Transcript of 'Felix Legrand on Deir ez-Zour tribal politics' (part II)
On Deiri tribal politics and the August 2023 uprising against the SDF
This is the second part of the transcript of my conversation with researcher Felix Legrand last September, covering Deir ez-Zour tribal politics and unrest against the SDF. The conversation can be listened to here. The transcript has been edited for clarify.
Alexander McKeever: Yeah, why don't we turn to the actual uprising, or the events that occurred [before], I guess there was a bit of a precursor that happened in July.
Felix Legrand: Yeah, so it's funny because it happened pretty much at the same time as the Prigozhin thing in Russia and it's kind of similar, actually. Well, you have Abu Khawlah, trying to grow increasingly critical of not the SDF as a whole, but of certain kadros within the SDF. So he's in direct conflict with certain kadros within the SDF and he has better relations with others. And the thing is that he grew, he tried to create a sort of counter power within the structure and to try to impose himself. And as the SDF saw what he was doing, they tried to impose new checkpoints and replace Abu Khawlah's checkpoints by Asayish checkpoints, which are not under Abu Khawlah's control. So he saw this as a threat and he entered into a fight against them and he basically declared war against some people within the SDF. So he had a very violent discourse, saying that he wants to go to war, he's ready to die, etc, etc and always ending but saying I'm not against everyone in the SDF, we have some allies in the SDF. So he was not like completely breaking away.. kind of like Prigozhin. And then they started fighting and then suddenly there was a deal somehow and he asked everyone to stop fighting and to go back to their military barracks and for a month or so everything was quiet. And as he was negotiating with the SDF some kind of a new deal, late August the SDF called upon a meeting with all the military leaders of the Deir ez-Zour Military Council, including Abu Khawlah, and so Abu Khawlah and all his close lieutenants. And the meeting was in Hasakah, so far from his stronghold, and they were all arrested. So kind of just like Prigozhin, they kind of like pretended to start to negotiate. They stopped the rebellion and a month later they arrested everyone. But they were expecting that the fact that he's so unpopular in Deir ez-Zour would not cause a massive rebellion in his support. So they were expecting some kind of rebellion within his tribal stronghold but they were arresting someone that everyone was asking them to arrest for years now. So I think they were pretty much surprised of what happened. But he managed to call for a rebellion, some fighting was started and so the other tribes were not necessarily supporting Abu Khawlah were seeing that it's an occasion, it's an opportunity to rise against the SDF. And it's also not only an opportunity to rise against the SDF, but it was a proof that the SDF were not going to give any power to the Arabs, to the locals, because even Abu Khawlah, who was the one trying to play their game and to be in the institution and to ask for his rights, even he was arrested. So, following his arrest, the people within the Bu Kamil, the Baggarah, the Shaitat, the ‘Agidat as a whole, took weapons and took control of nearly the whole province.
AM: Right, and immediately, as you mentioned earlier, the kadros pulled out. I just want to bring up, you know, a lot of times there was, throughout this whole incident, there were maps being drawn that showed essentially all of eastern Deir ez-Zour from the Khabour to the Iraqi border under the control of what was generally called tribal forces. But you were telling me earlier that the situation across this region, which is pretty broad, was not all the same and that, you know, some areas were actively rebelling, some areas were not. And so it's the maps are a little bit misleading.
FL: Yeah, the maps are misleading because like, you know, like as the kadros pull out, in some cases they escaped and they were even in some cases caught and killed, the military bases were looted and it was a real rebellion and they had to fight their way out. In other cases, they pulled out in some kind of coordinated way. So saying, okay, we can't stay anymore, everybody goes home. You defect, you go home, we'll be back soon. And mostly in the Hajin area, so from Hajin all the way to the border, including the Shaitat areas actually, the locals created a tribal security community and took control of their area. So theoretically, yes, it's under tribal control not under SDF. There were like no mention of SDF anywhere. No, the kadros had left and some of the military bases have been looted. But what we've understood later and when I've been talking to locals there, what I understood was that in many cases it was coordinated with the SDF. They knew that the SDF were coming back and they had to kind of protect the infrastructures, the civil administration buildings and just maintain some kind of security until the SDF comes back. Yes, so as you were saying, like you can't really map the tribal control because tribal control doesn't mean the same thing everywhere. In some cases it was really hostile and it was really breaking away from the SDF and in other cases it was kind of coordinated. But this didn't mean that, like I was mentioning Hajin, in the Hajin area, in the Shaitat areas, which were supposed to be the place where the SDF coordinated their pullout and easily came back. There were some military actions, there were also some tribal groups making videos of themselves saying they want to fight the SDF. So it was like kind of, it was not, they kind of had lost control, still. They had lost control, but they still had some contacts and it was expected that they would come back without much fighting. In the central areas, in opposition - so basically the areas which are the areas of Abu Khawlah and most importantly the areas of the Bu Kamil, so the traditional tribal leaders of the ‘Agidat and the areas that we spoke about earlier that gather the most insecurity in the region. These areas were really tough for the SDF. They really gathered all the rebellion and the main battles took place there. But in the end, the SDF managed to, step by step, take back control of every village. Now they're back in control pretty much everywhere. But as we said before, Dhiban, Shuheil, Tayana, these villages, and even Busayrah in some way, were not really under their control before. Like they were formally under their control, but it was like at night they were pretty much losing control of these areas anyway, before. So now it's even worse. The situation is kind of similar as before, but even worse. And the SDF have lost their main local ally because they arrested all the leaders of the military councils, which even if they were corrupted, they were still maintaining some kind of security. And they had their intelligence network within the community. So now it's going to be difficult because the SDF sent lots of troops from outside of the province to take control. But these troops are not going to stay. They can take, of course, militarily they are more powerful than the tribal rebellion. But how are they going to hold the checkpoints for the following month? Are they going to keep control at night? Controlling the land is easy, but then controlling the population and controlling the security is much more complicated.
AM: So at the center of the rebellion, you know, and this sort of developed over a couple of days, but Shaykh Ibrahim Hifl became sort of the central figure who, as he's a member of the sheikhly family of the Bu Kamil, of the ‘Agidat…
FL: He's a member of the traditional family which in theory leads the whole ‘Agidat tribe, which is the big tribe that has all the sub-tribes that we've been mentioning. So in the tribal leadership, he's supposed to be extremely important. He's of this tribe, he's young, he's like in his 30s. The real leader of the tribe is in Qatar, so he's kind of out of the picture. And locally, he's supposed to be the most important. He's been pretty much quiet until now. He was negotiating with the different local authorities that have been controlling Deir ez-Zour but never was part of - he was not part of ISIS, he was not part of the SDF structure. He was always keeping sort of a neutral position. But he stayed in the area when the SDF took over and he was regularly meeting with them, he was meeting with the coalition as well. The thing is that he took a leading role within the rebellion and he declared full war to the SDF breaking away from the SDF. I'm not exactly sure but in my opinion he … didn't plan this. I think the situation quickly escalated. He saw the SDF was completely collapsing and he saw that his tribe members were mobilizing by themselves and at some point they just showed up at his house and like ask him to set up a khaymat al-harb, so like a tent of war, a formal declaration of war. So I think he was kind of forced by his own community to become the leader of this uprising. Obviously, he doesn't like the SDF that much, that's for sure. And the SDF has been since then accusing him of being pro-regime and coordinating this uprising with the regime. But in reality, in all his speeches, since he was sending voice notes that were published on all the social media channels of the tribal uprisings, where he made statements, and he was pretty much always calling for the international coalition, for the US, to make direct contact with him and to help him set up his own local administration and his own local force. So the interesting thing is that for the first time the rebellion was breaking away, like there was a serious rebellion and counter power to the SDF breaking away from the SDF… So before you had several small demonstrations, riots… You had the December of last year Baggarah rebellion asking for their own military council within the SDF. Then you had Abu Khawlah who did this rebellion this summer, earlier, but against some cardos within the SDF. It was never a full breakaway of the SDF. This time this rebellion is a full break away from the SDF. Ibrahim al-Hifl has declared war against the SDF. But the interesting thing is that they're breaking away, but they're not joining any other group within the Syrian conflict. They're not joining Turkey. They're not joining ISIS. They're not joining the Syrian regime. The Syrian regime is right across the border, but like they're saying, we don't want to be SDF, but we still want to be under the international coalition. So we still want to be allies to the Americans. So that's an interesting thing to note, I think. Which doesn't mean that the regime didn't intervene, but that's another question.
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