ERBIL, Kurdistan Region - Syrian Kurds are the number one victims of Bashar al-Assad’s downfall as they have lost control of many places, said a Russian expert on Monday. "The ones who have suffered the most due to the collapse of Assad's regime are the Kurds. The Kurds lost control of several important cities,” Vitaly Naumkin, director of the Russian Academy of Sciences’ Institute of Oriental Studies, told Rudaw’s Kamiz Shadadi. “Deir ez-Zor has vast resources such as oil, gas, and wheat... These are the most important resources both for Syria and for the region. The Kurds, together with the national army [Assad’s army], were controlling these resources, and the Americans supported them, they were with them. But now, all of that has been lost. Now new owners have appeared,” he added. The 13-year uprising against Bashar al-Assad’s regime came to a quick end when a coalition of rebels led by the Islamist Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) launched a lightning offensive against the Syrian army late last month, culminating their victory with the capture of Damascus as Assad fled to Russia and ending over five decades of Baathist rule. Turkey-backed Syrian opposition militants, who call themselves the Syrian National Army (SNA), have launched numerous attacks on the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in northern Syria, controlling the strategic town of Til Rifaat and Manbic city. SDF also withdrew from parts of the oil-rich Deir ez-Zor it had seized after the regime forces fled, allowing the HTS to replace them. The US-allied SDF has said it does not seek conflict with the new authority in Damascus, adding that they will also send a delegation to the capital to meet with the HTS-led administration. The Kurdish administration in northeast Syria (Rojava) has also decided to raise the new flag of Syria on all its institutions. Turkey has intensified its attacks on the SDF in recent days, with an unnamed SDF source telling local media on Monday that Ankara plans to attack the Kurdish-held towns of Kobane and Ain Issa later in the night following the end of a temporary ceasefire between both sides, mediated by Americans. “It’s unclear how their stance toward the Kurds will be, especially since relations between Turkey and the Kurds are also very bad,” Naumkin said. “But one thing is clear: there will be attacks.”
