The Women's Defense Units (YPJ) was founded on April 4, 2013. On the occasion of its six-year anniversary, YPJ spokeswoman Nesrin Abdullah commented on the developments since the very beginning in an interview with ANF.

https://anfenglish.com/features/six-years-of-ypj-growing-and-changing-society-part-i-34090

You took part in the founding phase of the YPJ. On what basis were the YPJ founded?

Women play a strategic role in the freedom and independence of peoples and in the peace and justice of society. Gender equality, social justice, a life of free organization and identity are important to a society. We see this above all in the Kurdish society. Despite centuries of colonization and hostile attacks, the Kurdish people have preserved their own selves. It was not a political claim, but as a people, they protected their own culture, existence, traditions and customs. They have always been in resistance.

There have been many revolutions in history and the past is full of the stories of these revolutions. Here, women were always significantly involved and have come to the fore. Even at times when there were no women's organizations, single women have shaped events.

In comparison with the other parts of Kurdistan, Rojava has always provided assistance and created opportunities. However, no revolution took place and there were no organized defense mechanisms, especially none involving women. In the history of Rojava, a revolution has taken place for the first time, and women's defenders play a leading role in this revolution. This was a historic process for Rojava.

So it was a first, but we have to see it in the context of the fight of the Kurds as well as the women worldwide and the Kurdish women. "We are hidden in the beginning of history and history in our presence" - this statement has not been made in vain. The existing combat experience took shape in Rojava and especially in the women of Rojava. As YPJ, we regard ourselves as a continuation of the heritage that emerged from the struggles of women worldwide and Kurdish women. The YPJ was built under the leadership of Kurdish women.

Rojava has been ruled by the Baath regime, a chauvinist and ignorant system. Not only the women, the entire Kurdish people were disenfranchised. There was no right to identity and political status. The prevailing repression was so great that the Kurds were not even allowed to live their own culture and customs. There were many casualties and women were tortured. Nevertheless, the population of Rojava never capitulated. Especially women were not allowed to breathe, but they insisted on speaking for themselves and organizing themselves politically.

Another factor should not be forgotten: in this part of Kurdistan, no revolution took place earlier, but it was the nest from which all the revolutions of Kurdistan emerged. And Abdullah Öcalan had great influence in this region. He has spent years educating the women's liberation ideology in the population, and this work has had a major impact on women. Already at that time numerous women from Rojava joined the liberation struggle and many of them have fallen martyrs. Even today, this effect is noticeable. Women have gained self-confidence and trust has also been generated in the population. This factor has contributed to the emergence of the YPJ.

How did you decide to start the YPJ?

The YPJ were not suddenly founded by resolution from above, and they did not just come into existence. They were founded on the basis of a consciousness, on a scientific basis. The history of women worldwide and Kurdish women has been researched and interpreted. The decision to build up their own women's forces is based on scientific findings. In order to enable a strong foundation, preparations for the necessary substructure have been made.

Our first finding in the start-up phase was the existing need for specific women's units for self-defense. Second, we realized that such an organization would not be possible without ideology. An ideological participation was necessary, the pure accession was not enough. If women do not trust themselves and their own strength and have no consciousness, there would have been no difference. Women would have carried weapons and men as well. That's why the women's liberation ideology was essential to us.

Also for the own defense a scale was necessary, therefore we put on the legitimate self-defense. In subsequent developments, this line has always been decisive and that is why we still exist today.

There has also been a debate on the standard of acceptance and rejection of women and the question of their own organization. In addition to the positive factors such as the trust that was placed in us and the growing determination and perseverance, there were also many difficulties.

What were the difficulties?

It was the first time that women's defense units were established in the region. Women wanted to take up arms and represent their own identity in this part of the world. It was not so easy for society to accept, people did not accept it. We know that the society is feudal in Kurdistan and the Middle East. There was a patriarchal way of thinking.

In the Middle East, both a female and a male mentality had emerged. According to this way of thinking, women were helpless. They were assigned a life within the house. Women have been taught that they only come into the world to give birth to children and to satisfy men that they are beautiful, fragile and gentle. The men had established an understanding of domination. Of course there was also the policy led by the enemy, which had a crippling effect not only within society but also in the personality of women.

How did you manage to build women's defense units for the first time in a society with committed gender roles?

We have noticed that we first needed a small group of women who can organize other women. Here, Şehîd (Martyr) Warşin and Şehîd Jinda played a major role. Both have done much to convince other women to join the YPJ. The YPJ did not exist yet, but there was already a decision to found it. Therefore, women had to be found first, who were willing to do so, otherwise the pure decision would have no function. We went from house to house, dealing with the women and talking to them. We got together with their families and talked for hours. These discussions sometimes lasted for days, even months. Through our persistence, women could be persuaded to join the fight.

The personalities of women were not prepared for this because women are socialized within the traditions of society. The dreams of women did not go beyond attending school, a house, a partner and children. Such was the situation of women in our society. For us, the accession of a woman was as meaningful as the liberation of a nation. In this consciousness we went forward. It was difficult for us, but it was very important. We knew that we were doing a very difficult job, and with each new woman joining us, our burden became lighter. It was a success and this success motivated us further.

In 2012, we founded an academy called Şehîd Xebat in the village of Zixate in Dêrik.

Has this academy been founded by the YPJ or the YPG?

At that time, the YPG did not exist. It was the time of the YXK, the Academy was a military academy of the YXK. A friend named Piling and I worked on building a military academy. Heval Piling fell a martyr later. No women participated in the first three courses. In the fourth course, we decided to get the women out of their families so they could also get an education. Two women then participated. Even that was a great success for us. Over time, more and more women came. The confidence in women grew, they became more courageous and self-confident. For us that was a developmental leap.

How did you come to the official foundation of the YPJ?

For many organizations, the first step is building and then taking the step into practice. It was not like that with the YPJ. At the YPJ and YPG, organization, construction and defense took place simultaneously. In 2012, our friends actively participated in the defense in the fight against the Baath regime in Aleppo. Our forces were built and at the same time actively participated in the defense.

This time was really remarkable for us. We did everything at the same time, experienced beautiful and difficult things at the same time. Before the YPJ were officially founded, they participated in the revolution, grew bigger and formed.

That's why the YPJ quickly gained influence, both within society and among male friends. They were recognized in society, more and more women joined, and friends earned respect and trust.

All the women who joined declared their willingness to sacrifice themselves for this people, for the land and for the women. With this motivation, they joined the ranks and fought. With their conviction, their passion and the will they represented, they proved themselves both in organizing in the social sphere and in war. They gave the company confidence.

In the war, women quickly gained the trust of men. Although they were inexperienced and young, they were able to give strength to the male friends. Although we were just getting started, the morale of friends at the front was very different when women were present. Their conviction, perseverance and determination grew larger.

Within the population, the friends who were responsible for organizing made for a similarly positive atmosphere. That was very important for the YPJ. Within a short time, the number of fighters grew rapidly. The motivation developed among the women led to very rapid accessions. That's why we, as the YPJ headquarters, needed to hold a conference in 2013. And on 4 April 2013, the founding of the YPJ was declared.

At the beginning of the revolution our numbers were still small, we were still under construction, yet we participated in all the offensives and battles. Since 2012, the YPJ has been involved in defense in all areas. The YPJ have fought against the regime, against Islamist groups, against al-Nusra, the ISIS and even against the gangs of the Turkish state, Afrin is an example.

How do you evaluate the current developments? You said that the YPJ was founded by Kurdish women. Are women from other peoples now present in the YPJ ranks?

From day one to today, there have been really big changes within the YPJ. Both YPJ and society have changed. The YPJ was founded under the leadership of Kurdish women. They started with the Kurdish women and then organized themselves throughout northern and eastern Syria, not only within the Kurdish society, but in all the peoples of the region. The YPJ are the defense forces of all the women in the region, and women from other peoples have joined as well.

Within the YPJ there are Arab, Syriac, Armenian, Circassian, Chechen and Turkmen women. The colors of all nations are represented. The handling of the YPJ has ensured that women of other peoples have found their place within the YPJ. Every woman can find herself in the YPJ.

The principles of the YPJ play an important role here. One of these principles is that the revolutionary struggle is of course not conducted only for the Kurdish people. Our real goal is to build a democratic, free, ecological and egalitarian society that does not discriminate between the genders. As our name implies, we are a force dedicated to women's defense, regardless of origin.

Every woman has the right to join the YPJ regardless of religion, origin, language and belief.

What developments have the YPJ made since its founding in military terms - strategy, tactics, technology, command center?

I have already said that the YPJ have matured in practice. The YPJ were founded on a scientific basis. At our 2013 conference, we decided to set up military academies. We have seen the need for both ideological and military training. There were already academies before, but they were mixed. We wanted to start our own women's academies.

Lessons in the art of war took place at our academies, at the same time experiences were gained in practice. Looking back at the beginning, we see that we have seen great developments both as the commanders and fighters of the YPJ.

We have fought against armies and against Islamist groups that have used guerrilla tactics. As for defense tactics, we have become experts. The fight for Kobanê is the best example, Raqqa is also a good example. The liberation of Raqqa has, under the leadership of the YPJ, become a retaliatory offensive for the women from Shengal. The YPJ have become a professional force.

The Rojava Revolution in 2013: The success of the YPG
The Rojava Revolution in 2013: The success of the YPG

 ANF  QAMISHLO  Wednesday, 25 Dec 2013, 10:55
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In a new report for ANF, Dildar Aryen highlights the progress the Rojava Revolution has made in 2013 and the important developments over the past year. What follows is the first part of that report, translated into English, in which Aryen discusses the progress of the YPG/YPJ and their important victories in 2013.

The Success of the YPG: In one year 5 cities, 5 towns and around 100 villages liberated

The People’s Defense Forces (YPG) has been strengthened with the goal of defending the gains of the July 19th revolution. The decision to extend and consolidate the YPG was taken at a conference at the beginning of the year and its organization has extended even to the village-level. Over the course of the year it has exhibited a strong resistance to many, multi-sided attacks. The YPG liberated 5  cities, 5 towns and around 100 villages in 2013 and cleaned much of the region of gangs. It also provided a space for the political organization of women in the area of defense: 5 female brigades were formed and the resistance they exhibited and the victories they achieved had a significant effect in the regional and international arena.

Three years on from the Peoples’ Spring and the revolutionary process that was started in Syria by the people in 2011, interventions into the country in 2013 by regional and international forces opened the way for further death, pillaging and destruction. As the regime continues to hold onto power and the opposition is unable to achieve any unity, radical forces operating in the name of Islam have taken a prominent place in the conflict. Six million people were forced to leave their homes; in now destroyed cities hunger, sickness, kidnapping, torture, rape and other violations of human rights have reached extreme levels. However in Rojava the revolution that began on July 19th, 2012 has continued to work toward the construction of democratic autonomy and in 2013 this work has become systematic. One of the important elements of this system was the formation of a defense force.

Organization around a defense force began following the regime’s massacre of protesters in Qamişlo on March 12, 2014 [2004?]. The YPG was founded in 2011 and officially announced upon the July 19th, 2012 Revolution. In 2013 it has become the important defense force in the region.

At a conference held at the beginning of the year — January 1-5th — a delegation of 336 local commanders and fighters from Dêrik, Dirbêsiyê, Qamişlo, Serêkaniyê, Amudê, Kobanî, Efrîn, Heleb, Bab and many other areas gathered in Derika Hemko to discuss the future of the YPG. The delegates decided to form a unified defense force that would take as its principal rule the embrace of all the peoples of Western Kurdistan.

At the same conference a decision was taken to open training camps in all major areas of Rojava under the name of “Martyr Xebat Academies” and a new flag was designed that would symbolize all the people Western Kurdistan. The organizers of the YPG also promised that their struggle would be in accordance with the principals of the Geneva Convention and the YPG proclaimed themselves a party to that convention. On October 11th of this year representatives from the YPG and the Women’s Defense Units (YPJ) met with the Geneva Call, an international organization headquartered in Switzerland, where they signed a number of agreements concerning the clearing of minefields and the protection of women and children with the possibility that more agreements could be reached in the future.

The formation of the Women’s Defense Units (YPJ) was announced

Women who had been active in the YPG since its founding began to work on their own autonomous organization. Women’s brigades were founded in  Kobanê, Dirbêsiyê, Qamişlo, Dêrik and Efrin, and at a conference that took place in Derik between April 2-4 the formation of the YPJ was officially proclaimed. A decision was also taken to organize training camps for women under the name of “Martyr Şîhan Defense Academies” and immediately after the conference two such academies were opened in Efrin and Derik.

Large Scale Offensives and Great Resistance

In 2013 Rojava experienced a great deal of organization in the area of defense as it witnessed more attacks than in any previous year. Various regional, international and local forces opposed to the construction of a system of democratic autonomy attacked the revolution on multiple fronts, and were repeatedly pushed back by the forces of the YPG/YPJ.

Girzîro and Serêkaniyê

On January 9th in the village of Girzîro in the district of Girkê Legê YPG forces, at the request the local people who had been oppressed by regime soldiers and their supporters, demanded that soldiers tied to the regime leave the area. When the soldiers responded to the request the following day –  January 10th – by opening fire clashes began and continued until January 15th. Over the course of the fighting one soldier was killed and eight supporters of the regime were wounded. Four soldiers and seven regime supporters were also taken prisoner by the YPG.

As the YPG surrounded an Syrian Army Battalion in Girzîro, 1,500 members of opposition elements took advantage of the fighting and a local cease-fire and crossed over from Turkey into the city of Serêkaniye on January 16th as part of a large-scale offensive. However YPG/YPJ forces, fighting on two fronts, managed to repulse the attackers.

In Girzîro, which is located in an oil-producing region, regime soldiers finally left the village on January 21st after 11 days of fighting and encirclement. The YPG captured a large quantity of military supplies and took 70 soldiers prisoner. In Serêkaniye after 15 days of fighting, the attacking elements were forced to pull back to the neighborhoods of Mehetê and Ebra on the border with Turkey and to request a cease-fire. A council of all ethnic and faith communities in the city agreed to the cease-fire on the condition that the gangs pull out of the city. The YPG captured a large number of vehicles, ammunition, and two ambulances. Around 100 gang members were killed in the fighting. 9 YPG fighters and 6 local civilians were also killed.

Çilaxa, Tirbespiyê and Rimêlan

As the people of the region, together with the YPG, continued to resist attacks from opposition gangs, the clearing of remaining regime elements from certain city centers began. On February 21st, local people together with the YPG took over all administrative centers in the city of Çilaxa, in the district of Girke Legê, and drove regime forces from the area. Administrative of the city was turned over to the People’s Council formed by the YPG.

 On March 1st, residents of the city of Tirbespiyê – where Kurds, Arabs, and Assyrians live together – requested help from YPG/YPJ forces in expelling the small amount of regime elements still in the city center. Following the expulsion the city was transferred to local administration. Following the liberation of the city members of all local ethnic groups poured onto the streets in celebration. The following day, March 2nd, YPG forces began an operation to liberate the oil-producing city of Rimelan. By the end of the day the city was under the control of the YPG. 15 police officers, 13 soldiers and two state-security officials were taken prisoner.

Aleppo, Efrin, Til Temir

While fighting in the Cizre region continued, regime and gang forces targeted the Aleppo neighborhoods of Eşrefiye ve Şêxmeqsud. On March 28th regime forces bombed both districts, killing a large number of civilians. Following this attack, gangs also began to move into the area and the YPG and the El-Ekrad Front – a fighting force formed largely of local Kurds – showed a great deal of resistance.  Thousands of residents were forced to flee to the cities of Efrin and Kobani and a large number were kidnapped on the road by different gangs. An embargo was put in place around these neighborhoods, as well as around Kurdish villages close to Aleppo, in order to force local residents to leave. After fighting that continued until October, both neighborhoods were firmly under the control of the YPG.

As international forces began to put an embargo in place around Rojava, gangs close to Efrin stepped up their attacks. On May 25th these gangs began attacking villages in the Şêrawa township in the district of Efrin, exposing the local population to much hardship. Only after much fighting were the gangs pushed back by the YPG.

Also in May the YPG suffered and repelled numerous attacks by gangs on the city of Til Temir.

Serêkaniyê Entirely Liberated

As the people of Rojava prepared to celebrate the one-year anniversary of July 19th Revolution, gangs launched another offensive against Serêkaniye. On July 16th gangs attacked a YPG patrol in the Mehetê neighborhood and kidnapped one fighter. The YPG responded with a comprehensive operation that lasted two days. On July 17th the YPG captured the city’s border crossing and pushed the gangs out of the city entirely. 25 gang members were captured and two YPG fighters were killed during the operation.

Til Ebyad, Til Hasil and Til Eran

Gangs which had suffered heavy loses in the Cizre region set their sights on towns and cities around Aleppo and Rakka with large Kurdish populations. On July 18th gangs attached to the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS) and the al-Nusra Front surrounded the local People’s House (Mala Gel) in the district of Til Abyad (Girê Spî) in Rakka province and threatened locals. Two days later on July 20th gangs attacked these districts, kidnapping hundreds of civilians and destroying the People’s House along with many civilian homes.

The El-Ekrad Front responded to these attacks and fighting broke out. After this fighting YPG forces also moved to respond to the attacks and to protect local civilians. Heavy clashes took place in Til Ebyad and surrounding villages until July 23rd. Numerous villages were liberated and scores of gang members killed. Although outbreaks of fighting continue, the area is largely under the control of the YPG. Şervan Muslim, the son of Salih Muslim, was killed in one of these clashes in October.

Massacres Against Civilians

After heavy losses in fighting with the YPG, gangs turned their attention to Kurdish civilians. On July 28th gangs attacked the towns of Til Hasil and Til Eran in Aleppo Province- both of which have large Kurdish populations – and began to massacre civilians and destroy their houses. In five days more than 70 civilians were killed and hundreds forced to flee their homes. Many were also kidnapped by the gangs, where they suffered under harsh conditions and torture. Fatwas were released by clerics sympathetic to the gangs, fighting in the name of Islam, condoning the murder of Kurds and the looting of their property.

YPG Revolutionary Operations Begin

After failing to move into Efrin and Kobanê, gangs heavily supported by foreign powers launched a major offensive in the Cizre region of north-east Rojava. Targeting the areas around Rimêlan, Tirbespiyê, Dêrik, Girklê Legê, Çilaxa, Til Temir and Serêkaniyê, the gangs began their offensive at the beginning of September. Gangs targeted local populations with propaganda in an attempt to drive them from the region. Where this failed gangs bombarded civilian areas in attempt to depopulate them. Thousands of people were forced to flee across the border to South Kurdistan.

The YPG/YPJ showed great resilience and local civil-society organizations and political parties were also organized for defense. Locals joined the YPG/YPJ in large numbers and the General Command of the YPG announced that resistance would continue until the region was entirely cleared of gangs.

‘Revolutionary Operation of the Martyr Çekjîn’ in Tirbespiyê

After this announcement YPG/YPJ forces began a series of revolutionary operations that would last a total of three months. The first move too place at the beginning of September under the name ‘Revolutionary Operation of the Martyr Çekjîn’ in the region of Tirbespiyê. The operation liberated the villages of Harika, Himara, Çêlekê, Qesrok, Xirbet Bîr, Imarat and Hedad. Two gang headquarters in Tahûnê and Mezra Kelemun were also captured by the YPG. Fourteen gang members were killed in the fighting.

The later operation continued in the Girkê Legê region. In the course of the operation the villages of Xwêtle, Cedan, Sukeriyat, Rimêlana Elşêx, Rimêlana Başa, Sefa, Mizêrta, Şemam, Xemo, Büyük Baqila, Küçük Baqila, Xirab Bajar, Büyük Tilelo, Küçük Tilelo, Tileloya Xemer, Siwêdiya Ereban, Meheta-17 and  Meheta-20, Seharîc, Sidêriyê, Mişêrfa, Xedan and Siriyê were liberated. In clashes near Qamişlo the village of Iwêna was also liberated. In two days of relentless fighting in Çilaxa, Serêkaniyê and Girê Sipî 177 gang members were killed.

The Second Phase of the Operation

The second phase of the ‘Revolutionary Operation of the Martyr Çekjîn’ was given the name the ‘Operation of the Martyr Dilovan.’ The operation began in the middle of September and killed 300 gang members in three days. As a result of the fighting the strategically important village of Elok near Serêkaniyê was liberated. The third part of the operation, which began on September 24th, saw fighting in Serêkaniyê, Tirbespiyê and Girê Sipî. The villages of Derdara and Hemîd in Serêkaniyê were liberated and 37 gang members were killed.

The Third Phase around Girkê Legê and Tirbespiyê

The ‘Revenge Operation for the Martyrs of Çilaxa and Tirbepiyê’ took place between October 12-29th with the goal of liberating of the villages between Girkê Legê and Rimêlan and Çilaxa and Tirbespiyê. Despite the YPG’s declaration of a ceasefire for Eid al-Adha starting on October 14th, gangs attacked YPG positions in the area of Til Elo and fighting broke out. Eighty four gang members were killed in the fighting. On October 20th a suicide bomber attacked a YPG position in Tirbespiyê, killing six YPG fighters. In response to the attack the YPG launched a series of operations in which they liberated the villages of Mezra, Sîha, Sidêdiyê, Werdiyê, and Bûsa – all attached to the town of Til Koçer – as well as three hamlets and 10 military positions.

Til Koçer Liberated

The fourth phase of the operation liberated the strategically important Til Koçer Border Crossing, as well as the city of Til Koçer and the villages of Mehmûdiyê and Cihêşê. In addition the grain silos in Tilelo, Tilelo Xemir, Yûsiviyê, Girêfatê, Aşağı Girhok, Elî Axa, Cinêdiyê, and Ebû Hecer as well as the Dicle Oil Center fell under YPG control.

After the liberation of Til Koçer the ‘Operation of the Martyrs of Serêkaniyê’ was launched with the goal of clearing the highway between Serêkaniyê and Til Temir. As a result of the operation, which began on November 3rd, the villages of Mişrafa, Esfer Necar, Micêbra, Katofa  Bakur, Katofa Başûr, Edûlê, Hilwa Çeçenan, Til Hirmit, Cikêma, Swami Elsefih, Tildiyab, Esediyê, Bîr Nûh, Qisêr, Bîr Elzad, Siyade, Helebiyê, and Moyerd were liberated a number of gang positions fell to the YPG. Separately the operation succeeded into capturing a long-term gang headquarters and offensive position between Til Xelef and the town of Menacir. The mostly Arab town of Ebu Raseyn, between Serêkaniyê and Til Temir, was also liberated.

The Villages Around Qamişlo

The ‘Revenge Operation of the Martyrs of Qamişlo and Kobanê’ began on November 14th with the goal of liberating the villages of Qamişlo and Tirbespiyê. As a result of the operation the villages of  Iwêna Selîm, Küçük ve Büyük Riheya köyleri, Şêbana, Riheya Zahir, Tilîd, Mihemed Diyab, Mihemediyê, Sofiyê. Mera, Taya, Ebû Meqrin, Mezlûma, Xirbet Elsim, Miqrinyat, Xirbit Cihaş, Nebûa, Bizona and Xirbet Eltêr were liberated.

29 Villages Liberated around Til Temir-Haseki

Following this operation a suicide bombing attack against a YPG position in the village of Xêbiş near Til Temir on November 20th killed 8 YPG fighters. As a response to the attack the ‘Operation of the Martyrs of Til Temir’ was launched on November 25th by the combined forces of the YPG/YPJ with the goal of clearing gangs from the Til Temir-Haseki road. The town of Tiwêna and 29 villages to the west of Til Temir were liberated.

The Powers behind the Gangs

It emerged over the course of the year that various local, regional and international powers were behind the gang attacks in Rojava. Turkey, which had previously opened their borders to such gangs, is known to have supplied them with weapons and supplies. Documentary evidence recovered in liberated areas also shows that many of the gang fighters were Turkish citizens. The confessions of members of various Turkish religious societies (cemaat) sent to fight in Rojava have also been recorded.

In a former al-Nusra headquarters in Serêkaniyê later captured by the YPG, American, Egyptian, Lebanese and Libyan passports were discovered. The passports reveal that almost all of the fighters entered Rojava after first entering Turkey. The YPG also captured two foreign ambulances in the fighting, one belonging to Turkey and the other to France.

According to documents recovered by local security forces in Kobani in February shows that at a meeting in the Turkish city of Urfa a decision was taken to open border crossings to such gangs, to supply them with weapons, and to bring the area under control of religious extremists.

On July 26th a meeting of around 70 commanders of the Free Syrian Army and other armed groups took place in the Turkish city of Antep, according to documents later leaked on the internet. Officials from Turkish State Intelligence (MIT) were also known to have taken part, and plans were drawn up to attack Kurdish areas. Two days later, on July 28th, the massacres in Til Eran and Til Hasil took place.

Later a proclamation published in the name of al-Nusra claims that the organization has signed an agreement with Turkey in which the latter agreed to supply the organization with chemical weapons. Soon after trucks loaded with chemical weapons material were seized in the Hatay and Adana, and those arrested were later released. A weapons market with supplies from the Ukraine is also known to have been established in Kilis, where weapons are transferred to gang members.

On May 19th 70 suspicious persons wanting to cross from South Kurdistan to Rojava were taken into custody by the YPG. In the course of the investigation it was revealed that some of the individuals detained were members of Kurdish political parties and received weapons training. Following this incident the Sêmalka Border Crossing was closed by the government of South Kurdistan.

While certain Kurdish groups were attempting provocative acts, a bomb attack took place in Efrin. In the investigation that followed numerous members of the parties under question were taken in custody and confessed to having received support from Turkey and South Kurdistan. Once again on June 27th a group known as “Brigade 313,” composed of members of certain Kurdish parties and supported by Turkey, began a series of provocations in the city of Amudê, including an attack on a YPG patrol returning from an operation. One YPG fighter was killed and YPG units and local security forces launched a major operation in the city in which many were arrested. Five civilians also died in the fighting.

Effects of the Resistance

As a result of the resistance that the YPG showed in the face of numerous offensives they have inspired a great deal of trust in the local people, including those of other ethnic and religious groups who were originally mistrustful of the YPG. In fact as participation in the YPG/YPJ has grown, YPG brigades have also been formed of Arab residents of the cities of Serêkaniyê and Til Temir, as well as the town of Ebu Raseyn.

After the capture of the Til Koçer Border Crossing, which echoed around the region, thousands of people who had fled to South Kurdistan returned to Rojava. In liberated areas People’s Councils have been formed from local Kurdish, Arab, Assyrian and Chechen communities.

When the gang offensives were broken, work on the Government of Democractic Autonomy has sped up and Asuri, Arab, Assyrian and other communities, who were previously leery of the project, have also begun to take part.

https://anfenglish.com/news/the-rojava-revolution-in-2013-the-success-of-the-ypg-9062

A revolutionary first in Rojava: YPJ

“We always drew strength from the struggle women have given in history. The gains made in this recent process are a heritage from the history of resistance. We can say that the YPJ is the freedom army of all world's women.”

 ANF - DENİZ YEŞİLYURT  NEWS DESK  Wednesday, 8 Mar 2017, 17:15

Women's revolutionary struggle is a resurrection of society and humanity that were torn down alongside women, as much as it is the vengeance taken from the thousands years old patriarchal system with the tradition of pain, exploitation, massacre and rape.

This tradition supports and complements itself from Latin America to the Middle East. The strongest example of this is the Rojava Revolution in which women are the revolution itself.

This revolution is a result of the Kurdish women's decades-long struggle and has also left a powerful heritage to the tradition of revolution across the world. YPJ engraved its name on the resistance and victory in Kobanê that became a hope to humanity.

ANF spoke to Lorin Efrîn, who is one of the combatants protecting the revolution since its very beginning, on women's efforts of defense before the YPJ, and the establishment of the YPJ.

Since when have you been taking part in the efforts to defend Rojava Revolution?

I have been taking part in the efforts to create and defend the Rojava Revolution since the first phase that began in 2011.

How did Kurds move from the stage of a people not recognized as an identity to the level of being a folk with the power for self-governance? What was the cause of your need to embark on defense efforts?

You would remember the atmosphere in Arab countries during 2010 and 2011. The Arab Spring was breathing across the entire geography, giving everyone the sense that a revolution would take place very soon. This situation created a vacuum in Syria due to both internal and external balances of power.

Many powers tried to take advantage of this vacuum and to establish new balances in order to further their self interests. Kurds did not have concerns over their interests. Our sole goal was to preserve our existence as a people that has lived without an identity and got assimilated for thousands of years, and to attain our freedom. So we were trying to gain our most basic rights.

Efforts for a revolution for this holy and legitimate goal were launched in 2011. Women were the ones to participate in these efforts first and most cheerfully. This surprised everyone. Kurds were ignored and excluded as a people by the regime but Kurdish women were facing the same treatment in the Kurdish society as well. Ours was a two-level uprising to slavery. As every revolution has a spirit, the degree to which women would contribute to this revolution was understood very well.

Developments took place and gains were made day by day. Since pre-planning does not do much good in such situations, it is more beneficial to fill the vacuum of the moment. And we did this well. As you know, the revolution in the cantons developed on July 19, 2012 when the rights steps were taken at the right time.

These times were when it was hard to tell who was involved in what with whom. There were many regional and proxies. Everyone tried to weaken the others in order to get stronger. And the regime threat was still existent. Therefore, it was a necessity to protect the gains and the people. This was a condition for survival.

Thus, People's Self-Defense Forces (Yekitiya Xwe Parastina Gel) was formed in 2011. It was semi-professional and lacked armaments. But it had a lot of faith and determination.

Through the trainings it received and the sacrifices it made as it got stronger during the conflict, it became a more potent and effective force. In other words, it became a professional army and transformed into People's Defense Forces (YPG) with thousands of members with the revolution.

What was women's position and participation in the YPG like after the YXG?

Let me first state that the approach towards women in Kurdish society is under the pressure of feudal perceptions. Therefore, women's will is either ignored or oppressed and viewed as weak. We overcame this a little bit with the effort our Leader put up over the past 20 years, but it was uncommon for women to become a political power in their houses, streets, neighborhoods, and districts. The public acclaim, therefore, took some time. Imagine a society where women take their guns to leave the house and protect their cities, streets, fathers, brothers, and husbands.

Beginnings are often difficult and our beginning was a truly difficult one. There were fathers that beat their daughters, locked them inside houses and prevented them due to the existing pressures. But these did not stop women. Despite the violence and isolation, women ran away, resisted the pressures, and imposed their existence upon the society. With their stance, determination, participation and revolutionary claims, women led the defense in practice, even at the very beginning. Still, organization was carried out jointly.

Our male comrades that grew up with the reactionary culture of our society had a sense like “How can I fight alongside women, how can I receive orders from women?” Still, it was not that hard for them to accept it because our sense of freedom developed early on owing to the philosophy of our Leader. The force was mixed at first but we later got organized as units inside this mixed force district by district.

We carried out 'village raid' military exercises in our villages in order to prove ourselves to the society. We once did such a military exercise in the village of Şikefta. When we took off our masks at the end of the exercise, the residents of the village saw that we were all woman soldiers, they got were surprised and proud. This spread across Efrîn like a legend and had a positive impact.

Of course, first our families and the society were influenced as our training continued, the revolution developed and people's stance with a will emerged.

As you know, the July 19, 2012 revolution spread across all the cantons. Rojava Revolution meant more values and gains to be defended alongside the revolution itself. As the youth of this people, we felt more responsible than everyone else. Later, YPG was announced together with the revolution. The announcement of YPG in Efrîn was again led by us, women.

When serious clashes broke our afterwards, men tried to hold women back from the front lines. We overcame such mistakes and misled approaches. Women took part in the clashes against Jabhat al-Nusra in 2012. For the first time, women professionally participated in the war at Qastele hill in the fall of 2012. Consequently, male comrades admitted that they got strength from the women and were impressed by their natural responsibility. We were both getting experiences and proving our capabilities as women.

What made you decide to form a women's army?

Women's participation in the army increased as of 2012. In addition to this quantitative increase, a qualitative development also took place as women gained fighting experience and received training. This made a leap necessary and the first all-female battalion was established inside the YPG with the participation of 80 woman comrades.

Other cantons followed this initiative. Women's battalions were established in other cantons because women's search, participation and capacity increased to a point that went beyond the general situation.

Women constituents of the YPG from all cantons came together several times in order to satisfy distinctive needs and discuss their stance, duties, missions and roles. Here, they made the decision to form an army of women. This decision was not made just to be a distinctive unit as it had strategic goals as well. It was necessary to shape the revolution, change the perceptions and reactionary aspects of society, and carry out a social revolution for a whole a revolution. This is because it was us who needed this revolution the most and we believed that the level of women's liberation was the level of social liberation.

On the other hand, even though the women of this geography grow up with war and experience its every aspect and immorality, we saw the army as a precaution to prevent the war from becoming more permanent because women are fair and dedicated to the moral values of humanity.

During this process, we overcame our worries with our insistence on protecting the revolution and our country by uniting it with our Leader's trust in women and the perspective of women's organization. Besides, women had begun to get organized in the mountains of Kurdistan 20 years before us and they succeeded despite many hardships. This gave us strength and the gains Kurdish women shed a light on our path.

After such debates, YPJ was announced during a meeting on April 4, 2013 in which delegates from all cantons participated.

We were enthusiastic and our morale was high. Our goals were big even at our first step. For example, we felt responsible for the liberation of all women in the region, and even in the world, and we discussed how we could contribute to the struggle of those women.

It was as if the world had been recreated that day. The sun rose only for us that day. Our new formation was to say “stop” to the injustices in our geography and to the unjust course in the rest of the world. Further developments took place as this faith grew.

We organized ourselves in a variety of areas ranging from heavy weaponry to branches. We took part in many battles and offensives. We put up a heroic resistance and a stance of self-sacrifice. YPJ strengthened itself with its ideological training as well as military training. It became the leading force of urban warfare.

During this stage, the stance of some of our comrades always gave us trust and became a driving force. The influence of comrade Sılava, who joined the YXK during its establishment and took part in the military council, is indisputable. She is the first martyr of the YPJ. Her stance was quite different. She was a commander that did not like passiveness and made efforts for the development of her female comrades as much as her own development. Her self-confidence was based on her trust in her gender.

During the founding congress, she was the one to state that we were late to hold this congress and to form our self organization, and that we had to accelerate our organization which was a longing of hers. Therefore, she became the main force that pushed this development.

Similarly, we had another comrade Berivan who fell a martyr during the same time with comrade Sılava. She was a mother with an 11 year-old child. She felt responsible for the revolution and social progress, and had a stance that rejected the conditions surrounding women.

She was a mother in full sense of the word. She was seeking to leave a beautiful future for her child. During a training, she said “I am a mother and I will fight for my child and all children and mothers.” She was enthusiastic, excited and fearless. She was always at the frontline. These values determined our stance and shaped our organization. From now on, our goal is to be worthy of them.

How did 4 years pass for the YPJ, what kind of results were achieved?

Frankly, we left behind a period that with resistance and struggle becoming a gain of the people and the guarantee of the revolution. Now as I look back, I see that YPJ became the name of a movement representing all resisting women in a revolution which became a hope to the peoples of the world. How else could the resistance in Serekanîyê and Kobanê be described?

This influence did not only change the perception towards women. It also paved the way for trust in women's leadership and ability to make the world a better place.

This impact became the example of resistance, struggle and success for women not only in the region but across the world. Great efforts have been made and a price has been paid until this stage. This was not easy but we made it. Now, the YPJ's resistance became a proof of the certainty of revolution and leadership of women. We have always felt and seen the support of peoples and women that resist across the world.

At this point, how do you define yourself within world women's struggle for freedom? Do you have a message on the occasion of March 8?

We always drew strength from the struggle women have given in history. Therefore, the gains made in this recent process are a heritage from the history of resistance. In a way, we can say that the YPJ is the freedom army of world's women.

This was a conscience choice. We know that women are strong together. This strength is an dauntless stance and guarantees success. We should expand our goal and struggle in order to avenge all the pains women around the world have suffered historically. With my trust that we can transform all days into days of resistance, I congratulate March 8 for women that resist and struggle from Efrîn to Shengal, from Kirkuk to the mountains, and everywhere in the world.

https://anfenglish.com/women/a-revolutionary-first-in-rojava-ypj-18897

YPG General Command releases Statement

On January 14, 2012, our comrade Commander Xebat Derîk (Khabat Derik) was martyred as a result of a conspiracy. We in the General Command of the People’s Defense Units (YPG) pay tribute to all martyrs of the Rojava Revolution in the person of martyr Khabat.

The Kurdistan Revolution has reached today’s point for the ultimate sacrifices made by those who gave their lives for this path. All the attacks, pressure and massacres by the enemies of the Kurds failed because of these sacrifices, and if the Kurdish people in the Middle East and the world are known as a glorious people, it is all due to the resistance of our heroes.

Martyr Khabat was associated with the legacy of our martyrs throughout his life. Despite the pressures and difficulties during the long years of struggle, he always tried to uphold the flag of the heroes and do what is upon himself to the fullest, and it was all that hardship that helped the revolution to grow. National specificities were the basic strength of Comrade Khabat, and as he was creative in defending the values of Rojava people, he felt that it was essential to have a military force to protect the people of Rojava and made great efforts in that regard.

The efforts of Comrade Khabat and his insistence played a major role in the founding of People’s Defense Units. If the resistance of YPG and YPJ (Women’s Defense Units) has today echoed throughout the world and sown fear in the hearts of all enemies, it is due to the great efforts made by Comrade Khabat.

The disciples of martyr Khabat are today writing history from Kobanî to Shingal and in all battlefields of Rojava. For that, our young men and women have become renowned worldwide. We are confident that the steps of our heroes are the certain route to the victory.

We in the General Command of the People’s Defense Units, in the third anniversary of martyrdom of the great leader Comrade Khabat, emphasize that we will continue to protect the approach of our heroes, whatever the price and whatever the circumstances might be. Once again we remember all our fallen in the person of martyr Khabat, and renew our promise to triumph.

YPG Media Centre
14.01.2015

Transcript
ASPEN SECURITY FORUM 2017
RAYMOND "TONY" THOMAS Commander, U.S. Special Operations Command

MS. HERRIDGE: Is this a good example of how SOCOM identifies the enablers on the ground? And talk us through that process, how you select who you think you can really support and work with.

GEN. THOMAS: As you know, sometimes it's of necessity, who's available. The one that I think is most discussed and most misunderstood is the evolution with our counterpart in Syria, the so-called Syrian Democratic Forces. Now, interestingly they came about that name because at one point in time and I dealt with them directly, I was in on the formal stage of the relationship with these guys. They formerly called themselves the YPG, who the Turks would say equated to the PKK who are dealing with the terrorist enemy mind, you know, how can you do that ally. So we literally played back to them that you've got to change your brand, you know, what do you want to call yourself besides the YPG, and with about a

day's notice they declared that they were the Syrian Democratic Forces. I thought it was a stroke of brains to put democracy in there somewhere. (Laughter)

GEN. THOMAS: But it gave them a little bit of credibility, and the interesting part and I was lucky to have a great partner in Brett McGurk out there with me about the same time because they were asking for things that I couldn't give them. And literally was an acknowledgment that they were the demographic dominant force in Northern Syria. They wanted a seat at the table, whether it's at Geneva, or Astana or wherever talks are happening about the future of Syria and because they had been branded as PKK, they could never get to the table, so while we paired with them militarily, Brett McGurk was able to keep them in the conversation and allow them to, you know, the necessary legitimacy to be good partners for us. So it was literally something, I need you militarily, you know, Hill, the diplomat here will deliver an entrée if nothing else for you to be legitimate from a state standpoint --

MS. HERRIDGE: Right.

GEN. THOMAS: -- or from at least a government standpoint thereon. We didn't -- we tripped to that one, so to your point how do you find these guys, we tripped to them when some of you may remember there was a town called Kobani, I had to find it on the map, I had no idea where Kobani was, but it was identified to us as just about to be expunged by ISIS. They had amassed thousands of troops on it, they wanted it symbolically, it was up on the Turkish border, and other Kurds introduced us to this problem and said could you help them, and all we did early on was provide kinetic capabilities to them and kept them from being wiped out. They were up against the backdrop of the Turkish border, they had no escape valve there. And then I was able to walk the dirt in Kobani about 7 months later. It was utter devastation. They lost 2,000 -- so our Kurdish allies lost 2,000 there. They estimate ISIS impaled themselves to the tune of about 6,000 to 10,000 there, complete devastation in the town, but they  were just happy that they had survived the experience. And out of that seed corn, that's when they started saying, by the way we have Kurdish cantons and other -- and right away we said it's got to be more representative than that, other Arabs who are interested in joining your coalition here and then they would identify folks of, yes, we've been gone on to this canton, this town, and this thing rolled from just a couple thousand that we knew early on to now a 50,000-person force that, you know, when folks want to test, you know, are those ghost numbers, my comeback is that's the ghost force that has just taken, you know, is halfway through Raqqa and has taken every March objective we've had so far. And the real kind of unstated aspect of the magic here is luckily -- luckily we've only lost two U.S. service members throughout this whole thing. So 2-1/2 years of fighting this fight with our surrogates, they've lost thousands, we've only lost two service members. Two is too many, but it's, you know, a relief that we haven't had the kind of losses that we've had elsewhere. It's their fight, they've got to embrace it more than we do.

https://aspensecurityforum.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/SOCOM_Policing-the-World.pdf

قانون واجب الدفاع الذاتي في شمال وشرق سوريا

النسخة المعدلة من قانون واجب الدفاع الذاتي في شمال وشرق سوريا

مقدمة:

واجب الدفاع الذاتي واجب وطني إنساني وأخلاقي يقع على عاتق كل فرد واجب للدفاع عن حدود الوطن وابنائه ومؤسساته وفق المبادئ المشروعة للدفاع عن النفس، لحماية المجتمع والمحافظة على العيش المشترك والمساواة ووحدة التنوع لخلق مجتمع

ديمقراطي حر.

المادة (1):

تسميات وتعاريف:

يسمى بقانون واجب الدفاع الذاتي ويعتمد هذا القانون التعاريف التالية:

أ- واجب الدفاع الذاتي خدمة الزامية يخضع لها الذكور من ابناء مناطق الإدارة الذاتية لشمال وشرق سوريا ممن أتم الثامنة عشرة من العمر.

ب- دائرة واجب الدفاع الذاتي: إحدى الإدارات العائدة لمكتب الدفاع التي تمد المعسكرات بالمقاتلين عن طريق مراكزها.

ت- مركز واجب الدفاع الذاتي يقوم بتسيير أمور المكلفين بواجب الدفاع الذاتي وفقاً للقانون وقرارات مكتب الدفاع.

ج- المكلف: هو كل من بلغ السن القانوني لأداء واجب الدفاع الذاتي من سكان المنطقة والمقيمين فيها لأكثر من خمس سنوات من خارج

شمال وشرق سوريا من حاملي الجنسية السورية ومن في حكمهم من الأجانب ومكتومي القيد.

د- المقاتل: هو كل شخص التحق بواجب الدفاع الذاتي وخضع لدورة تدريبية في معسكرات التدريب.

ه- المتخلف: هو كل مكلف لم يحصل على دفتر واجب الدفاع الذاتي أو حصل عليه ولم يلتزم بمراجعة مراكز واجب الدفاع الذاتي ودون عذر قانوني خلال مدة 60 يوماً من تاريخ تكليفه.

و- المؤجل: هو كل مكلف أجلت خدمته وفق هذا القانون. ز- ال ُمعفَى: هو كل مكلف سقط عنه واجب الدفاع الذاتي وفق هذا

القانون.

ح- الفار: هو كل مقاتل غاب عن الخدمة بعد التحاقه بواجب الدفاع الذاتي بعد مرور مدة خمسة عشر يوماً متتالية.

ط – المفقود: هو كل شخص انقطعت أخباره نهائياً ولا يعرف إن كان حياً أو ميتاً.

ك – اللقيط: هو الطفل المجهول النسب وليس له معيل. ل- المغترب: هو كل مكلف بأداء واجب الدفاع الذاتي ويقيم خارج

الأراضي السورية.

م- معسكرات التدريب: مكان لتدريب وإعداد وتأهيل المقاتلين ثم فرزهم على الفرق العسكرية عبر الجهات المعنية.

ن- الإدارات الذاتية والمدنية: هي الإدارات الذاتية والمدنية في: الجزيرة- عفرين- الفرات- منبج- الطبقة- الرقة- دير الزور.

س- الاحتفاظ: هو تمديد خدمة واجب الذاتي بناء على مقتضيات الحاجة الضرورية.

ع- الاحتياط: هو كل مواطن أنهى خدمة واجب الذاتي ويتم استدعائه بناء على مقتضيات الحاجة الضرورية للالتحاق بخدمة الاحتياط.

المبادئ العامة والأساسية:

المادة (2):

مدة الخدمة في واجب الدفاع الذاتي في شمال وشرق سوريا هي اثنا عشر شهراً ميلادية كاملة تبدأ من تاريخ التحاق المكلف.

المادة (3):

يحق للإناث الانضمام لواجب الدفاع الذاتي طوعاً.

المادة (4):

يمنح ذوو المغترب القادم لمناطق الإدارة الذاتية وثيقة تسمح له بالتجوال على أن يستكمل إجراءات الحصول على دفتر واجب الدفاع الذاتي خلال ثلاثون يوما ً من تاريخ منحه الوثيقة وتعطى لمرة واحدة.

المادة (5):

يتم منح دفاتر خدمة واجب الدفاع الذاتي بالاعتماد على مكان قيد المكلف أو مكان إقامته بالنسبة للمقيمين.

المادة (6):

تفرض الغرامات على دفاتر الخدمة في الحالات التالية:

ا- بدل ضائع غرامة مالية قدرها (5000) خمسة آلاف ليرة سورية للمرة الأولى.

ب- بدل ضائع غرامة مالية قدرها (10000) عشرة آلاف ليرة سورية للمرة ثانية.

ج- بدل ضائع غرامة مالية قدرها (60000) ستون ألف ليرة سورية للمرة الثالثة وإحالته للقضاء العسكري.

د- بدل تالف غرامة مالية قدرها (5000) خمسة آلاف ليرة سورية للمرة الأولى.

ه- بدل تالف غرامة مالية قدرها (10000) عشرة آلاف ليرة سورية للمرة ثانية.

و– دفتر انتهت صفحاته يدفع المكلف رسماً قدره (500) خمس مائة ليرة سورية.

المادة (7):

أي تزوير أو تغيير في أي وثيقة رسمية من الوثائق التي تخص واجب الدفاع الذاتي يحال المكلف إلى القضاء العسكري ليتم محاكمته أصولاً وبعد انقضاء محكوميته يتم سوقه إلى أكاديميات التدريب

لأداء واجب الدفاع الذاتي.

المادة (8):

يمنح لا مانع من السفر بدون كفالة للحالات التالية:

1- عوائل الشهداء.

2- وحيد دائم.

3- المعفى طبياً من خدمة واجب الدفاع.

4- من اتم خدمة واجب الدفاع الذاتي.

5- المكلف الحاصل على الإقامة الاجنبية، بعد تسوية وضعه وفق المادة (25) من هذا القانون.

6- الطلاب الذين يدرسون خارج سوريا وحصلوا على قبول دراسي في الجامعات خارج سوريا.

المادة (9):

• يمنح لا مانع من السفر بكفالة شخصية للحالات التالية: 1- وحيد مؤقت للأب أو الأم. 2- الحالات المرضية التي لا يمكن علاجها. 3- الطلاب المؤجلون دراسياً داخل سوريا. 4- المؤجلون من خدمة واجب الدفاع الذاتي.

ب- يلتزم الكفيل بدفع مبلغ (1،000،000) مليون ل. س فقط، لصالح الخزينة العامة في حال عدم عودة المكلف خلال ثلاثون يوماً من انتهاء المدة المحددة في الكفالة ومالم يتم تجديدها أصولاً.

المادة (10):

دفع الكفالة لا يعفي المكلف من واجب الدفاع الذاتي.

المادة (11):

يخضع كافة المكلفين لفحص طبي أولي من قبل لجنة طبية مختصة.

المادة (12):

يمنح الطلبة الذين يؤدون واجب الدفاع الذاتي إجازة امتحانيه خارج مدة الدورة التدريبية بعد إبراز الوثائق التي تؤكد ذلك ولا تحسب هذه الإجازة من مدة الخدمة الفعلية.

المادة (13):

يبدأ سن التكليف للذكور ممن أتموا سن الثامنة عشر من العمر وينتهي بإتمامهم مدة واجب الدفاع الذاتي المقررة أو إعفائهم منها ويلزم المكلف المتخلف بأداء الخدمة إلى حين إتمامه سن الأربعون.

المادة (14):

يحدد مواليد المكلفين لأداء واجب الدفاع الذاتي بقرار يصدر عن مكتب الدفاع في كل من الإدارات الذاتية والمدنية، حسب خصوصية كل إدارة، بعد المصادقة عليه من مكتب الدفاع لشمال وشرق سوريا

في الإدارة الذاتية.

المادة (15):

كل متخلف تم سوقه يعاقب بإضافة شهر واحد الى نهاية خدمته.

المؤجلون:

المادة (16):

يؤجل الطلبة المكلفون بواجب الدفاع الذاتي سنة دراسية كاملة تبدأ من تاريخ15/3من كل عام وتنتهي بنفس التاريخ من العام التالي بشرط إبرازهم الأوراق الثبوتية اللازمة وذلك ضمن الأعمار التالية:

1- تقبل طلبات تأجيل طلاب الثانوي حتى عمر (21) سنة فقط. 2- تقبل طلبات تأجيل طلاب المعاهد حتى عمر (24) سنة فقط. 3- تقبل طلبات تأجيل طلاب الكليات حتى عمر (26) سنة فقط.

4- تقبل طلبات تأجيل طلاب الهندسة وكليات الطب حتى عمر (28) سنة فقط.

5- تقبل طلبات تأجيل طلاب الماجستير حتى عمر (29) سنة فقط. 6- تقبل طلبات تأجيل طلاب الدكتوراه حتى عمر (34) سنة فقط.

7- تقبل طلبات تأجيل طلاب اختصاص الطب حتى عمر (34) سنة فقط.

المادة (17):

الطلاب الذين حصلوا على تأجيل دراسي وهم لم يدخلوا سن التكليف بعد كالذي حصل على تأجيل دراسي وهو لايزال في سن 17 سنة لا تحتسب هذه السنة من سنوات التأجيل التي يحصل عليها.

المادة (18):

الطلاب الراسبون سنتين في نفس السنة الدراسية وفي السنة التالية في الدورة الفصلية الأولى حصلوا على ترفع فصلي يتم تأجيلهم إدارياً لغاية 15 / 3 من السنة التالية ريثما يتم الحصول على مصدقة دراسية في بداية السنة الدراسية الجديدة ويتم ذلك اعتماداً على الحياة الجامعية ووثيقة الترفع الفصلي الممنوحة من الجامعة أو المعهد تبين

ترفعه وبموجب دراسة.

المادة (19):

بخصوص إيقاف الدراسة لمدة سنة لا تعتبر سنة من سنوات الرسوب وذلك لمرة واحدة خلال مدة الدراسة في الجامعة أو المعهد ذلك استناداً الي الثبوتيات المقدمة والتي توضح فيها ايقافه للدراسة.

المادة (20):

تؤجل خدمة واجب الدفاع الذاتي للمكلف الذي يتابع دراسته الجامعية ودراسة الاختصاص والدراسات العليا في الخارج على ألا يتجاوز السن القانوني المحدد للتأجيل الدراسي مضافاً إليها سنة ويضاف

سنتان لمن كان دراسته باللغة الأجنبية

المادة (21):

طلاب الدراسات العليا يتم تأجيلهم في مرحلة التسجيل اعتماداً على وثيقة اجتياز اللغة بالإضافة للثبوتيات اللازمة ولمدة ستة أشهر أما المقبولين في الدراسات العليا فيؤجلون اعتماداً على وصل التسجيل

والحياة الجامعية والثبوتيات اللازمة وذلك لمدة سنة دراسية كاملة.

المادة (22):

جميع الطلبة في سنة التخرج من الجامعات والمعاهد الذين لا يمكنهم الحصول على المصدقة بسبب تجاوزهم السن القانوني للتأجيل يؤجلون بناء على الحياة الجامعية والثبوتيات الأخرى إدارياً لمدة

سنة كاملة.

المادة (23):

المحامون المتمرنون يتم تأجيلهم سنة كاملة بموجب الأوراق المقدمة على ألا يتجاوز 29 من العمر ولسنتين متتاليتين فقط.

المادة (24): 1- يتم تأجيل أخوة المقاتلين لأم واحدة ضمن قوات الحماية الذاتية

بعد انتهاء الدورة التدريبية مرتين فقط ستة أشهر كل مرة.

المادة (25):

– يؤجل إداريا كل من الحالات التالية:

1- العائد حديثاً من خارج سوريا لمدة ستة أشهر كحد اقصى.

2- الوحيد المؤقت لمدة سنتين.

3- الأخ المفقود لمدة سنتين.

4-منلميتمإخوتهسنال(18)ووالده ُمتوفّىأوفيحالالإعاقة لمدة سنة.

ب- جميع الحالات المذكورة يتم منحهم التأجيل بعد إجراء دراسة من المركز وموافقة دائرة واجب الدفاع الذاتي.

المادة (26):

1- يستوفى من المقيمين وحاملي الإقامات من جميع الدول ويستثنى منها (تركيا –العراق) رسم تأجيل سنوي قدره (400) دولار أمريكي لكل سنة من تاريخ صدور القانون.

المادة (27):

يساق المكلف لأداء واجب الدفاع الذاتي ممن ألقي القبض عليهم وهم في حالة تلبس لاجتياز الحدود مباشرة بطريقة غير شرعية إلى مركز التدريب.

المادة (28):

يعفى من واجب الدفاع الذاتي:

1- ابناء وإخوة الشهداء لأم واحدة المسجلون رسمياً في سجلات هيئة عوائل الشهداء والحاصلون على وثيقة الشهادة.

2- ذوو الاحتياجات الخاصة والمرضى المصابون بأمراض تمنعهم من أداء الواجب ويتم ذلك وفقاً للتقارير الطبية من قبل مركز الطبي العسكري ومصادقة مكتب الدفاع في الإدارات الذاتية والمدنية.

3- الوحيد الدائم لوالديه او لأحدهما سواء كان كلاهما حياً او ميتاً. 4- يعامل معاملة الوحيد كل مكلف يكون اخوته الذكور من ذوي

الاحتياجات الخاصة استنادا لتقارير مركز الطب العسكري. 5- اللقيط الذي لا يعرف له نسب. المادة (29): يتم تسريح المقاتل إذا أتم مدة الخدمة في واجب الدفاع الذاتي، مالم

يتم الاحتفاظ به.

المادة (30):

يتم تأجيل أخ واحد فقط لكل مقاتل منضم للقوات العسكرية من واجب الدفاع الذاتي بموجب كتاب رسمي من القيادة العامة لقوات سوريا الديمقراطية (QSD).

المادة (31):

بخصوص تسريح المقاتلين والأعضاء:

-يتم تسريح المنضمين للقوات العسكرية لأكثر من أربع سنوات من واجب الدفاع الذاتي بموجب كتاب رسمي من القيادة العامة لقوات سوريا الديمقراطية (QSD).

-يتم تسريح المنتسبين للأفواج العسكرية لسنتين متتاليتين بعد الانتهاء من مدة العقد من واجب الدفاع الذاتي بموجب كتاب رسمي من القيادة العامة لقوات سوريا الديمقراطية (QSD) مرفقة بنسخة عن العقد.

-يتم تسريح أعضاء قوى الأمن الداخلي ممن قضى أكثر من خمس سنوات ضمن مدة الخدمة المذكورة في العقد من واجب الدفاع الذاتي بموجب كتابي رسمي من القيادة العامة للأمن الداخلي مرفقة بنسخة

عن العقد.

المادة (32):

يتم تسريح المقاتل عند ثبوت العجز الدائم أو الجزئي بموجب تقرير من اللجنة الطبية المختصة ومصادقة مكتب الدفاع في الإدارات الذاتية والمدنية.

المادة (33):

كل مكلف تخلف عن قطع دفتر خدمة واجب الدفاع الذاتي لأكثر من شهرين من تاريخ تكليفه يغرم كالتالي:

1- غرامة عدم قطع الدفتر 6000 ستة آلاف ل.س.

2- غرامة تخلف عن التأجيل لأكثر من شهرين5000 خمسة آلاف ل.س.

المادة (34):

على مكتب الدفاع لشمال وشرق سوريا إصدار التعليمات التنفيذية خلال مدة شهر من تاريخ صدور القانون.

المادة (35):

-تلغى كافة القوانين السابقة لخدمة واجب الدفاع الذاتي في الإدارات الذاتية والمدنية.

- يع ُد هذا القانون نافذاً من تاريخ صدوره.

http://sdf-press.com/wp-content/uploads/2019/06/%D9%82%D8%A7%D9%86%D9%88%D9%86-%D9%88%D8%A7%D8%AC%D8%A8-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%AF%D9%81%D8%A7%D8%B9-%D8%A7%D9%84%D8%B0%D8%A7%D8%AA%D9%8A-%D9%81%D9%8A-%D8%B4%D9%85%D8%A7%D9%84-%D9%88%D8%B4%D8%B1%D9%82.pdf

Raqqa, a lesson in making terror
Hamoud Almousa March 5, 2017
Abdalaziz Alhamza “RBSS”

Raqqa was liberated in March 2013 by the Free Syrian Army along with some Islamic factions. Thus it became the first province to be liberated from Assad regime control except for three military points: the head of the 17th division, brigade 93 in Ein Issa and Tabqa airbase. For nine months, the situation of the city remained the same, at the beginning of 2014 ISIS control over the city after massive bloody battles. The city is still under ISIS control, but the group has lost all the northern countryside of the province to YPG which has reached the city’s northern and western outskirts.

The Golden days, as people of Raqqa used to call the duration from April to November 2013 when their city was just like they -and all Syrians- wanted, it was a liberated city where people can say their opinions freely.
In that era, several independent civil community organizations were established to serve the city and its needs, from cleanliness to removing rubbles and from relief work to civil defense. A provincial council was established, along with councils for all the cities and villages not to mention the local police and courts.

Raqqa was not just a city went out of Assad regime control, it was a successful model for the Syrian revolution, this success was not liked by the International community and decisions makers because the success of this experiment means that it would be copied all over Syria which leads to a definite Assad fall which is not acceptable for all the world.

Raqqa is the third largest province in terms of area and it is the second in wheat and cotton production as well as it has the largest facility in Syria, which is the Euphrates Dam and not to mention the largest land port in the middle east, Tal Abyad gate along with Raqqa’s location which links Aleppo, Homs, Hama, Der ez-Zor and Hasaka, all these facts made the international community refuse to make Raqqa a model for this revolution and decided to turn it into a hotbed of terrorism.
Raqqa stayed in its glory until the war between ISIS from a side and the Free Syrian Army and the Islamic factions in the other side, the tension in Raqqa started at the end of 2013 through kidnaping and assassinations led to the declaration of the battle against ISIS after they had kidnapped Abu Saad Al Hadrami, the head of Al Nusra Front in Raqqa, along with several other kidnapping cases for revolution activists. At the beginning of the battle, the FSA controlled over more than 90 percent of the city and ISIS was besieged in only three buildings, the governmental building, the political security building and national security building. But at that time, ISIS troops coming from Aleppo, Idlib and Deir Ez-Zor started reaching Raqqa (Abu Omar Al Shishani was among them). Those support troops came along with withdrawals by the Islamic factions which had let the FSA forces alone in that battle, and after one week of fighting, they withdrew toward Kobani.

When the battle finished, all Raqqa rebels and activists had to flee the city toward Turkey or Aleppo and Idlib countryside because the terrorist group arrested many of them and executed tens. Several questions were asked at that time, how FSA lost the battle? It was not possible that they lose it, ISIS fighters were the only couple of tens, and the FSA and Islamic factions were thousands, there were no answers until recently when some military commanders said that they had to withdrew from Raqqa under International pressor and if they did not do that all the support would be stopped! These facts cannot be ignored since the had happened and led to the fall of the city under the group’s control and how the group extended in such a miraculous time and then started shrinking easily in front of SDF forces and never loses a street against the Turkish army and FSA unless they fight for the last breath.
Raqqa city has turned from a successful model of the Syrian revolution into the capital of terrorism. Today and after three years, the city will almost be under the Kurdish militias control, which has committed several crimes against humanity: killings and displacements, these militias are being rewarded by creating a new entity that would change the map of Syria and the whole region.
https://www.raqqa-sl.com/en/?p=2131

ISIS-2019/09/10 ANDERSON COURT REPORTING 1800 Diagonal Road, Suite 600 Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone (703) 519-7180 Fax (703) 519-7190 1 THE BROOKINGS INSTITUTION THE COUNTER-ISIS COALITION: DIPLOMACY AND SECURITY IN ACTION Washington, D.C. Tuesday, September 10, 2019 PARTICIPANTS: MODERATOR: SUSAN GLASSER Staff Writer The New Yorker JOHN R. ALLEN President The Brookings Institution LISE GRANDE Resident Coordinator for Yemen United Nations BRETT McGURK Nonresident Senior Fellow The Carnegie Endowment for International Peace * * * * * ISIS-2019/09/10 ANDERSON COURT REPORTING 1800 Diagonal Road, Suite 600 Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone (703) 519-7180 Fax (703) 519-7190 2 P R O C E E D I N G S GENERAL ALLEN: Good afternoon, ladies and gentlemen. Welcome to Brookings. My name is John Allen, and I'm the president of this Institution. And it is a great honor to welcome you, and for those of you coming in over webcast, to welcome you as well. Today we wanted to gather for an event that acknowledges the fifth anniversary of the formation of the Global Coalition to Defeat the Islamic State. Five years ago I had just left my position as a senior advisor to the secretary of defense on Middle East security, where I worked with Secretary Kerry on the Middle East peace, and specifically the Israeli-Palestinian peace plan. I was on my way to Brookings to be a scholar here, I use that term loosely, and I refer to myself, and I thought that my government service was over and I was really looking forward to working with colleagues here on some important issues. It was about that time that I got a call from the White House, from Denis McDonough, the chief of staff, and asked me to, on behalf of the president, to come back into the government to be the special presidential envoy to the global coalition, a process that would start to build that coalition on behalf of the president United States and our allies to what would become an 81-nation organization. I accepted that mission as quickly as I possibly could and in that dire moment the United States exerted exceptional leadership in the world. We were still reeling, if you'll recall at the time, from the effects of the socalled Arab Spring, the Islamic State had exploded out of the instability of the region, and in particular as a result of the Arab Spring there were a number of states that had been destabilized with civil wars. Syria being absolutely the worst, it was horrific, a great humanitarian catastrophe. And out of that maelstrom came the Islamic State. And it exploded into an ISIS-2019/09/10 ANDERSON COURT REPORTING 1800 Diagonal Road, Suite 600 Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone (703) 519-7180 Fax (703) 519-7190 3 invasion in Iraq, and the United States and its partners quickly organized to deal with this issue. Five years on, we thought we'd gather today to recall that moment and to reflect upon we learned and perhaps to recite a bit of the history. I'm really honored today to be joined by the most recent special envoy to the Global Coalition to Counter the Islamic State, my former deputy and a cherished friend. Full stop, none of this would have been possible without his dedication and his leadership. And so today Brett McGurk who joins us is the Frank E. and Arthur W. Payne distinguished lecturer at the Freeman Spogli Institute and Center for Security Cooperation at Stanford University. And he'll begin teaching very shortly there for the fall semester. Brett it is wonderful to have you with us again. And coming in via webcast from Jordan is Lise Grande, who at the time was the deputy special representative of the U.N. Assistance Mission in Iraq. And I don't use the word "hero" frankly very often, or lightly, but Lise is absolutely a hero in the history of this crisis. Her efforts were crucial in stabilizing Iraqi towns and cities, helping liberated populations recently under the subjugation of ISIL's horrific presence, and giving the government and everyday Iraqis alike the ability to contribute to their own rebuilding. As if that weren't enough, Lise today is pursuing another critical mission as resident coordinator of the U.N. in Yemen. Lise, we're glad to have you with us. I think our web bridge is still up. We're glad to have you with us. We hope that you are safe and well. And last but certainly not least, we are all joined by Susan Glasser who will be conducting and moderating the interview and the conversation this afternoon. We know her from her great work on The New Yorker and Politico fame, and during the time of the period of the conflict against the Islamic State, she followed it very closely and wrote about it. So as soon as I've wrapped up my remarks we'll turn the stage over to Susan to conduct the run of conversation which will go for about an hour on the stage, and ISIS-2019/09/10 ANDERSON COURT REPORTING 1800 Diagonal Road, Suite 600 Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone (703) 519-7180 Fax (703) 519-7190 4 then come out to you, the audience, for about a-half-hour. As a reminder we are live this afternoon. We are on the record, and we are going out by webcast. So with that, if I may, invite Susan and Brett to the stage. We'll begin. MS. GLASSER: Well thank you so much, General Allen. And thank you, of course, to everyone here who has decided to share a little bit of your afternoon with us, which is always a challenge in Washington, but it's a little bit more eventful of a Tuesday than some. So I'm also grateful to Brookings for tearing me off of Twitter, and I promise I won't be tweeting from the stage. But I hope any of you will interrupt us if additional events warrant it. GENERAL ALLEN: If someone else is fired? MS. GLASSER: Now, Lise, we can see you here, and I think -- oh good, everyone else can see you up there on the screen as well. Thank you for joining us too, it's always important I think to have ground truth from the region, and someone who's actually out there doing work, so we thank you for taking some time to be with us as well tonight. You know, I was thinking about, well, this is such a great idea for a conversation, right. We don't have the ability to take our breaths, to pause and to reflect upon the hectic pace of the last few years, especially when it comes to really deep and ongoing questions about the U.S. role in the Middle East. And so I was really grateful to have the chance to moderate this conversation. But I have to say that I've tried to think about how we might do this several times over the last few days, and events, as they say, keep getting in the way. (laughter) But I thought, okay, well we're going to have a little break first to talk about Afghanistan, because that's really in the news, and everybody's going to want to know what you think about that, and how that connects here. And then I thought, well, also we are going to probably need to start first with just a little bit of what is our policy towards Syria and Iraq now. And then of course this morning comes the news that we are going to be headed for the fourth consecutive national ISIS-2019/09/10 ANDERSON COURT REPORTING 1800 Diagonal Road, Suite 600 Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone (703) 519-7180 Fax (703) 519-7190 5 security advisor, calling into question once again what any of this means in an ongoing sense. So, this is still, I think, a very important if anything perhaps a more important conversation now to talk about what happens when there's not only Washington dysfunction, but the rest of the world actually has explosive events that the United States and its partners have to figure out what to do something about. And when I was speaking with General Allen to talk about this panel, I think this is a good starting point, yesterday, we were trying to conjure up just what a crisis moment it was five years ago, and I think that does tend to get lost in a lot of the inwardlooking political drama, not only here in the United States but elsewhere in the intervening last few years, But I'm hoping that we can actually start out by going back in time to that. We will have questions, and we can talk about, and I'm eager to hear what, not only General Allen, but Brett who worked with some of these folks what, if anything, you can tell us about that. But let's all try to take a moment in time, and walk ourselves backwards five years, and why are we -- why is this something we're still talking about five years later? General Allen? GENERAL ALLEN: Well, Susan thanks very much for consenting to do this. I never thought after that long list of challenges that you just list off that it would be -- the easiest part would be ISIS. (Laughter) We're still talking about it because in many respects ISIS, ISIL, we'll call it ISIS today, ISIS remains a very virulent threat in the world whether it's in that area that we previously called core ISIL which was in Iraq or Syria, or whether it's the broadened, what we would call the provincial expansion of the Islamic State as it gained greater traction it would ultimately spread out into provincial areas like Boko Haram, and Ansar al-Sharia in Libya, and even into the Philippines, Meroe, which was the city taken by, supposedly, the ISIS-2019/09/10 ANDERSON COURT REPORTING 1800 Diagonal Road, Suite 600 Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone (703) 519-7180 Fax (703) 519-7190 6 Islamic State, and then occupied for nearly a year. And then we have the third function or the third manifestation of this entity which is on the Internet today. And so we have a residual presence on the ground, in the core area we have the provincial presence of Daesh or ISIL in these Salafi Jihadist organizations more broadly located around the world. And then we have it in social media and on the Internet, and that's the reason we still talk about it. It wasn't sufficient to defeat its main force units in Iraq and Syria, and I have to be very quick in saying that the Iraqi troops that were involved in this were very brave, they worked very hard, they suffered enormously, the Iraqi population, the Syrian population suffered enormously from this. But the defeat of the main force units doesn't mean, as some would contend, that ISIL is defeated. It is still a very dangerous organization. MS. GLASSER: We saw in just Afghanistan the other day in this attack, also credit being claimed by people who claimed affiliation to the Islamic State. GENERAL ALLEN: Sure. It is one of the provinces the wilayats, as they call themselves, the Khorasan wilayat, which is the ancient Islamic province of that region which cuts across part of Afghanistan and Pakistan. And not surprisingly, many of the foot soldiers of this organization come directly out of the Taliban, and depending on where things go ultimately in Afghanistan, we may see this organization become even stronger, as we move towards a peace settlement. So, this is a very dynamic situation, and the organization is still quite virulent. MS. GLASSER: Brett, do you agree that this is not a mission accomplished, a purely backward-looking exercise? MR. McGURK: Yes, and absolutely. I mean I've said that for some time. But I will say I don't think we should ignore or forget to draw the lessons on what we did starting at 2014. So, it's great to be here with General Allen, and just it’s a tremendous honor, it's great to talk about these issues with having no responsibility for them right now. But the experience with -- I was in Iraq of course in the summer of 2014 ISIS-2019/09/10 ANDERSON COURT REPORTING 1800 Diagonal Road, Suite 600 Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone (703) 519-7180 Fax (703) 519-7190 7 when Mosul, and with regular engagement with the president, the national security team to actually devise the campaign plan of strategy of how we were going to do this. That was an incredibly tense. I mean ISIS controlled 8 million people under its domain, when you have 40,000 foreign fighters pouring into Syria. We talked very seriously about evacuating our embassy in Baghdad. That's how serious the situation was. And so I can talk about that summer, but once we got the plan together, and then the experience of going to all these capitals around the world, particularly with General Allen, from capital to capital. I mean literally took trips around the world at some points, from Malaysia to Australia, to Jordan. And walking into a capital with the trust and cachet of the United States of America, with General Allen and his relationships that we had in every capital, and we were speaking for the United States government and the president, there was no question about that, and to say we need you to sign up for this with us, and here's what we are going to need. And it was a unique moment I think of American leadership, and we built an extraordinary coalition, with 21 military partners on the ground in Syria, and in very dark days in which this looked hopeless; the Danes, the Brits, the U.K., the French, the Australians, New Zealanders, Spain took on a critical mission, signed up almost immediately, because of American leadership. So it's very important now. Of course I stayed on with the Trump administration for a little bit. Ambassador Jim Jeffrey has taken on what was originally our role, and it is the one coalition that the Trump administration has carried forward. So that's a -- you know, that's some sign of -- a good sign. But we could not have done this without trust and confidence in the United States of America. I think it would be much harder to do today if there was a crisis -- MS. GLASSER: To starting over, exactly. MR. McGURK: If there's a real crisis I think it would be much more difficult ISIS-2019/09/10 ANDERSON COURT REPORTING 1800 Diagonal Road, Suite 600 Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone (703) 519-7180 Fax (703) 519-7190 8 to pull partners together. MS. GLASSER: Well, again I don't want to get to the end of the story before the beginning, but I do think people will want to have this context for the remarks later. Brett, it's fascinating that this coalition still exists, as you said, but I think a lot of us are confused as to in what way and what manner it still exists right now? When you left the administration at the same time that Jim Mattis decided to resign this was -- the proximate cause in fact was the question of the president ordering a withdrawal from Syria at the same time, literally within days, that General Mattis and yourself had reassured the other members of this coalition that we would be remaining there. So does the coalition still exist? And, you know, what is its mission? Do you think that that will turn out to have been a key moment? Or did they successfully paper it over? MR. McGURK: Look, there's a -- it's awkward because I don't want to -- the guys who are still there are doing very difficult work, and I think it's good that President Trump did not fulfill his initial decision to take everybody out on a fairly accelerated timeframe. But like a fundamental defect in strategy making and policy that every administration struggles with, is aligning your objectives and what you're trying to do with your resources and what you can put in. And there's a tendency to set your objectives way up here, but not have an honest conversation about the resources you're willing to put in. And what started to happen in Syria, and I know Ambassador Bolton is now on his way out of the White House, but this really started to happen when he came in the summer. We've really expanded our objectives dramatically in Syria, and we were pretty careful in the counter-ISIS campaign. Like, hey, let's be clear-eyed about what we're going to achieve. Okay. Our objectives expanded tremendously in Syria. So we want to see Iran leave Syria, we want to still see Assad fundamentally change his governance structure ISIS-2019/09/10 ANDERSON COURT REPORTING 1800 Diagonal Road, Suite 600 Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone (703) 519-7180 Fax (703) 519-7190 9 somehow through the Geneva process. We want to do all these other things, and we want to maintain an enduring defeat of ISIS, which is critical, which was not finished. So our objectives have increased, as then the president says pull out all your resources, or 50 percent of your resources. That in my experience you're taking on risk week by week. And so if you don't have your ends and your means aligned your policy isn't stable. And I think in Syria right now that's where we are. And I think that's one reason why the coalition is still together, but I think it is difficult -- it's more difficult to sign up for the commitments than when General Allen and I were doing it. GENERAL ALLEN: It was complicated as well, in that the decision wasn't coordinated with our allies, and that was the other issue. MS. GLASSER: Right. So we -- MR. McGURK: I'll just give an anecdote, because I mean we did have a process to set this campaign plan, and with General Mattis we got all of our coalition members together in December, and we said here's the plan for the next two years and we did get commitments and then, you know, the president reversed it. So anyway, this is all water under the bridge at this point, but it's emblematic of how it's difficult to lead a coalition or to have members sign up with us when you don't have a steady leadership, you have this kind of incoherence. MS. GLASSER: So let's go back in time, and I want to find out how this team came together. Lise, how did they enlist you in this ragtag band here? How did you -- how did you join up with General Allen and Brett? MS. GRANDE: Susan, thank you. And it's an honor, it's a privilege to be on the same panel with General Allen, and with Brett McGurk. I have to apologize right from the start, because I'm cutting in and out constantly, so I hope I understand, Susan, the correct question, and I hope that I'm able to share ideas that actually make it into the room. Susan, I think what you asked is, how did the U.N. become implicated in ISIS-2019/09/10 ANDERSON COURT REPORTING 1800 Diagonal Road, Suite 600 Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone (703) 519-7180 Fax (703) 519-7190 10 this. The U.N. had a Security Council-mandated mission in Iraq for a number of years, and that mission served a variety of functions, it supported a political peace process in the country, and the part of the mission that I was responsible for was responsible for providing humanitarian assistance to civilians who were impacted by the conflict. We also expanded the work of the mission to help stabilize the areas that were liberated by ISIS, by the Iraqi security fand the coalition. I joined the U.N. in Iraq in December in 2014, and in fact when I arrived literally Ramadi was falling, and of course Ramadi is not that far from the capital of Baghdad. I think there was a sense at the time that all those steps were already being taken to mobilize the coalition, to support the Iraqi security forces and pushing back on ISIS, they were within traveling distance of the capital. It was also not very clear at that stage what needed to be done, not only on the military and security side to push ISIS back, but on the humanitarian side. When the battle for Ramadi reached full-pitched, literally, the entire population of that city fled, they left town. And in fleeing they needed to be looked after, they needed shelter, they needed medical help, they needed protection and support. I think we realized at that stage that what was going to happen in the next year-and-a-half was that every time the coalition, in supporting the Iraqi security forces, liberated a city the entire population was going to flee. I remember sitting with General Allen and Brett McGurk very early on and we had, literally, almost like an envelope, and we were trying to calculate how many civilians we thought would end up fleeing as the liberation campaign gained strength and expanded. At that point I remember saying, with confidence, not more than two million civilians are going to flee. And of course by the end of the effort in Iraq, six million Iraqi civilians fled from their homes, six million Iraqi civilians were supported by the Iraqi government, the Iraqi security forces, the coalition and the U.N. It was one of the most exceptional population movements anywhere that ISIS-2019/09/10 ANDERSON COURT REPORTING 1800 Diagonal Road, Suite 600 Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone (703) 519-7180 Fax (703) 519-7190 11 we've seen, of course next to Syria as well. MS. GLASSER: So, Ramadi is a good starting point in a way. You both were enlisted how much before this event occurred? Was it right around the same time? GENERAL ALLEN: Well, Brett had been in the mission in Iraq from the spring and summer, and I came in, informally, in the latter part of the summer, and then was commissioned in September. Let me just add a couple things to what Lise said because in retrospect it's difficult to overstate how complex this was. We had been watching this began to unfold in terms of instability in northwest Iraq in the latter part of the spring, and it was a whole -- there were a whole series of events: suicide bombings, vehicle bombings, assassinations, sheikhs were being assassinated, police and military were being -- the senior leader were being assassinated, Imams, religious leaders were being assassinated, and these appeared to be individual acts. When the Islamic State invaded en masse into northwest Iraq it became very clear, if you connected the dots, that they had been -- in military terms -- they had been undertaking phase zero activities to hollow out the leadership of that part of Iraq, so that as their main force units in the advanced down route one, down the Tigris River, ran into these Iraqi units they all just folded. So it was a brilliant scheme, but we had missed it because our intelligence was oriented in another direction. So Brett and John Kerry, and of course under the leadership and support of the administration, began a whole series of rolling meetings, places like Riyadh, and Paris, and Wales and NATO which began to build the momentum for the coalition which came together for the first time on the 3 rd of December, so it's not far from the fall of Ramadi. But from a standing start we had to build a strategy that we could pursue, and this is where Lise came in, very importantly. The strategy had five lines of effort, the first was the military line, and that was Marty Dempsey and Lloyd Austin leading the ISIS-2019/09/10 ANDERSON COURT REPORTING 1800 Diagonal Road, Suite 600 Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone (703) 519-7180 Fax (703) 519-7190 12 coalition, that Brett mentioned a moment ago, and he can come in behind me. The second was we had to isolate the entire region from the flow of foreign fighters. We had never seen the flow of foreign fighters to any conflict like this one. I had been in Iraq before, I'd been in Afghanistan, we've never seen that many foreign fighters come from so many places quickly, and this became a result of the declaration of the caliphate which created a religious spiritual motivation for people to come serve the caliph and to serve the caliphate. We had, as I said, military, the isolation of the area from foreign fighters both coming in and going home. A third area was to get after the finances. We'd also never seen a terrorist organization like this, this expansive, able to provide its own resources in many ways, we can talk about that if you like. The fourth area was encountering the narrative, the message, and the narrative, and the information operations of the Islamic State which proved to be extraordinarily challenging. And the fifth area was where Lise came in very early, because we had learned lessons previously in the Iraq war, very early we established a very robust line of effort for the stabilization of liberated populations. And this is where she, in conjunction with the UNDP, created something called the stabilization fund, and member states of the coalition, to include the United States, donated millions of dollars into this fund which she managed very deftly. And here's another example of when the U.N. and the United States work together really good things can happen. The intent was that Iraq would fulfill the long-term reconstruction of the damaged areas, meanwhile the U.N. in conjunction with the coalition would immediately come in behind military operations to provide stabilization and sustainment to the horrific effects that the Islamic State had inflicted on the population. So we weren't just getting organized, we had to stop the Islamic State which was headed for Baghdad, where Brett was, and potentially had to be evacuated, and we had ISIS-2019/09/10 ANDERSON COURT REPORTING 1800 Diagonal Road, Suite 600 Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone (703) 519-7180 Fax (703) 519-7190 13 to get up and organized to support the liberated population, stop the flow of foreign fighters, counter the message and get after their finances all of them simultaneously, all in contact with the enemy. So it's really -- as I think back upon it, I thought last night about it, this was a really dire moment, it was a real emergency because thousands of Iraqis were being killed, thousands of Syrians were being killed by this horrific organization, and we just had to stop it. For one thing we had to keep it from getting into the KRG, the Kurdistan Regional Government, and they had turned towards Irbil which I think was a major strategic mistake for them, because that mobilized a lot of international support for the Kurds that we might not have otherwise seen if they had just gone south for Baghdad, the Kurds were spectacular in their efforts to fight. And I don't know that they had the combat power to stop them, but the emergency of the potential for Kurdistan to go down to the Islamic State I think helped to mobilize international support. So this was a real dire moment, and this was where the international community came together very quickly under American leadership, and as allies, to begin the process of dealing with this. MS. GLASSER: So Brett, yes, you're sitting there in Baghdad and you're thinking, some guys in pickup trucks are going to be here in three days? I mean this really was -- we forget about it but really, it was it was seen as possible. MR. McGURK: Yes. So, it depends on where I start the tape. I mean I was on record in 2013 about this rising threat and I testified, and you can kind of see it coming, and the foreign fighters flowing into Syria, the fact that the moderate opposition was very quickly co-opted by these jihadist extremist groups, who kind of rode the back of what was a legitimate revolution against the Assad regime, and just taking it (inaudible). So you could see this coming. Fallujah fell to ISIS on January 1 st, 2014. So I was in Iraq when Mosul fell, and just to give you a sense of the situation. I mean, so I'm ISIS-2019/09/10 ANDERSON COURT REPORTING 1800 Diagonal Road, Suite 600 Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone (703) 519-7180 Fax (703) 519-7190 14 the guy on the ground. I was in northern Iraq, I went down to Baghdad, we picked up people aren't along the way because some of our facilities, we were pretty vulnerable. And walking into a meeting with President Obama and the national security team, I got a phone call from a very senior Iraqi official who said hundreds of ISIS gun trucks were entering Baghdad, and Baghdad is falling. And there was no way to know whether that was true or not, because we didn't have the intelligence coverage and things. At that meeting very quickly, you know, and this is why if you have an engaged president and a good process you can adapt and react quickly. President Obama ordered special forces into Baghdad mainly to observe what was going on. Who can we work with? Who can't we work with? What's the situation? That was a huge help. MS. GLASSER: And this was when, approximately? MR. McGURK: This was in June of 2014, so this is about a week after Mosul. So those special forces got on the ground, they did an assessment of the situation which was a huge help in our planning, and then in putting the plan together, and this is with all the discussion about Afghanistan, the discussion is about this, you know, deal with the Taliban or not, or Camp David, the big question is: What are we trying to achieve? What are the resources going to be? How are we going to do it? So that's what we did on this. And look, we're not going to put you U.S. combat forces on the ground to go clear all these cities, we're not going to do that, we have to work by, with and through local partners which we knew would take a long time, because the local partners were disintegrating. So this is an enormous endeavor, but we put the plan together, and then again with the credibility of people like General Allen able to go to capitals, because there was a great skepticism in these capitals: how are we possibly ever going to do this? I mean, look, you used to hear from some people who come through my office, you know: hey, look Brett, we just have to kind of -- nobody in the U.S. government, but some academic types would come in and say, you know what the truth is, ISIS is here to ISIS-2019/09/10 ANDERSON COURT REPORTING 1800 Diagonal Road, Suite 600 Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone (703) 519-7180 Fax (703) 519-7190 15 stay, it's a state they -- you know, the people under their domain they have billions of dollars in resources, and there isn't really a force on the ground that's going to be able to take them on. I mean I used to hear that at the time, but we said well that's, you know, completely unacceptable. We also had the plan to -- you know, you take advantage of opportunities. So in Syria we tried a number of things but when the battle of Kobani happened in the fall of 2014 we took advantage of an opportunity that we didn't envision when we drew the plan out. But because we had a coherent team we were able to adapt quickly to circumstance, and catch ISIS off-guard. That was kind of a key turning point. MS. GLASSER: How much, you know, it's obviously the accounts are just still being written in effect of the Obama administration. But, you know, both of you had interesting vantage points. To what extent did having a president who clearly was not politically interested in getting us further embroiled in a Middle East conflicts necessitate the creation of this international coalition, right. How much was this a sort of Obama response to United States not really politically being able to go it alone in Iraq once again, so soon after having invaded Iraq? MR. McGURK: Well, I say two things. Once we crossed the Rubicon and this began, I mean we had one of the most hands-on engaged commanders in chief I think we could have asked for, and regular engagement with the president, which was really critical in something -- I'm a big believer, serving in three administrations, if we're going to put young men and women in harm's way the commander in chief has to be directly engaged. It's not something you can just delegate, so that was pretty key. But then how we drew up the campaign really revolutionized how we do these types of wars. I mean there's a lot of lessons learned. I mean our casualties over four years I think 18 Americans have died in combat, I knew some of them, but the casualties on the Syrian Democratic Forces side, and the Iraqi side, you're talking in the tens of thousands. This is a war, and the battle of Mosul, one of the largest urban battles which ISIS-2019/09/10 ANDERSON COURT REPORTING 1800 Diagonal Road, Suite 600 Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone (703) 519-7180 Fax (703) 519-7190 16 Lise led the humanitarian effort on; we haven't seen anything like that since World War II. So, we shouldn't forget this was a real brutal, horrible war, and it's not over, and we need to see it through. But yeah I think -- Obama was very clear that he wanted coalition burden-sharing, but also how we managed the campaign, it's not going to be American combat forces in these cities, but look -- to my final point, 30 seconds. There were two models of how to take down their capital in Raqqa. One, one with U.S. forces kind of leading the way working with some partners, that was an option we drew up for President Obama and for President Trump, both of whom said, no we're going to go with the "By, With, And Through" model. So you can think we should have gone in heavier and done it faster, there was just very little support for that, either in Congress, or I think anywhere in the country. MS. GLASSER: So, General Allen, obviously you had extraordinary amount of service previous to this, both in Afghanistan and Iraq. So how much was what was now unfolding as you're being brought into this and in a different kind of role as a diplomat, how different and mindful were you of the lessons of those other conflicts? And, you know, how did you try to shape this differently on the front end? GENERAL ALLEN: Well, I think the two things. We had learned a lot, as Brett just said about: by, with and through, this doctrine of, if we work with indigenous forces in a constructive way both in terms of providing certain kinds of support but training and equipment, and then supported them operationally a lot can be accomplished, as opposed to simply our doing it ourselves. You know, remember there was significant conversation in Washington about deploying several brigades to deal with this. The problem that you have is when you introduce these antibodies into the region sooner or later if they are the defeat mechanism and you pull those forces out you have left an unstable environment in which -- because of which then those who must deal with our departure will find that the situation may be, in fact, very unstable. ISIS-2019/09/10 ANDERSON COURT REPORTING 1800 Diagonal Road, Suite 600 Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone (703) 519-7180 Fax (703) 519-7190 17 MS. GLASSER: Which is basically what had already just happened? GENERAL ALLEN: That's right. So that what we learned was, the by, with, and through, that I think that was very important. We learned that -- we still had deep connections into the Iraqi security system, the security environment. A quick story: I got in there relatively early very quickly after I got the job, and went into Baghdad, and met with the minister of interior who owns the police. Now the police had largely been, in many respects, run off. The presence of the blue shirts in conjunction with the civilian population really kept criminality to a minimum, and residual ISIS presence to a minimum as well. But the police, and particularly in Anbar which is where I had really extensive and deep experience, the police had largely been run off. And the Iraqis were crying for police. We knew that we needed police to come in right behind the conventional military operations that clears a town, so the police can protect the civilian population, prevent the back-flash, if you will, of ISIS fighters, but there weren't any trainers on the ground. And what we learned from the minister of interior who was a Badr corps guy, by the way, who in normal circumstances would probably have never talked to an American, but because of the emergency he did, and we had a great conversation. He mentioned that the Italians had been very important to the training of Iraqi police. And so within 24 hours of that conversation I flew to Rome, met with the minister of defense, met with the head of the Carabinieri, and within 24 hours of that there was an Italian Carabinieri colonel on his way to Iraq to organize the training. So getting the police into the fight was something we had learned from the previous fight. But I think of all of the various tactical lessons that we learned the one that -- and this goes back to Lise's role in this -- we knew that if we didn't move immediately after we liberated a population, first of all the suffering that that population had experienced was incomparable to anything we'd ever seen before, ISIS-2019/09/10 ANDERSON COURT REPORTING 1800 Diagonal Road, Suite 600 Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone (703) 519-7180 Fax (703) 519-7190 18 We had to come in and do whatever we could in a humanitarian sense to relieve that suffering. But if we didn't do that, all of the reasons why many of them have been willing to accept ISIL to begin with, ISIL would reflash. And maybe Lise could talk about how we put emphasis from the very beginning on the stabilization phase within the campaign that would follow the military action, the establishment of the police on the civilian population. And right behind it would come the resources to help to stabilize the population after that, and to give the opportunity for internally-displaced people, IDPs, to come home, because you know you have won -- the population will flee -- you know you have won when the IDPs come home. So if you've established the right environment for a liberated population and the IDPs are flowing back to their original locations, then you've been successful. And she was largely responsible for getting that process organized. MS. GLASSER: Well that's right, Lise. I hope you can tell us a little bit about, you know, what you did on the front end, organizationally, to try to make sure that Iraq and its cities were restored as quickly as possible. It is a very different story than what we've seen next door in Syria, for example. So tell us what, at the very beginning -- you know, it took a long time in the end to liberate Mosul, you know, that was the big discussion. I think almost from the very beginning the moment that it fell, when would the operation be o retake it, but in the end you had to deal with many, many other cities before you dealt with this enormous fight in Mosul. So tell us how that unfolded. MS. GRANDE: The insight that we had into how to stabilize the cities that were newly liberated, we recognized that populations were going to come home for three reasons: one, because they trusted the security forces that were on the ground. GENERAL ALLEN: Very important. MS. GRANDE: Two, because basic services, including electricity and water were functioning. And three, because they knew that there was a way that they could restart ISIS-2019/09/10 ANDERSON COURT REPORTING 1800 Diagonal Road, Suite 600 Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone (703) 519-7180 Fax (703) 519-7190 19 their lives. There was funding available to get back to work, there was funding available so that the health centers were operational, there was funding available so that the schools could start. So we knew we had to do three things, and we had to do them very quickly. Typically stabilization efforts before Iraq would focus on very large-scale projects; they would focus on repairing an entire grid starting at the top of the grid and working down. They would focus on, quite frankly, programs that had a very long lead time before populations ever started to benefit from them. In the case of Iraq, we took all of that and stood it on its head. So, as soon as the city was liberated, and again, in almost all cases the entire population of the city, everybody had left. So, as soon as the city was liberated the U.N. went in right away, and we would immediately, under coalition leadership and Iraqi government leadership, support the security forces that the populations had the most trust in. They needed to get in there very quickly because nothing else would happen if that wasn't first in place. Then what we did was start to rebuild the grids, not from the top down, but from the bottom up. I'll give you an example of this. In the case of Ramadi when it was liberated the U.N., within just a few days, mobilized 71 separate mobile electricity grids. We took the biggest generators we could find, and we stuck them on the back of Lorries, and in they went. We threw a stone concrete slab down put the generator on it, got a distributor board up, and you had U.N. engineers who would run to every house when a family returned, check the electrical box. If it was broken we fixed it. Took a blue cable from the electricity box, ran it to the distributor board and plugged it in. On average, two hours after family got home, when they pressed the button, their lights came on. We then kept working our way up the grid to the distributor mechanisms, into the generating mechanisms, we kept looking over our shoulders to see if the big money was coming in for reconstruction, until it came we kept working our way up ISIS-2019/09/10 ANDERSON COURT REPORTING 1800 Diagonal Road, Suite 600 Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone (703) 519-7180 Fax (703) 519-7190 20 the grid. This was very unusual work for the U.N. typically. We started at a top of the grid on average. What that meant is that it's about two years before any family ever benefits from it. In the case of Iraq, that time was shrunk to approximately two hours. We did the same thing with the sanitation grid, the same thing with the water grid. What we also did, we would put literally thousands of people to work in public works schemes. And again these schemes could be up and running within a week. So within a week you had public works schemes all across the city that were employing literally hundreds, thousands, and in the case of Mosul, tens of thousands of people who were destitute. They didn't have any money and they couldn't bring their families home until they got that money, and these public works schemes were the way that happened. All of this work was done with the Iraqi private sector, all of it. So we would put out a contract for a discrete project, the Iraqi contractors in the area, almost all of them came from the cities themselves, would bid for these. At the height of the stabilization program we were literally stabilizing 25 liberated cities, there were more than 2,400 individual projects underway at the same time, every single one of them being implemented by local companies. This of course brought income into the local companies, those local companies had huge ownership over the stabilization process, and through the contracts, in addition to our public work schemes, there were tens of thousands, and hundreds of thousands of people who were employed. That was the right combination. It usually took us about three months to stabilize a city, you could always tell, as General Allen was referring to the magic moment, where population said: right, time to go home. I still have incredible memories of being right outside of Fallujah, and turning around and seeing thousands of taxis and vehicles bringing thousands of families home. ISIS-2019/09/10 ANDERSON COURT REPORTING 1800 Diagonal Road, Suite 600 Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone (703) 519-7180 Fax (703) 519-7190 21 They would come all at once, they would leave all at the same time and they would all come at once. Now, all of this effort was possible because of the leadership of the U.S. government, not only over the coalition itself but in saying to all the members of the coalition, this is the concept which the U.N. has proven can work, we need to get behind it, we need to demonstrate that we believe in the U.N. and give them the resources. GENERAL ALLEN: That is key. MS. GRANDE: So that they can make this happen, and we can stabilize these cities. It was for the U.N., the largest stabilization effort we have ever undertaken in our 75-year history, and it was possible because of the trust and confidence that was given to us by the coalition, and most particularly by the exceptional leadership of that coalition, the U.S. government. MS. GLASSER: Lise, that is really just an incredible story. You know, number one, are those lessons that you are able to deploy elsewhere around the world? You're working on Yemen right now. Or are they very Iraq-specific? MS. GRANDE: So, until I had arrived in Iraq I had overseen some of the U.N.'s largest stabilization efforts. I note with great humility that every one of those efforts, until Iraq, that I presided over were failures, So Iraq it meant we managed to get it right, and again I think what was so critical about Iraq is that, you know, you just had tremendous commitment to stabilization from the Iraqi government. You had an exceptional Iraqi private sector with exceptional engineering capabilities in that sector, and then we had the unique leadership of the U.S. government over the largest coalition that had been assembled since World War II. In many of the countries where the U.N. is doing stabilization we don't have one, or in most of those countries any of those qualities. And so when those conditions are in place, the U.N. can make a big difference, when they're not we do our best, but we certainly don't succeed in the way that we did in Iraq. ISIS-2019/09/10 ANDERSON COURT REPORTING 1800 Diagonal Road, Suite 600 Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone (703) 519-7180 Fax (703) 519-7190 22 MS. GLASSER: So, I want to go to the decisions that were made early on that would include this stabilization fund, but are not limited to that. There were -- it wasn't inevitable that it would turn out the way that it did and, you know, I'm curious for each, for both Brett and General Allen. What were two or three decisions where it could have gone the other way? You know, these might have been tactical but ultimately they could have affected the outcome here, not only in terms of bringing in other coalition partners, but the situation on the ground was fluid as you pointed out. You didn't even have intelligence, really, that then led you to the right analysis, at least initially, of what was actually happening. So what were some of the fights that you had about, you know, right or left, up or down, which way to go? GENERAL ALLEN: Brett made an important point, that the national security team at the time was a team that could have a conversation about difficult issues in a civil, organized way, and produce coherent decisions that came out of it. Now, we may not have all agreed on the particulars of the conversation, but typically the outcome, especially when the president was sitting at the end of the table, and was orchestrating the conversation in a often a very masterful way, that brought everybody into the conversation, and we may not have walked out of the room with everything that we might have wanted, but everybody was heard so that was the first thing. We had an early debate in a conversation about -- with regard to Iraq. Do we go north for Mosul? Or do we go south, in other words north along the Euphrates -- or excuse me -- the Tigris, or west and south along the Euphrates? And that decision ultimately was made after a significant debate to go south to liberate the Al Anbar province. As Lise said, Fallujah had fallen early, it had fallen, as I recall on the 31st of December '13, 1 st of January '14, it was awful for those of us who served in Al Anbar and Fallujah in particular. But wrapping up the Al Anbar province secured the western flank, if you will, of Baghdad, which then permitted us to develop the situation which was, I think, more ISIS-2019/09/10 ANDERSON COURT REPORTING 1800 Diagonal Road, Suite 600 Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone (703) 519-7180 Fax (703) 519-7190 23 difficult ultimately in the north. One of the things that was extraordinarily important was that the KRG held together. It held together very well, it became not just a platform where they, the peshmerga and others conducted offensive operations to keep the enemy at arm's length, but it was a platform ultimately for us with a command center to begin the planning necessary for Mosul. And Brett, I'll let him talk about that, because he was in the saddle at that point. The other issue, when we took over this mission we had no options in Syria. President Obama sent me to Turkey to negotiate with the Turks to relocate our strike aircraft from where they were flying off of naval platforms in the Gulf, to Incirlik, and Diyarbakir, and Batman which is the third location, but every time I'd show up the Turks would hand me another map, and the maps were all colored based on the locations of various forces, or whatever it might be, the local situation on the ground. And the map below the Turkish border in Syria was always colored black for the Islamic flag, the Islamic States flag. We had no options. So, I think one of the very earliest tough decisions, that the administration made, because the Turks were extraordinarily attentive to the Syrian Kurds, and very suspicious of them, in some cases they didn't make the distinction between the PYD and the PKK, the PYD being the Syrians, was the battle of Kobani, and Kobani, and I think Brett ultimately would be on the ground there. But the battle of Kobani was two things. First, it was the first real battle that we saw unfolding where we had an opportunity to make a difference, and it was clear that the Islamic State wanted to wipe out the Kurdish population in Kobani, there's no question about that. And it was the president's intention that that's not going to happen, and the coalition agreed to that. And for some long period of time while the Kurds were defending, the coalition airpower was hammering the Islamic State, and they were pouring troops into this ISIS-2019/09/10 ANDERSON COURT REPORTING 1800 Diagonal Road, Suite 600 Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone (703) 519-7180 Fax (703) 519-7190 24 fight because they believed that they had to take out Kobani because that would crack the will of the coalition and then open up Syria again. So the Coalition's intent to support Kobani gave us an indication that for the first time we had real partners in Syria that could make a difference. And our special operators who were located in the KRG began to work closely with the Syrian Kurds and Kobani pointed us to options in Syria that we had not had before. And I'll turn it over to Brett. MR. McGURK: I think strategic three really -- or just two. The summer of 2014 Mosul falls, I think the first time, because I spent that summer in Iraq dealing with everything. I came back I think General Allen has named, I'm his deputy. We went into the Oval Office to see President Obama, this would have been September after we were engaged, I think the first thing, if I recall, Obama said to me was, I know you wanted immediate bombing, airstrikes because I've been the guy with my hair on fire out there. And frankly, that was my recommendation. So this would have been June/July of 2014. Okay. President Obama's kind of guidance during that period was, before we do that let's get our strategic foundation together. And what did that mean? The Iraqi government was going through a process after elections of forming a new government. We had to have an Iraqi government in place. I see Bayan, the representative of the KRG here, we had to work with our Kurdish partners to get them fully engaged in this -- in this process. We had to get the semblance of a coalition together before we actually launched something big. And we did, we formed about -- we started in Jeddah with about 12 countries, so that the night, the night we really started airstrikes we had a number of Arab partners in with us in the operation. But that was a big decision point, I could have seen a more -- frankly it was my recommendation, when I look back I don't know how that would have gone, had the U.S. just acted unilaterally at that key moment. So that was a big -- we took that time to get our act together so that when ISIS-2019/09/10 ANDERSON COURT REPORTING 1800 Diagonal Road, Suite 600 Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone (703) 519-7180 Fax (703) 519-7190 25 we started we had the semblance of a campaign plan in place that we could really rally people behind. Kobani was just -- and the hard work of diplomacy also, just keeping the coalition together the maintenance is really difficult, that's something I think was done pretty well. But Kobani was key because it was right people, right place, right time. We saw this opportunity, we had special forces in Iraq who had relations with the Iraqi Kurds, who happened to know some of the fighters who were left in Kobani were about to be overrun. General Allen and I, we happened to be in Turkey around this time and we saw the prime minister of Turkey, and the Turks expected Kobani was going to fall because, frankly, everybody expected Kobani was going to fall, and obviously they had issues with the Syrian Kurds, and we had this very important meeting that night and we spoke with Secretary Kerry before going into the meeting, we knew we had the full top cover of the president and everybody, so this wasn't something we had to combat. And we said to the Turkish prime minister, it was Davutoğlu at the time, and we got it, but what if we get the Iraqi -- the Kurdish peshmerga to come into Kobani and help in the battle? And he said, yeah, they would agree to that, we can support coming through southeast Turkey is a pretty extraordinary thing. And immediately after that meeting I called the Kurdish leadership in Irbil, and they approved it, and we got the peshmerga to come into Kobani, we did an airdrop to support them. So it was a critical kind of bringing together the military, the diplomacy, the high strategic guidance, because the president had to approve this. Then he called President Erdoğan. It was a key moment. And I think had Kobani fallen the caliphate would still be in Syria, I just have no doubt, because just given the tools we had to work with. So there are a lot of key moments like that when I think historians will look back at this at some point, and with just the process matters, that people matter, the focus ISIS-2019/09/10 ANDERSON COURT REPORTING 1800 Diagonal Road, Suite 600 Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone (703) 519-7180 Fax (703) 519-7190 26 matters, but those are two that just came to mind. MS. GLASSER: Do we need as big of a coalition as the one that you assembled? I mean, you know, numbers look good and everything but, you know, the key players clearly were that, you know, the Kurds, your diplomacy with Turkey was obviously indispensable, but why did it have to be so big? GENERAL ALLEN: I think the moral accumulation -- the accumulation of moral suasion is really important in a coalition. There were many small countries that, other than to show up and offer their national support, such of it as they could give. And some didn’t give any other than to show up, but they were ready to go if we asked them. That accumulation of moral support for this cause, and this request by the president of the United States was extraordinarily important. And we had people, when we had our first meeting of the coalition, I think about 58 states were able to make it to Brussels on the 3 rd of December of '14, we had people sitting around the oval at NATO headquarters, it was not used as NATO headquarters that day, it was just a coalition assembly, that countries we would never have imagined that we could see, For example, Taiwan was there. And very quietly the Chinese were okay with Taiwan being there, which I thought was very important, we had Cyprus there with Turkey and Greece also there. So this was such an emergency, and the diplomacy I think was so profound by our ambassadors out at post, in convincing these countries through an active conversation with the State Department back in Washington, and with our allies in places like the EU, and in NATO and in East Asia, it really came together very well, you know. And on a quick story on Kobani. The night we did an airdrop to Kobani because the fighters were running out of ammunition, they badly needed an ammunition resupply, and the border was closed, nothing was coming to them across the Turkish border, and I don't recall the exact numbers of C-130s, but they flew through Syrian airspace, and as they were approaching the drop site, I was on the phone to the ambassadors of the ISIS-2019/09/10 ANDERSON COURT REPORTING 1800 Diagonal Road, Suite 600 Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone (703) 519-7180 Fax (703) 519-7190 27 various countries, the key members of the coalition to include the Turkish ambassador, telling them that in the next X-number of minutes there would be an American airdrop ammunition resupply to the Kobani defenders. And there was this huge sense of appreciation from all the ambassadors, except the Turkish ambassador who was very quick to register his displeasure. And I took note of that and passed it back to the State Department. But those are the kinds of things that we did because it was an emergency, those fighters desperately needed support, and the United States did a night airdrop to give them ammunition so they could continue fighting. MR. McGURK: Just real quick. Why so many countries? It wasn't just about what's on the ground, as General Allen said, we also, it's a global network, and we develop -- this is the kind of stuff that doesn't get as much attention -- but we developed a -- General Terry Wolff who was the deputy presidential envoy for three years, together with our military colleagues, and our intelligence colleagues, set up these information-sharing networks so that we could share information radically and immediately across borders with our partners. And that had stopped attacks, and there was a facility in Jordan in which most of the -- most of these jihadists put stuff on Facebook, and I mean they kind of don't really hide it, but it's being able to connect dots. So if someone from -- you know, a French officer is seeing something, someone talking to someone in Sweden they can immediately say: Hey, have you looked into this? And so we built this information-sharing architecture that is still in place, and I think is one of the reasons we have not seen -- knock on wood -- we have not seen the types of attacks we are seeing in Paris in the 2015 time frame. MS. GLASSER: So, I want to bring in the audience soon. But, Lise, I want to come back to you quickly, and ask you. We've referred several times to Mosul and the largest urban warfare since World War II. You know, tell us about the humanitarian scale of ISIS-2019/09/10 ANDERSON COURT REPORTING 1800 Diagonal Road, Suite 600 Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone (703) 519-7180 Fax (703) 519-7190 28 what you had to deal with Mosul. And also was that -- I mean was that the biggest, in the end, challenge? It was the thing you worried about the longest and prepared for the most, but what was the worst moment when it came to the humanitarian response to this incredible, I mean very far-flung Islamic State challenge? MS. GRANDE: The humanitarian operations started planning for the retaking of Mosul a year before military operations started. And I still recall the very first scenario, set of scenarios we had in front of us, and we were working on the assumption that there would be literally hundreds of thousands of people who would be forced to flee the city they would probably be without protection and without assistance for, arguably, days and more likely weeks. I remember that we were talking with members of the coalition, and most importantly the Iraqi government and saying you need to be prepared to deal with the consequences in the media, and politically, with literally hundreds of thousands of people who will have lost everything, and won't be receiving the aid they need in as quick a fashion as they would expect. Based on that, we made a firm commitment to do everything we could to manage the evacuation of civilians. One of the very first times in an active conflict the United Nations was embedded in the planning department or the planning section of the Iraqi Security Forces; we were supported very strongly by the coalition in this. The Iraqi military put in place a battle plan and at the center of that battle plan was the requirement to protect civilians at all cost. The protection of civilians was not a secondary or third or even the fourth thing, it was literally the heart of the battle plan itself. The entire military effort to liberate Mosul started from the primary foundational premise that everything had to be done to make sure that civilians survived. The first day in when Iraqi forces would move into a Mosul neighborhood was to protect civilians in their homes, only if they couldn't do that would they begin the ISIS-2019/09/10 ANDERSON COURT REPORTING 1800 Diagonal Road, Suite 600 Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone (703) 519-7180 Fax (703) 519-7190 29 process of what we called a managed evacuation. So it went like this: In the first part of Mosul, this would be on the eastern part of the city, almost all of the population, 90 percent of it was protected in their homes, they didn't leave the city, they were able to stay there and the Iraqi security forces as they liberated these areas were able to protect families in situ. When they crossed over to western Mosul that changed, and in fact almost everyone in western Mosul was evacuated. This is how the evacuation worked: it was, if I may say, an incredibly coordinated, almost orchestrated effort. In the morning of the battle, of the day, our teams would call Iraqi commanders on the ground and we would say: we have room, in the 19 camps that surrounded Mosul, today we have beds for X-number of people. The Iraqi security forces as they moved into a neighborhood would evacuate that day the number of beds we have. They would escort the populations across the front line. Humanitarian organizations were right on the line, as the families came across they were vetted for weapons by the Iraqi security forces, then they went to a screening site, and on the day that they were evacuated, by that night they were in a camp receiving the life-saving assistance that they required. Just to put this into perspective. Typically in an active war zone on average families will wait between three, four weeks, up to a month, and in many operations it's two months before they receive any assistance. In the case of Mosul they came out that day, that night their families were in a bed, and safe and they were receiving the help that they needed in order to survive. That was only possible, that degree of coordination, because of the battle plan which puts civilian protection at the center of everything that was done, and the work that the humanitarian agencies were able to do in support of this effort. There has been no managed evacuation of this scale or scope since World War II. It is the largest managed evacuation of civilians in the 20th century, and it was an accomplishment that was done ISIS-2019/09/10 ANDERSON COURT REPORTING 1800 Diagonal Road, Suite 600 Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone (703) 519-7180 Fax (703) 519-7190 30 because of the coalition leadership, and the exceptional battle plan that the Iraqi Forces put into place. MS. GLASSER: Okay. Thank you, Lise. Well, I know there's going to be a lot of questions. I'm going to exercise my moderator's prerogative and return to the events of the day briefly. Brett, my question to you is actually pretty simple which is: How can you characterize for us in a straightforward -- for dummies like me -- way, what our current policy she is in regards to Syria? And also, what does it -- does it matter and do you see a consequence in the departure of the national security advisor today? Will that change our policies such as it is? MR. McGURK: I mean, the policies are articulable, I can articulate it. It is, we want to see all Iranian commander forces leave Syria. We want to see, through the Geneva process, we want to see the Assad regime fundamentally change the way he governs his country, and you only want to ensure the enduring defeat of ISIS. Those are the objectives as articulated by the administration. My point is those are big, those are some big objectives, and I've worked on Syria for a long time, and you've got to really resource a campaign like that, and it's not resourced. And we've got our hands full just in northeast Syria. Northeast Syria the enduring defeat of ISIS alone, that mission alone is going to be extremely challenging you have a camp at al-Hawl with 70,000, people part of which is like Jihad land. We are putting very little resources into that. We're trying to do a safe zone with Turkey, which again I think is a laudable diplomatic endeavor, but that's going to take resources and President Trump has made clear he will not put any more resources into Syria. So you just have this ends and means gap. For everything Lise is talking about that's in Iraq. In Syria we do not work with the U.N. because the U.N. works through the Assad regime which we don't do. So it's much more difficult and it requires more of a U.S. commitment. ISIS-2019/09/10 ANDERSON COURT REPORTING 1800 Diagonal Road, Suite 600 Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone (703) 519-7180 Fax (703) 519-7190 31 So how does the departure of the national security advisor change this? I don't think it fundamentally changes that much, I mean it's -- you just have kind of a shambolic process in which the president will be forced to react when something happens in Syria, and something eventually, you know, will happen. But they're just -- there was never really a national security process that connected to the president, and if you don't have the connection to the President there's not much of a meaningful process. And when HR was there was a very good national security process but -- GENERAL ALLEN: That's H.R. McMaster? MR. McGURK: H.R. McMaster, but the level of connection to the Oval Office was always questionable. So that's when you get this kind of lurching back and forth with various ideas. MS. GLASSER: General Allen, my moderator's prerogative question to you is related to this but slightly different. We were both present the other night when General Mattis spoke about his new book, and sort of spoke about his decision, but not really, to leave the Trump administration. He has said that he believes there is a duty of silence that he owes President Trump as a career military man, even though he was serving in this administration in a civilian capacity. And he has been critical of your decision and that of some others to speak out in our political process as you did in 2016. You know, is there a duty, not of silence, but a duty to come forward in your view, especially to help us understand issues like what has unfolded in Syria and Iraq? GENERAL ALLEN: Well, I think we, in our own way, we do our duty as we were given the light to see it, frankly. Jim Mattis can do whatever he wants, he can speak about the realities that he faced, or he can not speak about the realities that he faced, or he can partly speak about the realities that he faced, well, he could do whatever he wants. I spoke out in 2016 because I was deeply concerned about what would become the reality of candidate Trump, three years later I'm deeply alarmed about the reality ISIS-2019/09/10 ANDERSON COURT REPORTING 1800 Diagonal Road, Suite 600 Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone (703) 519-7180 Fax (703) 519-7190 32 that has become President Trump. And Jim can do whatever he wants. I'm going to continue to speak up. MS. GLASSER: Well, I guess we'll see whether the former national security advisor also believes he has a duty of silence or not, soon. GENERAL ALLEN: We will see. MS. GLASSER: We will see. And perhaps you guys can enlighten us, whether he's already spoken out in the hour-an-a-half that we've been talking. (Laughter) But who wants to jump in here with questions which will be better than mine? Okay I know that you actually did have your hand up even before. So, please, identify yourselves when you talk, and do make it a question so that we can get as many as possible. Thank you. QUESTIONER: (inaudible) from the Turkish Embassy. (inaudible) PKK, provided by YPG is PKK, and they recently served in northeast Syria on the anniversary of the first time there is the PKK, they openly celebrated. And they celebrated that, maybe where it's a PKK territory. And your tune -- choice to work with them, ended up with millions of people living on the (inaudible) of the Marxist territory. But ISILs which are in Russian, the Soviets, are controlling the territory, and they take orders from Qandil. And everybody knows it, too many Turkish speakers around. So, what do you think, how these things will be solved then? Thank you. MS. GLASSER: Interesting. GENERAL ALLEN: Well, I'll make one comment at the beginning, and that was that the Turkish government did not make the distinction between the PKK and the PYD. Very clearly it did not, because I was in the negotiations at Ankara where the distinction was made. And the distinction was made in the context of our working with the PYD at the time, and you use YPG which is the armed wing of the PYD, the distinction was made that we could support them so long as we stayed east of the Euphrates, in the aftermath of the clearing of northeast Syria. ISIS-2019/09/10 ANDERSON COURT REPORTING 1800 Diagonal Road, Suite 600 Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone (703) 519-7180 Fax (703) 519-7190 33 Now, sadly we ended up going west of the Euphrates into the Manbij pocket but that was -- that was a function of follow-on operations. So you can say there, or you can say here that the PKK and the PYD are synonymous in Ankara today, but in 2014 there was a distinction that was made that permitted us to have options in northern Syria that we would not have otherwise had. And frankly I think that Turkey in the end is happy that much of that border was ultimately cleared as a direct result of the capacity to form the Syrian Democratic Forces which was not just Syrian Kurds, but Syrian Kurds, and Arabs, and Syriacs, and Turkmen, et cetera, et cetera. So, it's not quite as simple. Although I understand your point, and I respect your ability to say that, it's not quite as simple as the PYD and the PKK are the same, and we somehow created a diplomatic outrage by considering them to be the same -- of considering them to be different. MR. McGURK: If I pull a string on my back on this one, I'll just go on forever, but I'll just, I'll leave it, I'll leave it with what General Allen said, that's exactly right. MS. GLASSER: Okay. All right, ma'am, right here. QUESTIONER: Thank you so much. I'm Sinam Mohamad, U.S. representative of Syrian Democratic Council. Thank you so much for this presentation, really. I would like to mention that we paid about 11,000 heroes in defeating ISIS in north of Syria. And it is with the help and support of the U.S. Thank you so much for the U.S., and for the global coalition. But now after ISIS we have now thousands, 2,000 fighters, foreigners, fighters detainees in our prisons. Till now we asked for their countries to get them back, nobody respond. We ask now for having international tribunals for these fighters, foreigners, in our place even we don't have any support and response. So what do you think is the solution for this problem? This is just one. Another thing is for the al-Hawl Camp which is now a time (inaudible) for the ISIS. It's so dangerous it becomes; 73,000 in these camps, fighters, I mean the family ISIS-2019/09/10 ANDERSON COURT REPORTING 1800 Diagonal Road, Suite 600 Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone (703) 519-7180 Fax (703) 519-7190 34 fighters, and these people, they are so dangerous, they have the ideology of this radicalism and the Islamist, so now we can see many of the journalists when they say they are asking a child of 7 years old, what are you going to become in the future? And he'd say, jihadist. So that time it is very important to look at this camp. What can we do? Till now we don't have any support, and this is I think, is the responsibility of the global coalitions also. So what do you think about that? Thank you so much. Thank you. MR. McGURK: This is a huge problem. Zarqawi was in Jordanian prison, he was in a U.S. military prison facility. Baghdadi, he was in a U.S. military prison facility, so I hear he was in an Egyptian prison. I mean we know what happens in these prisons, and we have this camp in al-Hawl, in which truly the next generation -- the current generation and the future generation of terrorists, so their end, it is getting very little attention. And we used to talk about, in the terrible days of the Iraq war, I'm sure you had this in Afghanistan, General Allen, but, you know, counterinsurgency in the camp because you cannot -- GENERAL ALLEN: True. That's right. MR. McGURK: -- you can't allow these populations to be able to sit there every day, and that's what's happening in al-Hawl, and this is what concerns me about Syria. I think we're trying to do way too much with way too little, and I think we got to have some focused -- some focused priorities and al-Hawl is really critical. And frankly, to the Syrian Democratic Forces, you don't have the resources to deal with this problem. And again this is a -- I don't think this is going to change. I mean when the difference with Mosul and Raqqa, you know, we took Raqqa -- President Trump made the decision, it's President Trump who made the decision to arm the Syrian Kurds and take Raqqa, that was a decision not made by President Obama, it was made by President Trump. We did the Raqqa campaign, the military campaign, it was successful, and then the White House cut -- we were going to put $200 million into stabilization of Raqqa, ISIS-2019/09/10 ANDERSON COURT REPORTING 1800 Diagonal Road, Suite 600 Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone (703) 519-7180 Fax (703) 519-7190 35 which is like, nothing. And of course that's a multiplier to getting more coalition contributions and the White House made -- President Trump made very clear, we are putting no U.S. money into stabilization of Raqqa. So this is where we are. You're in a resource-poor environment with a very serious situation on the ground and so -- and thank you for your question I just -- I hope and I think there's attention to this in Congress, I hope the U.S. steps up to this because it's very serious, and is central to our own national security interest. But, you know, my confidence is under wraps. GENERAL ALLEN: And it's not just resources, as you said, it's also: this is the moment for American leadership to encourage those states that have foreign fighters that are still in Syria to take them back, and put them through a rehabilitation program of some form or another, or ultimately detain them as is necessary. But here is this unique opportunity once again for the United States to lead by trying to get members of the coalition who own these foreign fighters that are in the hands of the Syrian Democratic Forces to take them back, get them off your hands, so it can reduce the burden that you have right now as you're trying to stabilize your population. Thank you for that question. MS. GLASSER: But am I right that -- I mean I've seen the president tweet about foreign fighters at various of our allies but -- MR. McGURK: The president has said, either you take them back, or I'm going to send them all back into your -- that's not -- that's not the best way to talk to your allies. Look, we have a difficult time taking American citizens back, this is extremely hard, and the numbers of European foreign fighters in that camp are fairly small, so that's part of the problem, it's not the whole problem. We need a very comprehensive solution to this camp which is -- require a security solution because you have to separate this population, and right now even the Syrian Democratic Forces, guards of the camp cannot go into these areas because they're ISIS-2019/09/10 ANDERSON COURT REPORTING 1800 Diagonal Road, Suite 600 Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone (703) 519-7180 Fax (703) 519-7190 36 so dangerous. That is a huge problem that we have to deal with as the U.S. military in situations like this. So it requires our priority, am I'll just -- I hate to be a broken record -- but in Syria trying to do way too much with way too little, and losing focus of some really key priorities like this, and I would hate to be here in 10 years, when there's some massive attack, whether in Paris, or here, God forbid. And the people came out of al-Hawl. And that would literally be history repeating itself because we've seen that movie. GENERAL ALLEN: And a complication to the lady's question is the next generation of jihadists, as you pointed to, many of these children who were born a direct result of the Islamic State they are themselves stateless, so they have no place to go, and we have yet to come to grips with the thousands of those children who are stateless, and no country will take them back. And this is the -- this is a global humanitarian challenge that we have got to deal with. MS. GLASSER: Lise, I see you nodding your head. Do you have any knowledge of what if anything the U.N. is trying to do with regards to these children? MS. GRANDE: It is a no. Because I am not serving in that theater I wouldn't be able to speak to that with the precision. MS. GLASSER: Mm-hmm. Okay. All right, let's get some questions. I'm going to go all the way in the back there. QUESTIONER: Silvan Castro from the Voice of America. So last, over the weekend the U.S. -- the U.S. and Turkey began their first joint mission patrol on the border, which is part of the safe zone that was agreed upon early on in August. Now my question is -- I guess I have a two-part question. The first part is: What does this mean in terms of the long-term U.S. presence in the region, and the northern -- northeastern part of Syria? And the second part is how does this contribute to the continuation of the fight against ISIS? Thank you. MR. McGURK: Let me first say to, he's a former colleague over many ISIS-2019/09/10 ANDERSON COURT REPORTING 1800 Diagonal Road, Suite 600 Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone (703) 519-7180 Fax (703) 519-7190 37 years, from Iraq, from the Bush White House, Ambassador Jim Jeffrey is leading this issue, and I think he's done just a tremendous job in trying to hold things together, and putting the pieces together, for what we call it, as I understand, the security mechanism. The problem that I see, and it's just not in his hands, it comes down to this fundamental issue of our own commitment, is that if you're going to take on something like that, that you have to resource it. So we have a new mission now of a security mechanism or a safe zone as the president has ordered our forces and our resources down tremendously. So then you just have this gap, and the gap is widening, and I think that's a problem. Another issue that's going to be -- have to be confronted is, you know, President Erdoğan talks about the safe zone in very different terms than we talk about it. So that's obviously something I think that bridge will have to be crossed. But it comes down to resources and you can do these things if you resource them, if you don't resource them they're not going to succeed. And so we're drawing resources away from other vital missions for the security mechanism, and that just takes even less for al-Hawl or for keeping the pressure on ISIS, and so these problems are going to continue to metastasize. GENERAL ALLEN: Let me just add, if I could, to the gentleman who asked the question over there a moment ago. You know, there's a lot of tension between the U.S. and the Turkish government today, but I can remember Brett and I, in our conversations about that moment when there was no real -- there were no real options in Syria, that Turkey in many respects was going to be the key to unlocking any capacity for us to be successful in Syria. And I can tell you the many occasions where I said publicly that we, the international community, need to understand the pressure that Turkey is under at any given time, the numbers, the millions of individuals that Turkey has taken in, the fact that basically the entire southern border of Turkey was in the hands of the Islamic State at a particular ISIS-2019/09/10 ANDERSON COURT REPORTING 1800 Diagonal Road, Suite 600 Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone (703) 519-7180 Fax (703) 519-7190 38 moment. And so while we may have differences, I think history needs to accurately portray that Turkey has really done a lot in this process to try to position the defeat of the Islamic State, and ultimately to take care of the refugees. Now, sadly, where we are right now is that there is some expectation that the refugees will be taken to the border. I was reading about what was happening in Gaziantep where I spent some time not long ago, and they'll be pushed across the border at some point underground that theoretically was controlled by Turkish forces, or at least was controlled by forces that would accept them. And I don't know whether they're your forces or not. Or the alternative is, if the international community doesn't step up that there is the implied threat that many of those refugees will be released back in towards Europe, and I think that -- I don't know whether that is in fact a threat or that's a reality, but this is a difficult moment in terms of, once again the Syrian refugees being whipsawed by the political situation in the region. MS. GLASSER: All right. You, sir. MR. FELDMAYER: Chick Feldmayer, the Munitions Industrial Task Force. I have a question for Lise. When you were planning your operations, particularly as you moved in to reestablish utilities, was security a component of your planning to protect those companies, or the Iraqis that were actually going to deliver the services? And the second question I have, if I may, is did you go through the normal U.N. bid system, or did you develop an inventory of -- yeah I know -- of companies that you could call on to do that type of work? MS. GRANDE: Thank you for your questions. The safety and security of the companies which were working on the stabilization projects was of course provided by the Iraqi security forces. That was not a responsibility of the U.N., it was the responsibility of the government. ISIS-2019/09/10 ANDERSON COURT REPORTING 1800 Diagonal Road, Suite 600 Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone (703) 519-7180 Fax (703) 519-7190 39 If I can be candid, I think there was probably no one more surprised by how quickly we were able to push forward with the stabilization projects than the U.N. itself. We averaged two weeks from the time a project was approved until the time a spade was in the ground. That's really exceptional for the U.N. But we knew that we had to move at an absolute clip if the areas, once they had been liberated from ISIL, we're actually going to be stabilized. We just couldn't do business as usual. We did follow all U.N. procurement rules and regulations, I have to be frank that we didn't often have cleared companies, pre-cleared companies except in the case of Mosul, and because, literally, from the time the city was liberated we were immediately contracting out to local companies. And because that was happening so quickly, I mean at one point there were 10 cities that were liberated in the span of two months, and the second the city was liberated we were in there. So this meant that the kind of forward clearance our projects wasn't possible in most of the cities, it was, however, possible in the case of Mosul. MS. GLASSER: Well, fascinating. So unfortunately I think we only have time for one more question. And we do have a very eager person in the back we haven't had that many questions in the back. Go ahead, sir. QUESTIONER: Thank you very much. My name is Rahim Rashidi –- I am a Kurd from Kurdistan. How would you describe the Kirkuk situation after October 16, 2017, when those militia by Qassem Suleimani attacked Kirkuk by U.S. weapons, and you were in charge. You don't have any reaction and decision. Can you tell us why? Thank you. MR. McGURK: If you're talking about the referendum from the fall, I think, again I spoke to that as an official, and I'm going to stick to that. I mean it was a terrible situation and outcome. I think what is very encouraging now, and I spend most of last summer in Iraq, is that the -- at least as I understand it, and I live in California now so I'm not speaking, right, in any official capacity, or any inside knowledge. But I think Irbil and Baghdad right now the relations are very strong, and I ISIS-2019/09/10 ANDERSON COURT REPORTING 1800 Diagonal Road, Suite 600 Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone (703) 519-7180 Fax (703) 519-7190 40 think your new president to the KRG, Nechirvan Barzani, he's an old friend of mine, I think is a real problem solver. And your new Prime Minister Masrour is doing a great job, and Prime Minister Adil Abdul-Mahdi has his work cut out for him but it's obviously working very closely with the KRG. So I think I'd really like to focus -- I think it's important to focus on where you are now going forward and there's a lot to get right. And I do hope that the U.S. government, they've got a lot of good people in the U.S. government working this issue. From the deputy assistant secretary, Andrew Peek, and others are working this every day. And Matt Tueller, our new ambassador out there, is a real pro. So, you know, I think there's reason on Iraq with all the difficulties. And I want to just point, I mean Mosul was a success but west Mosul is going to take decades to recover. Let's be clear. I was in east Mosul after the battle and I came back, but west Mosul was a tremendously vicious house-to-house battle that's going to take decades, it's going to try -- continued focus and commitment. And that's why keeping a coalition together is important. But on Iraq right now I think there are some tremendous, tremendous challenges as regional tensions heat up and all sorts of things, and the Shi'a militias, everything we get into. But I think with the new government and the KRG, and the new government in Baghdad from what I understand, they're working together quite cooperatively, and that's a good sign. GENERAL ALLEN: I'll add that we would not have had a lot of the options in Northern Iraq that we ultimately were able to take advantage of if it hadn't been for the KRG, frankly, and the leadership within the KRG, and the courage of the peshmerga. That gave us options not just in the context of Northern Iraq, but it gave us options with respect to Syria. And so we not only treasure our relationship with Baghdad, but we treasure our relationship with Irbil as well. MS. GLASSER: Well, I think we're going to have to leave it on that note. But I have to say I have both learned a lot, and I have temporarily taken my mind off Twitter, ISIS-2019/09/10 ANDERSON COURT REPORTING 1800 Diagonal Road, Suite 600 Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone (703) 519-7180 Fax (703) 519-7190 41 and I thank you for that. (Laughter) And, Lise, I know we all want to thank you especially, for joining us from -- I guess you're in Amman today, but your stories are I think so powerful, and often missing from the Washington conversation. So thank you, Lise. GENERAL ALLEN: Thank you, Lise. MS. GLASSER: Thank you, Brett. Thank you, General Allen. And thank you to all of you. GENERAL ALLEN: Thank you very much. Well done. (Applause) * * * * * ISIS-2019/09/10 ANDERSON COURT REPORTING 1800 Diagonal Road, Suite 600 Alexandria, VA 22314 Phone (703) 519-7180 Fax (703) 519-7190 42 CERTIFICATE OF NOTARY PUBLIC I, Carleton J. Anderson, III do hereby certify that the forgoing electronic file when originally transmitted was reduced to text at my direction; that said transcript is a true record of the proceedings therein referenced; that I am neither counsel for, related to, nor employed by any of the parties to the action in which these proceedings were taken; and, furthermore, that I am neither a relative or employee of any attorney or counsel employed by the parties hereto, nor financially or otherwise interested in the outcome of this action. Carleton J. Anderson, III (Signature and Seal on File) Notary Public in and for the Commonwealth of Virginia Commission No. 351998 Expires: November 30, 2020

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