It’s been three weeks since President Trump ordered U.S. troops to withdraw from northeastern Syria, where they’d spent years backing Syrian Kurdish militias fighting against ISIS.
Trump’s move made way for a long-planned Turkish-led offensive into the region, which so far has left scores of civilians dead and hundreds of thousands displaced.
It also spells the likely end of a radical democratic experiment set up by the Syrian Kurds several years ago amid the chaos of civil war.
The geographic area known as Rojava is defended by Kurdish-majority militia groups who have been America’s Kurdish allies, but the Turkish government considers terrorists.
Here in Southern California, Kurdish-Americans and local supporters of this unique Kurdish-led self-governing region are eager to preserve it.
