Syrian Democratic Forces in the context of Syrian Turkmen

Operation Inherent Resolve (OIR) is the United States military's operational name for the international war against the Islamic State (IS)—a group also known as the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS), the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) or its Arab acronym "Daesh"—including both a campaign in Iraq and a campaign in Syria, with a closely related campaign in Libya. Through 18 September 2018, the U.S. Army's III Armored Corps was responsible for Combined Joint Task Force – Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTF—OIR) and were replaced by the XVIII Airborne Corps. The campaign is primarily waged by American and British forces in support of local allies, most prominently the Iraqi Security Forces (ISF) and Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). Combat ground troops, mostly special forces, infantry, and artillery have also been deployed, especially in Iraq. Of the airstrikes, 70% have been conducted by the military of the United States, 20% by the United Kingdom, and the remaining 10% being carried out by Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Jordan, the Netherlands, Saudi Arabia, Turkey, and the United Arab Emirates.

According to the Pentagon, by March 2019, the day of IS's territorial defeat in Syria, CJTF—OIR and its partner forces had liberated nearly 110,000 square kilometers (42,471 square miles) of land and 7.7 million people from IS, the vast majority of the self-proclaimed caliphate's territory and subjects. By October 2017, around the time of IS's territorial defeat in Iraq, CJTF—OIR claimed that around 80,000 IS militants had been killed by it and its allies (excluding those targeted by Russian and Syrian air strikes). By the end of August 2019, it had conducted 34,573 strikes. Tens of thousands more were killed by partner forces on the ground (the SDF alone claimed to have killed 25,336 IS fighters by the end of 2017).

On 27 November 2024, a coalition of Syrian revolutionary factions called the Military Operations Command, led by Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and supported by allied Turkish-backed groups in the Syrian National Army (SNA), launched an offensive against the Ba'athist regime's armed forces in Idlib, Aleppo and Hama Governorates in Syria. It initially began as a localised offensive targeting towns in the Idlib and Aleppo countryside, later evolving into a nationwide campaign that culminated in the toppling of Bashar al-Assad’s regime.

On 29 November 2024, HTS and later the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) entered Aleppo and captured most of the city, amid the collapse of pro-government forces. The next day, opposition forces made rapid advances, capturing dozens of towns and villages as pro-government forces disintegrated, and advanced toward Hama in central Syria, subsequently capturing it on 5 December. By 6 December, the SDF captured Deir ez-Zor in an offensive east of the Euphrates, while the newly formed Southern Operations Room and Al-Jabal Brigade captured Daraa and Suwayda in an offensive in the south. The HTS advanced further south toward Homs. The US-backed Syrian Free Army (SFA) took control of Palmyra in the southeast of the country.

The Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (DAANES), also known as Rojava, is a de facto autonomous region in northeastern Syria. It consists of self-governing sub-regions in the areas of Jazira, Euphrates, Raqqa, Tabqa, and Deir ez-Zor. The region gained its de facto autonomy in 2012 in the context of the ongoing Rojava conflict and the wider Syrian civil war, in which its official military force, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), has taken part.

While entertaining some foreign relations, the region is neither officially recognized as autonomous by the government of Syria, state, or other governments institutions except for the Catalan Parliament. Northeastern Syria is polyethnic and home to sizeable ethnic Arab, Kurdish, and Assyrian populations, with smaller communities of ethnic Turkmen, Armenians, Circassians, and Yazidis.

Raqqa (Arabic: ٱلرَّقَّة, romanized: ar-Raqqah, also al-Raḳḳa), is a city in Syria on the North bank of the Euphrates River, about 160 kilometres (99 miles) east of Aleppo. It is located 40 kilometres (25 miles) east of the Tabqa Dam, Syria's largest dam. The Hellenistic, Roman, and Byzantine city and bishopric Callinicum (formerly a Latin and now a Maronite Catholic titular see) was the capital of the Abbasid Caliphate between 796 and 809, under the reign of Harun al-Rashid. It was also the capital of the Islamic State from 2014 to 2017. With a population of 531,952 based on the 2021 official census, Raqqa is the sixth largest city in Syria.

During the Syrian Civil War, the city was captured in 2013 by the Syrian opposition and then by the Islamic State. ISIS made the city its capital in 2014. As a result, the city was hit by airstrikes from the Syrian government, Russia, the United States, and several other countries. Most non-Sunni religious structures in the city were destroyed by ISIS, most notably the Shia Uwais al-Qarni Mosque, while others were converted into Sunni mosques. On 17 October 2017, following a lengthy battle that saw massive destruction to the city, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) declared the liberation of Raqqa from the Islamic State to be complete.

On 22 September 2014, the United States officially intervened in the Syrian civil war with the stated aim of fighting the Islamic State (ISIL/ISIS) militant organization in support of the international war against it, code named Operation Inherent Resolve. The US currently continues to support the Syrian Armed Forces under the transitional government and the YPG-led Syrian Democratic Forces.

Shortly after the start of the civil war in 2011, the Obama administration placed sanctions against Syria and supported the Free Syrian Army rebel faction by covertly authorizing Timber Sycamore under which the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) armed and trained rebels. Following the Islamic State's occupation of Eastern Syria in August 2014, the United States conducted surveillance flights in Syria to gather intelligence regarding the Islamic State. In September 2014, the United States-led coalition—which involves the United Kingdom, France, Jordan, Turkey, Canada, Australia, and others—launched an air campaign against the Islamic State and al-Nusra Front inside Syria.

The Battle of Baghuz Fawqani was an offensive by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), assisted by Combined Joint Task Force – Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTF-OIR) coalition airstrikes, artillery, and special forces personnel, that began on 9 February 2019 as part of the Deir ez-Zor campaign of the Syrian Civil War. The battle—which was composed of a series of ground assaults—took place in and around the Syrian town of Al-Baghuz Fawqani in the Middle Euphrates River Valley near the Iraq–Syria border, and was the territorial last stand of the Islamic State (IS) in eastern Syria.

After corralling IS forces into a densely populated cluster of hamlets and a tent city along the riverside within the first week, the SDF realised that a greater-than-anticipated number of civilians, most of whom were relatives of the what were now mostly foreign IS fighters, were still in the enclave. With CJTF-OIR oversight, the SDF took an incremental approach to the battle, launching assaults then pausing to allow surrendering fighters, hostages, and families to evacuate in order to minimize civilian casualties. The "trickle-out" strategy, coupled with stiff resistance by veteran Islamic State jihadists within a small dense area, prolonged the battle into a protracted siege. The SDF officially declared final victory over the IS in Baghuz Fawqani on 23 March, marking the end of IS-controlled territories in Syria.

The 2017 Western Iraq campaign was the final major military operation of the 2013–2017 war in Iraq, in the western province of Anbar, and on the border with Syria, with the goal of completely expelling IS forces from their last strongholds in Iraq.

The offensive followed the Hawija offensive by the Iraqi Government, and was also concurrent with several major offensives in Syria: the Syrian Democratic Forces' Deir ez-Zor offensive, and the Syrian Government's Battle of Deir ez-Zor and Eastern Syria campaign on the opposite side of the Al-Qa'im border crossing.

Manbij (Arabic: منبج, romanized: Manbiǧ) is a city in the northeast of Aleppo Governorate in northern Syria, 30 kilometers (19 miles) west of the Euphrates. The 2004 census gives its population as nearly 100,000. The population of Manbij is largely Arab, with Kurdish, Turkmen, Circassian, and Chechen minorities. Many of its residents practice Naqshbandi Sufism.

During the Syrian Civil War, the city was first captured by rebels in 2012, overrun by the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant in 2014 and finally captured by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in 2016, bringing it into the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES). From 2018 to 2024, after an agreement with the SDF, the Syrian Arab Army had been deployed on the city's periphery as a buffer between the Turkish occupation of Northern Syria and the AANES. On December 9, 2024, it was reported that the city came under the control of the Syrian Interim Government after a deal was reached between the U.S. and Turkey to allow the safe exit of SDF fighters. The pro-Turkish forces' control over the area did not end until the SIG was incorporated into the Syrian caretaker government at the end of January 2025.

The Syrian Revolution Victory Conference, officially titled the Conference for Announcing the Victory of the Syrian Revolution (Arabic: مؤتمر إعلان انتصار الثورة السورية), was held at the Presidential Palace in Damascus, Syria, on 29 January 2025. It was attended by the commanders of various armed revolutionary factions that fought for the Syrian opposition coalition against the deposed regime of Bashar al-Assad, with the exception of the Syrian Democratic Forces, the Southern Operations Room, and groups from Suwayda. It was organized by the Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham-led Syrian caretaker government under de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa.

The meeting praised the successful Syrian Revolution which resulted in the fall of the Assad regime on 8 December 2024. In the conference, Military Operations Command spokesman Hassan Abdul Ghani announced that al-Sharaa had been appointed the president of Syria for the transitional period and laid out the new government's priorities, most of which involved eliminating traces of the deposed Ba'athist regime and rebuilding Syrian institutions.

In the days leading up to and during the 2024 Syrian opposition offensives, several military clashes involving ISIS cells, Syrian rebel forces, Ba'athist Syrian government forces, and US-led international coalition forces involving the United Kingdom, France, Jordan, Turkey, Canada, Australia, and others, occurred in Deir ez-Zor Governorate. These events prompted significant military responses from both Russian forces and Assad regime's troops.

On 3 December 2024, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), supported by the US-led CJTF–OIR coalition, launched an offensive on pro-government forces in the eastern Deir ez-Zor region.

Operation Olive Branch (Turkish: Zeytin Dalı Harekâtı) was an invasion by the Turkish Armed Forces and Syrian National Army (SNA) in the Kurdish-majority Afrin District of northwest Syria, against the People's Protection Units (YPG) of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). The air war and use of major artillery ended as the Arab and Turkmen militias of the SNA entered the city of Afrin on 18 March 2018.

Between 395 and 510 civilians were reported killed in the invasion. Other reported war crimes include the mutilation of a female corpse by SNA fighters, the killing of civilians due to indiscriminate shelling by Turkish forces, the alleged use of chemical gas by the Turkish Army, and the indiscriminate shooting of refugees fleeing from the conflict area into Turkey by the Gendarmerie General Command.

Al-Busayrah (Arabic: الْبُصَيْرَة, romanized: al-Buṣayrah) is a town in eastern Syria, administratively part of the Deir ez-Zor Governorate. The town is located, at the confluence of the Euphrates and Khabur Rivers, southeast of Deir ez-Zor. Nearby localities include Muhassan to the northwest and al-Asharah, Mayadin and Hajin to the southeast. According to the Syria Central Bureau of Statistics (CBS), Al-Busayrah had a population of 6,199 in the 2004 census. The town was known by its Latin name, Circesium, under the Roman Empire.

During the Syrian Civil War, the city was part of the Islamic State until the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) captured it on 12 November 2017, bringing it under the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria. On 6 August 2024, Syrian Army Backed Tribal Forces claimed to have captured the city amid an announced offensive in the region.

The battle of Raqqa (2017), also known as the second battle of Raqqa, was the fifth and final phase of the Raqqa campaign (2016–2017) launched by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) against the Islamic State (IS) with an aim to seize the city of Raqqa, the de facto capital of ISIL since 2014. The battle began on 6 June 2017, and was supported by airstrikes and ground troops from the US-led coalition. The operation was named the "Great Battle" by the SDF. It concluded on 17 October 2017, with the SDF fully capturing the city of Raqqa.

The battle ran concurrently with the conclusion of the Battle of Mosul (2016–2017), which had started seven months earlier, as part of an effort by the CJTF–OIR and its allies to strip ISIL of its regional centers of power and to dismantle it as a state. It continued while Syrian Arab Army and allies began clearing ISIL across the Euphrates, reaching the point of the lifting of the Siege of Deir ez-Zor (2014–2017).

The People's Defense Units (YPG), also called People's Protection Units, is a libertarian socialist US-backed Kurdish militant group in Syria and the primary component of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

The YPG mostly consists of Kurds, but also includes Arabs and foreign volunteers; it is closely allied to the Syriac Military Council, an Assyrian militia. The YPG was formed in 2011. It expanded rapidly in the Syrian Civil War and came to predominate over other armed Syrian Kurdish groups. A sister militia, the Women's Protection Units (YPJ), fights alongside them. The YPG is active in the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (Rojava), particularly in its Kurdish regions.

Mazloum Abdi is a Syrian Kurdish military leader, serving as the commander-in-chief of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

According to organizational media, Mazloum Abdi was a member of the executive council of the PKK's branch, Kurdistan Communities Union, in 2013. Abdi's SDF reached an integration agreement with the Syrian transitional government on 10 March 2025 after Abdi congratulated Ahmed al-Sharaa on assuming the Syrian transitional presidency.

The Deir ez-Zor campaign, codenamed the al-Jazeera Storm campaign, was a military operation launched by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) against the Islamic State (IS) in Syria's Deir ez-Zor Governorate in 2017 during the Syrian Civil War with the goal of capturing territory in eastern Syria, particularly east and north of the Euphrates river. The U.S.-led Combined Joint Task Force – Operation Inherent Resolve (CJTF–OIR) anti-ISIL coalition provided extensive air support while SDF personnel composed the majority of the ground forces; OIR special forces and artillery units were also involved in the campaign.

The ground campaign stalled and was paused in early 2018 due to the Turkish military operation in Afrin, but resumed on 1 May 2018 with the new phase named by the coalition as Operation Roundup. The third phase began on 10 September 2018 but was halted due to Turkish artillery attacks on SDF positions near the Syria-Turkey border on 31 October. The SDF and the coalition announced the resumption of the offensive on 11 November. After a series of steady successes following the capture of ISIL's Hajin stronghold, and a ten-day pause for civilian evacuations, the SDF launched its final assault on ISIL's final pocket of territory on 9 February 2019 and declared victory on 23 March, concluding the campaign.