As Syrians rejoiced at the unexpected ousting of dictator Bashar al-Assad, Kurdish journalist Nazim Dastan had little time to join the celebrations. ‘Turkey and its proxy militias wanted to profit from the fall of the Ba’ath regime, and occupy the city once again,’ he said in a December message from the city of Manbij. ‘They are bombarding the city with heavy weapons and air strikes.’
Days later, Dastan was dead, targeted in a Turkish airstrike which also killed Kurdish reporter Cihan Bilgin. Manbij – a multi-ethnic, strategically-located city liberated from Islamic State (Isis) rule in 2016 by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) – had been cap tured by Turkish-backed forces. The opportunistic offensive, launched in December, has so far displaced 120,000 people and killed at least 69 civilians, according to local authorities.1 For millions of people living in the northern Syria region often referred to by the Kurdish shorthand ‘Rojava’, but formally known as the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), the deadly 12-year conflict isn’t over, but instead entering its most dangerous phase.
