Past the sand berm marking the border between northern Iraq and northeastern Syria, a small military outpost sits amid the oil derricks that dot the parched landscape of this country at war. A few months ago, the flag of the Syrian regime flew here. Today, it is replaced with a green, yellow and red tricolor banner, flying above a few Kurdish fighters and a pickup truck with a mounted DShK machinegun. This is Kurdish land now, mostly. While the eyes of the world and the Assad regime turned to Aleppo this summer as fighting engulfed the city, Kurdish groups moved aggressively to wrest control of parts of their northeastern heartland in Syria’s Hassake province from the government, corralling the regime’s presence to a few towns and checkpoints along the highways. The endgame here for many is autonomy. Under Syria’s Baath Party, Arabization policies alienated the Kurds by
Josh Wood is a journalist based in Boston. He was previously based in Beirut, where he was a correspondent for The National. His work focuses on refugees, US foreign policy and conflicts in the Middle East.
