.

Since Syria doesn't have a sizable Shia minority like Lebanon, Iran has been unable to stand up a local proxy as effective or powerful as Hezbollah in neighboring Lebanon.

Any efforts Iran may take to help Assad coincide with its own priorities to seek an acceptable deal with President-elect Donald Trump's incoming administration. "Iran also wants to at least try for a deal with Trump, so a more aggressive regional posture will not work as regional issues will be on the table this time along with the nuclear file," Slavin said.

As this crisis unfolds, it's striking how "unimportant and absent" the US has been, Azizi noted.

"The US has forces on the ground and also airpower that it has used to attack certain forces on Syrian territory," Azizi said. "But it's clearly not a main player and doesn't seem to have a clear, strategic goal or any particular focus on Syria."

And it remains unclear what President-elect Trump will do about Syria upon reentering office in January.

"As with most other matters, President Trump remains unpredictable," Azizi said.

Paul Iddon is a freelance journalist and columnist who writes about Middle East developments, military affairs, politics, and history. His articles have appeared in a variety of publications focused on the region.

• A Chinese invasion of Taiwan must focus on seizing a port to bring in tanks and supplies.
• Commercial or industrial ports are prime targets that would allow for rapid offloading.
• Taiwan may have the weapons and obstacles to turn its ports into fortresses.

There are two requirements for a major amphibious invasion. The first is storming the beach.

The second is no less important — seizing a port. Without docks and cranes to unload reinforcements — especially armored vehicles — and supplies, everything has to be brought in over the open beach or flown in by helicopter. This can result in a race against time: can the invaders reinforce a large enough beachhead before the defenders try to push them into the sea?

As it contemplates an invasion of Taiwan, China is well aware of this problem. It knows full well that Taiwan will desperately defend its ports.

Chinese military journals "argue that the success or failure of an invasion of Taiwan likely would hinge on whether Chinese amphibious-landing forces are able to seize, hold, and exploit the island's large port facilities," naval analyst Ian Easton wrote in a new book published by the China Maritime Studies Institute at the US Naval War College.

"By themselves, Taiwan's beaches and coastal airports are too small to land enough [People's Liberation Army] troops, tanks, and supplies to secure a solid lodgment ashore," Easton wrote. "Because these sites lack purpose-built infrastructure for unloading large transports and because they occupy inherently exposed positions, PLA researchers fear that Chinese landing forces could be encircled on the beaches, showered with defensive fires, and overrun by Taiwanese counterattacks.^"

Chinese analysts worry that Taiwan will turn its ports into fortresses against sea assault, including mines and obstacles, sink containerships to block shipping channels, and set the waters alight by pouring oil into them.

The People's Liberation Army, as China's military is officially known, sees six options for taking Taiwan's ports, all of which have disadvantages, according to Easton. A direct assault runs into the teeth of port defenses. Landing on either side of a port with armor in a pincer attack is time-consuming. Quick surprise attacks with troops in hovercraft and sea-skimming helicopters suffer from limited transport capacity. Large air assaults with helicopter-carrying troops are threatened by Taiwanese air defenses. Special operations forces may be too lightly armed to seize ports. And beach assaults like D-Day come with the risk that Taiwanese troops could bottle up the attackers.

Based on Chinese military writings, Chinese planners seem to be leaning towards a mix of these options, per Easton. An invasion would begin with heavy air, missile and naval bombardment, followed by commandos to knock out coastal defenses. "After beach obstacles and coastal fortifications have been destroyed using direct fires, large amphibious forces will make landings from the sea, supported by troops arriving by helicopters, hovercraft, and ultralights," Easton wrote. "Once ashore, amphibious-assault units will conduct pincer movements from the beaches, surrounding port zones and isolating defenders into pockets of resistance."

Once ashore, PLA troops will attack areas near the port from two sides at the same time as other assault units in low-flying helicopters and hovercraft strike at the port directly. Once it is captured, Chinese forces will dig in to resist a counterattack, while engineers repair the docks and clear the shipping lanes.

The ports most likely to be attacked are those "that could support the rapid off-loading of main battle tanks and other heavy equipment. The ideal candidates for attack would be well-developed commercial or industrial ports flanked by beaches and river deltas in relatively flat and lightly urbanized areas," wrote Easton. The port of Taichung on the west coast of Taiwan is the most probable candidate, followed by Kaohsiung, Mailiao, Anping and Taiwan's capital Taipei.

Would this Chinese strategy work? Historically, armies and navies have avoided attacking heavily defended ports directly ("A ship's a fool to fight a fort," said the legendary British admiral Horatio Nelson). The most infamous example is the disastrous raid on the port of Dieppe in northern France by 10,000 Allied troops (the majority of them Canadian) in August 1942. Intended as a test operation for D-Day, the attackers suffered 5,000 dead and wounded, or about the half of the assault force. The lesson was so stinging that the Allies opted to make the Normandy invasion over the beaches, and then go on to capture a port.

The challenge isn't just seizing a port, but also getting it in usable enough condition to allow tanks to be unloaded. As the Allies discovered while taking fortified ports such as Brest and Cherbourg in 1944, the Germans made such effective use of demolitions that the port facilities were inoperative for months.

Easton suggests that Taiwan can beef up its port defenses, including missiles and mines, as well as units specially trained in urban warfare. Easton also believes that a first step could be removing the Chinese presence from Taiwanese ports, despite China accounting for 40% of Taiwan's exports. "Taiwanese leaders could close [Chinese Communist Party]-controlled representative offices," Easton wrote. "They could remove and replace critical port infrastructure that is linked to the Chinese military."

In the end, the fate of an invasion of Taiwan turns on which side controls the ports. "The imagination-crushing dimensions of a PLA amphibious operation against Taiwan — the moving of millions of humans and machines — all rely on robust logistics lines," Easton wrote. "Without them, everything else quickly crumbles and falls apart."

Michael Peck is a defense writer whose work has appeared in Forbes, Defense News, Foreign Policy magazine, and other publications. He holds an MA in political science from Rutgers Univ. Follow him on Twitter and LinkedIn.

• The US blocked Turkey from acquiring F-35 stealth fighters.
• Turkey wants the F-35s and may be willing to move the Russian air defenses that triggered the ban.
• President-elect Trump may favor a deal, but he'll likely face resistance inside his administration.

Until five years ago, Turkey had planned to buy 100 of Lockheed Martin's F-35 stealth jets to modernize its air force. But its acquisition of a top-of-the-line Russian air defense missile system dashed that plan, with the US barring Turkey from acquiring any F-35s out of concern the sophisticated Russian system could compromise its tiny radar return.

Five years later, Ankara hopes the incoming Trump administration will reverse its ban.

Turkish sources are signaling the discussion may go beyond an appeal from Turkey's President Recep Tayyip Erdogan, with whom Donald Trump built a rapport. According to Bloomberg, Turkey may agree to restrict its Russian S-400s air defenses in return for the US lifting sanctions. Over the summer, Greek media reported that Washington suggested Ankara transfer the Russian missile launchers to the American section of Turkey's Incirlik airbase, effectively putting them under American supervision.

"If Turkey agrees to a soft decommissioning of the S-400s by storing them at Incirlik under US supervision, it could significantly accelerate Ankara's reintegration into the F-35 program," Suleyman Ozeren, a lecturer at the American University and senior fellow at the Orion Policy Institute, told Business Insider.

"However, this move would likely require Moscow's consent, which presents a complex challenge."

That's not the only hurdle. While analysts see signs that Trump and Turkey may try to clear the impasse, any agreement could still face resistance in his cabinet and in Congress, which passed the 2017 legislation under which Turkey would later be sanctioned for its acquisition of the S-400 system.

Ali Bakir, a Turkey expert at Qatar University's Ibn Khaldon Center and nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council's Scowcroft Middle East Security Initiative, sees "cautious optimism" in Ankara.

He attributes this to the belief that "personal understanding and communication" between Trump and Erdogan will resolve outstanding issues in the Turkish-US relationship, paving the way for a "fresh start."

"However, it is important to acknowledge that Congress also plays a significant role in this dynamic," Bakir told BI. "Congress has often been the most problematic element in US-Turkish relations, rather than the US president."

"Early indications suggest that Congress may not be particularly favorable towards Ankara," Bakir said.

Ozeren also anticipates Ankara could find "greater room to maneuver" during Trump's second term, especially as Republicans will control the House and Senate.

"In theory, this could increase the chances of obtaining US approval for Turkey's return to the F-35 program," Ozeren said. "Nonetheless, given the deeply strained relations over the past decade, any progress would likely be fraught with difficulties and setbacks."

Ryan Bohl, a senior Middle East and North Africa analyst at the risk intelligence company RANE, believes Trump is personally "keen" on selling F-35s to Turkey.

However, Trump's nominee for secretary of state, Marco Rubio, is a Russia and China hawk and may prove "less flexible" on the requirements of the Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act that became law in 2017. Bohl sees "little sign" that the law will be overturned.

"So, it will remain to be seen if Trump can overcome these institutional hurdles to a sale to Turkey," Bohl told BI.

Before Turkey received any S-400s, Washington had repeatedly warned Ankara it would not tolerate F-35s flying in a military that also operates S-400s, fearing that could compromise the low observable radar signature critical to the aircraft's survivability. Placing Turkish S-400s under US supervision in Incirlik could resolve such concerns.

"The damage will never be too severe in terms of relations; what matters is whether or not the administration, and Congress, decides Turkey has done enough to limit the potential exposure of the F-35 to Russian intelligence and/or information gathering," Bohl said.

"That will likely be a split between Trump, who tends not to emphasize such risks, and the Pentagon and intelligence services, who do," Bohl added. "Even with a pliable defense secretary compared to Mark Esper in his first term, this consideration may still be in play."

Turkey has repeatedly asserted over the years that it no longer needs F-35s since it is developing its indigenous stealth jet, the TF Kaan. Despite these assertions, Ankara would most likely welcome another chance to acquire the fifth-generation produced by Lockheed Martin, in partnership with Northrop Grumman and BAE Systems; its powerful single-engine is built by Pratt & Whitney, a subsidiary of RTX Corporation. The F-35 is flown by 17 American allies.

"I believe that if the ban on F-35s is lifted, Ankara would definitely want to acquire them, despite other parallel deals, as Turkey cannot afford to be overly dependent on a single player in critical times," Bakir said.

At the same time, Turkey is developing domestic air defenses and has never put the S-400 into service in the five years since receiving them. The intervening Ukraine war, where Russian S-400s suffered losses, could reduce the value Turkey sees in them.

"Certainly, the S-400's combat performance against Ukraine has been mixed; Turkey may conclude that more advanced F-35s are in its national interest, particularly given Israel's recent deployment of F-35s against Iran," Bohl said.

"At the same time, F-35s will be reliant on US supply chains, and those could be interrupted over politics or because of other priorities that make resupply difficult."

Paul Iddon is a freelance journalist and columnist who writes about Middle East developments, military affairs, politics, and history. His articles have appeared in a variety of publications focused on the region.

• China's marines are preparing for global operations similar to the US Marine Corps.
• China is building amphibious flattops whose scale rivals those of the US.
• US Marines are also shifting strategies, in their case away from storming beaches.

"Send in the Marines" is an old American quip for when things get rough. It may become a Chinese one too.

Instead of merely guarding Chinese naval bases and supporting an invasion of Taiwan, China's Marine Corps appears to be preparing for amphibious operations around the world — just as US Marines do. China is building a force of amphibious flattops that can launch Marine helicopters and possibly the fighting vehicles that motor to shore.

"The investment in large amphibious-assault ships indicates that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) envisions a future in which it can deploy expeditionary strike groups similar to those the United States has employed for the past fifty years," wrote Sam Tangredi in a new book published by the China Maritime Studies Institute at the US Naval War College "A globally deployable amphibious/expeditionary group is a far cry from the humble origins of the PLA [People's Liberation Army] amphibious force and a considerable leap from the PLAN [People's Liberation Army Navy] capabilities that existed in the first years of this century."

Established in 1953, the People's Liberation Army Navy Marine Corps, as it's officially known, was formed to seize Taiwan and other Nationalist-held islands. Like the US Marine Corps, the PLANMC is a branch of the navy. Its missions have been those of traditional naval infantry: guarding naval bases, garrisoning island outposts in the South China Sea, and supporting an amphibious invasion of Taiwan by the Chinese army, which retains its own amphibious assault force.

But the PLANMC has grown to the point where some experts wonder whether it will become an independent service. From two brigades and 12,000 personnel in 2017, the PLANMC has expanded to eight brigades, with a goal of 100,000 personnel; that compares to about 170,000 active-duty US Marines.

Tangredi, who is director of the Naval War College's Institute for Future Warfare Studies, says that there is no direct evidence that China has plans for global amphibious warfare. Yet, "if the Taiwan scenario is the primary purpose in mind, why is the PLA building amphibious warships that are optimized for global operations?" he asks.

Invading Taiwan doesn't require big amphibious assault ships similar to the Wasp-class vessels, 840-foot-long floating airports for Marine helicopters and jump-jets like the AV-8B Harrier II and the F-35B Lightning II and concentrating its assault force into small numbers of large ships comes with risks. Yet China is building 36,000-ton Type 075 amphibious assault ships that can carry up to 30 helicopters as well as 1,200 marines and their heavy equipment, including tanks. The upcoming 50,000-ton Type 076 will be the world's largest amphibious assault vessel.

"For an invasion of Taiwan across a strait of approximately a hundred nautical miles (nm), LHDs are not necessarily the optimal (or the most cost-effective) platforms when numerous smaller warcraft are available (including civilian commercial craft)," Tangredi wrote. "They are, however, optimal for spearheading the transport of marines to conduct operations at distances out to the Horn of Africa, islands in the eastern Pacific, or — with suitable future logistics support — the Mediterranean."

Back to their roots

The US Marine Corps is also adapting. It is switching from an emphasis on storming beaches — the US has not attempted a major beach assault under fire since the Korean war — to supporting the US Navy with missile-equipped units to hunt Chinese ships from island bases. This is transforming the US Marine Corps into "an archipelagic maneuver force designed to conduct littoral, sea-denial operations," Tangredi said.

The Corps devised a new force layout to operate in an age of drones and anti-ship missiles. In this new structure, Marine littoral units "would not be optimized for amphibious assaults or combat against enemy forces ashore but would use previously unoccupied territory to conduct attacks on warships and aircraft — essentially, naval combat from the land," wrote Tangredi. Retired senior Marine commanders were aghast.

Thus the USMC has given all its tanks to the US Army, while it creates mobile units that can quickly turn small Pacific islands into missile bases from which to strike Chinese ships. The 3rd Littoral Regiment was stood up in 2022, and two more regiments are planned.

These littoral units would "assist the Navy in asserting sea control in the East and South China Seas," Tangredi wrote. "Marines would operate as part of a littoral combat group, with the Navy having overall command, supplying the warships (and necessary support vessels), and providing most of the group's firepower. Armed with land versions of the Navy's antiship missiles, Marine units would maneuver constantly while ashore by ground vehicles or from island to island using the proposed LAW [light amphibious warship]."

Ironically, the US Marine Corps is returning to its historical roots. Marines have always had an ambiguous role, neither quite army nor navy (poet Rudyard Kipling called them "soldier an' sailor too"). Back to the days of the Roman Empire, marines have been naval infantry tasked with seizing and guarding naval bases, boarding enemy vessels, and acting as shipboard military police to put down mutinies.

This is what the US Marine Corps did for most of its history since its founding in 1775. But in World War II and afterwards, it became more like a scaled-down version of the US Army, conducting massive multi-division amphibious invasions and fighting conventional ground campaigns in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. Small, light units flitting from Pacific island to island would be more in line with traditional USMC roles.

As for Chinese marines, their historical purpose was to storm Taiwan, not garrison tiny atolls on behalf of the navy. For China and America, their marines are switching roles.

Michael Peck is a defense writer whose work has appeared in Forbes, Defense News, Foreign Policy magazine, and other publications. He holds an MA in political science from Rutgers Univ. Follow him on Twitter and LinkedIn.

• US troops remain in Syria to counter ISIS and patrol oil fields in the region.
• Trump's return raises uncertainties about the status of these troops in this highly volatile region.
• Both Turkey and the Kurdish-led officials hope to sway the incoming Trump administration.

For almost a decade, US troops have been on the ground in Syria to assist Kurdish-led forces in the defeat of the infamous Islamic State. These forces tamp down on the ISIS remnants in the northern and eastern regions they presently control, where tens of thousands of captured ISIS fighters, their families and suspected affiliates remain in open-air camps and prisons.

But there's a new wrinkle of uncertainty in this highly volatile and contested region: US President-elect Donald Trump.

During his first term, Trump ordered the withdrawal of US troops partnered with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces after ISIS' territorial defeat. Trump did this following a phone call with the president of Turkey, a staunch rival of the SDF, resulting in an immediate cross-border Turkish operation against those US-allied forces. Trump then backtracked and kept 900 US troops in Syria.

His imminent return to the Oval Office once again raises the specter that the US could pull out, leaving a power vacuum that Turkey, the Syrian regime, and Russia may move to fill at the SDF's expense. The resulting instability could be an opening for ISIS to regroup. Turkish officials want the US to leave, with the incumbent defense minister stating, "Trump will strongly focus on this." But the Kurds hope they can persuade him otherwise.

"We formed a successful alliance with the United States in combating terrorism," Sinam Mohamad, the representative of the Syrian Democratic Council mission to the United States and a top diplomat of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, told Business Insider.

"We may have felt frustrated during Trump's first term due to his decision to withdraw American forces from Syria in 2019," Mohamad said. "But today, as a result of the political circumstances in the Middle East and the world, we see that President Trump will have a different outlook than before."

The AANES administrates large swathes of north and east Syria under the SDF's control.

The regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, which is backed by Russia, does not recognize the AANES. Turkey vehemently opposes it, claiming the SDF has inextricable ties to its main adversary, the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK. Turkish strikes against AANES infrastructure have cut off water and electricity to over a million people, leading to charges that Turkey is violating international law.

"The incoming Trump administration has an opportunity to reconfigure the entire US strategy in Syria, maintain its minimal but high-rewards troops presence in Syria, and proceed with a bold vision to mend fences between Syrian Kurds and Ankara," Mohammed A. Salih, a non-resident senior fellow in the Foreign Policy Research Institute and an expert on Kurdish and regional affairs, told BI.

"The focus should be on a win-win outcome for all sides, America, Kurds, and Turkey."

Some called for a US withdrawal after the January drone attack against a US base in Jordan that supports operations in Syria, killing three Americans and injuring 47.

The specific timing of any American withdrawal will also be a critical factor.

"The American withdrawal from Syria may take place in 2026 or before that, but what will be different are the circumstances that will accompany this withdrawal," the SDC's Mohamad said. "It may take into account the dangers facing the areas of the autonomous administration and Washington's allies in the fight against terrorism, and at that time, it is necessary to ensure the withdrawal with political security for the region."

The official underlined the continued importance of the American presence for ensuring "the continuation of the fight against terrorism" and that the SDF can continue securing the "large number of prisoners of the terrorist organizations languishing" in AANES detention.

The Kurds have thousands of former ISIS fighters in its camps and detention centers. The sprawling Al-Hol camp has a population of over 40,000, including thousands of ISIS women and children, a number of whom remain radicalized. It has warned that another Turkish invasion would divert SDF fighters and resources away from securing these facilities.

"The Syrian Democratic Forces have the qualifications to secure these facilities," said Mohamad, the Kurdish diplomat. "But they will not be able to perform their duty to the fullest extent if the withdrawal occurs without political security for the region's situation."

Mohamad stressed that AANES and SDF would want American guarantees that Turkey will not invade after a US withdrawal.

"A sudden troop withdrawal could probably result in even more disastrous outcomes than in Afghanistan, given the presence of various regional and global powers in Syria and the resurgence of ISIS and other jihadi groups there," said Salih, the FPRI regional expert.

"In all likelihood, the situation will be highly chaotic in the event of a withdrawal with serious consequences that could witness the mass escaping of ISIS prisoners, likely more radicalized and resentful as a result of their prison experience," Salih added.

While weakened from years of war, ISIS has already demonstrated its capability to regroup and threaten their adversaries. A coordinated ISIS jailbreak attempt in 2022 led to almost two weeks of heavy fighting with the SDF.

A rapid US withdrawal tips the uneasy balance of powers. Salih anticipates this could lead to "a hectic race" between Iran, Russia, the Syrian regime, and Turkey for the resource-rich AANES regions.

"All the problems we suffer from in the regions of North and East Syria are related to the necessity of placing our region within the international solution platforms related to Syria, political support, and finding a solution to the Syrian crisis with the participation of the Autonomous Administration and the Syrian Democratic Council in the political process," Mohamad said.

"This will have a major impact in changing the shape of the region, reducing hotbeds of tension, and ensuring global security and peace."

Paul Iddon is a freelance journalist and columnist who writes about Middle East developments, military affairs, politics, and history. His articles have appeared in a variety of publications focused on the region.