Arnon Grunberg

Fate

Months

A summary in Der Spiegel on the latest developments in Syria:

"Islamic State, which all sides insist is the true enemy, has lost Jarabulus and will quickly be forced to give up its last bastions on the Turkish border That will likely mean that the willingness of the Kurds to attack the IS stronghold of Raqqa on behalf of the West has sunk dramatically.
Syrian rebels are rejoicing over the successful invasion. But a rude awakening could be on the horizon when Turkey turns its back on them so it can join Assad in the battle against the Kurds.
Turkey has improved its relations with Russia and the US and put a halt to the Kurdish advance. But the conflict may now flare in Turkey. Already, several hundred people have been killed there in recent months in skirmishes between the Turkish military and the PKK.
Bashar Assad has now added the Kurds to his list of enemies, but Turkey isn't as great of an enemy as it used to be. His fate, though, remains in the hands of Moscow.
And the US now has the problem of having two allies in Syria who actually would like to shoot at each other."

Read the article here.

It's fair to say that in Syria everybody would like to shoot at everybody. And the Russians are the winners, as Der Spiegel pointed out, for now at least.

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