The
rutted road stretches into the distance across the plains of Hasakah. Herdsmen
watch over their few dozen sheep. A scattering of oil pumps nod lazily as they
extract a few dollars of crude from deep below. Above, the contrails left by
coalition warplanes drift across the blue sky in hazy circles.
We
bump through the mud-brick villages. Wide-eyed children stop playing marbles in
the dirt to gaze at us. Old men wearing keffiyehs, the traditional red and
white headscarf, peer suspiciously. This corner of northern Syria -- close to
the border with Iraq -- is a mix of Arab tribes and Kurds, Muslims and
Christians. It has long been neglected, despite its oil and farming, by the
Syrian regime hundreds of miles away in Damascus. But in the war against ISIS,
Hasakah is suddenly a place of interest, and especially for the Pentagon.
Our
destination is an airstrip used for crop-spraying. From satellite images we've
worked out where it is. It would be easy to miss: just a strip of concrete that
almost sinks into the dark soil. But for all its modesty, this is the United
States' latest outpost in its deepening campaign against ISIS.
An
elderly farmer living nearby, rake-thin with a weathered brown face, offers tea
to the minibus of strange visitors, breaking off from his duties tending sheep
on behalf of a sheikh of the Shammar tribe, a powerful Arab group that has good
relations with the Kurds.
He
says he has heard helicopters and other aircraft. But he's not seen anything
land here. He seems bemused by the interest.
This
location has been chosen because it's just 100 miles (160 kilometers) from ISIS
frontline positions and some of its lucrative oil fields, but well within
territory held by Kurdish fighters known as the YPG. The runway is being nearly
doubled in length from about 2,300 feet to 4,330 feet (700 to 1,320 meters) --
long enough, say, to receive C130 transport planes. A small apron is also being
paved.
There
is no control tower, no lights, certainly no U.S. uniforms to be seen -- just a
berm of fresh earth thrown up to mark the perimeter and a tractor chugging
along as it flattens the surface of the newly extended runway. A barrier is
manned by two local men who lounge in the sunshine smoking. But there is more
security than at first appears. Minutes after we begin filming, two men of the
YPG's Asaish security force arrive in a pickup truck and escort us away.
"It's
a closed military zone," says one of them. Suicide bombings -- invariably
claimed by ISIS -- are not uncommon in Hasakah.
This
"drop-and-go" strip will help the U.S. supply the Kurds and the Arab
tribes allied with them and assist the handful of U.S. Special Forces deployed
to this part of Syria.
Choosing
its words carefully, the U.S. Defense Department says it has not "taken
control" of any airfield in Syria.
"That
said, U.S. forces in Syria are consistently looking for ways to increase
efficiency for logistics and personnel recovery support," said a spokesman
for U.S. Central Command last month.
The
YPG -- which can field some 25,000 men and women -- has gradually become one of
the most effective partners on the ground for the U.S. After forcing ISIS
out of the town of Kobani on the Turkish border in 2014, with the help of
intense airstrikes, its fighters have driven ISIS out of hundreds of square
miles of territory. They now control much of the border with Turkey, hindering
ISIS access to the outside world.
There
are regime pockets in towns like Qamishli and Hasakah, redoubts blocked by
street barriers and watched over by giant posters of Syrian President Bashar
al-Assad and his late father Hafez. But the Kurds are the dominant military
force in this region, despite having little more than rifles and pickup trucks.
The
United States has been wary of arming the YPG directly, preferring to say that
its ammunition drops are for a broader coalition of Arab factions so as not to
infuriate Turkey, which regards the YPG as a terrorist group. Turkey has
declared it will not tolerate any further expansion of the group's presence
along the border. It's a delicate balancing act for Washington, but the
presence in Kobani last weekend of the U.S. Special Envoy to the anti-ISIS
coalition, Brett McGurk, underlines the importance of the relationship -- in a
region where effective allies have been difficult to come by.
In
part, McGurk's visit to Kobani appears to have been aimed at appeasing the YPG,
whose commanders are furious the group's representatives have been excluded
from Syrian talks in Geneva -- at Turkey's insistence. One official
even told us that unless the YPG was admitted to the process, it would suspend
co-operation on the ground with the United States.
Calling
in airstrikes ... on a tablet
For
now, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) -- a makeshift alliance of Kurds and
Arab groups -- continue to close in on some ISIS oilfields and squeeze their
supply lines. They get help almost daily from coalition airstrikes, thanks to a
"Joint Operations Center."
It
is a modest setup in an abandoned apartment block on the southern outskirts of
Hasakah City. The building is pockmarked by fierce battles fought here last
August. Bullet casings still litter the hallways, curtains flutter from
shattered windows.
Three
young men sit in a small room with tablets and a radio that rests on two packs
of cigarettes. An electric heater takes the edge off the winter chill. From
here they communicate with frontline units, passing on their coordinates and
any reports of enemy movements to a coalition command center. Then coalition
bombers can be brought in.
Twenty-one-year-old
Daham Hassaki deftly scrolls from one screen to another as he plots positions
on a Google map and sends text messages to headquarters.
"Right
now this is the frontline of Hasakah," he says, opening a map that shows
the vast spaces of this part of Syria. "Our fighters there have seen the
movement of two of the enemy and so we sent this message and their coordinates
to the command center."
He
says a group of Americans and other foreigners have trained the YPG in how to
use the equipment, to ensure friendly forces are not mistakenly targeted and
that intelligence on ISIS movements is passed up the chain.
ISIS,
he says, has changed the way it operates -- deploying very small units of a
half-dozen men that are more difficult to detect.
When
an offensive is underway, the Operations Room team moves to the frontline.
Daham and his colleagues move in after a strike to see what damage has been
done. He shows us videos of their missions. They do not make for easy viewing.
Daham
says he's not aware of any civilians killed by the strikes, but no one can be
sure. In this area, ISIS fighters have coerced whole villages of Arabs to leave
with them as they retreat. Local activists say that early in December, a convoy
leaving a tiny settlement close to the Iraqi border was struck from the air.
They claim that more than 30 civilians, including women and children, were
killed. U.S. Central Command told CNN that "the allegation was deemed as
not credible since there were no Coalition airstrikes in the vicinity" on
that day.
In
the next month or two, the Kurdish-led coalition is expected to launch an
attack on the ISIS-held town of Ash Shaddadi, a critical road junction for the
group that will not be lightly surrendered. Activists in the area say ISIS is
essentially holding the civilian population hostage as a collective human
shield, and has cut off communications with the outside world.
The
area is targeted almost daily by airstrikes. In the countryside to the north of
the town, we heard distant thuds as ISIS defensive positions and arms depots
were targeted.
If
the SDF take Ash-Shaddadi, ISIS will have a logistical headache in connecting
Raqqa in Syria with Mosul in Iraq, its most important cities. It is likely the
next test for the new U.S. strategy of identifying and supplying reliable local
forces to battle ISIS. And an old airstrip amid the farmsteads of northern
Syria may have a new lease of life.