America’s War in Syria by Till Paasche John Foxx & Shaun Murray

Author:Till Paasche, John Foxx & Shaun Murray
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Casemate Publishers
Published: 2022-05-15T00:00:00+00:00

Map 5: Front lines in April 2016 around the Kobane and Cizire cantons.

CHAPTER 11

Between Operations: March–April 2016

Shortly after the al-Shaddadi operation had finished, all foreign fighters in Tabur Şehîd Karaman were sent back to the academy. In these kinds of situations, usually no explanation was provided. Heval Zagros, John, and Shaun grabbed their bags and had to leave their tabur. They were furious. It was not the first time this had happened to them. As soon as they found a tabur and established rapport, some dumb order would come down the chain and force the americani back to the rear.

While John and Heval Zagros eventually made their peace with the fact they would be fucked around again, Shaun had had enough. His six months, the minimum length for a tour with the YPG, were almost up, and he wanted to get out. There would be no more operations any time soon, and he wasn’t going to spend several weeks in that horrible academy. He therefore headed to the Tev Dem nocta. Usually, the Tev Dem only hosts international volunteers who work in the civilian society outside the YPG/YPJ, but given the poor physical state Shaun was in, it agreed to an exception.

In brief, the Tev Dem is the group of diplomats who communicate democratic confederalism to the people of Rojava. It is one of the organizations that advance the movement intellectually. Enjoying the honor of receiving the Tev Dem’s hospitality, while there, Shaun translated some documents and wrote a report to SDF’s high command. Within the militia, every fighter has the right to compose a report that will go up the command chain until the issue can be addressed adequately. The subject of Shaun’s report was his argument for a CASEVAC unit, a team in a lightly armored fighting vehicle that would stabilize and evacuate the wounded from the fighting arena. Listing his observations, especially those gleaned from the al-Shaddadi operation, he identified a large gap between the fighting taburs and the staging civilian ambulances. As a consequence, casualties were getting stuck at the front lines and could not reach the ambulances, which were often more than 30 minutes away. This is not ideal, since when dealing with combat casualties, the first hour is the most important one. In his report, Shaun therefore suggested closing this gap. In all, Shaun stayed with the Tev Dem for 10 days, until in mid-March 2016, he left Rojava to be smuggled back to Erbil.

Meanwhile, Zagros and John were stranded at a transit base just west of Qamishlo, only a couple of stone throws from the Turkish border. Once upon a time, this place must have been some kind of resort. Now it looked like the set of a post-apocalyptic Tarantino movie; the only reminder of its former glory was an utterly fucked-up old peacock.

Trying to stay productive, John used the time to reflect on the conversations he had had with Şehîd Kosta. Given his own experiences during the al-Shaddadi operation, the words of his slain brother began resonating with him.

Download

Copyright Disclaimer:
This site does not store any files on its server. We only index and link to content provided by other sites. Please contact the content providers to delete copyright contents if any and email us, we'll remove relevant links or contents immediately.