Turkey’s Quiet Support for Syria’s Offensive Against U.S.-Backed Kurds Exposes Alliance Fault Line
A U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency assessment says Turkey backed Syria’s January offensive against the YPG/SDF and continues training and advising Syrian forces while maintaining counterterrorism cooperation with Damascus. Ankara’s dual-track approach—supporting operations against U.S.-backed Kurdish forces even as it stays in NATO—deepens a fault line inside the Western security architecture.
Behind the front lines of Syria’s long, grinding war, a quieter realignment is taking shape—one that pits a key NATO member’s priorities against the interests of its closest ally.
According to a recent assessment by the U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency, Turkey supported Syria’s January offensive against Kurdish-led forces from the YPG/SDF and has continued to provide training and advisory support to Syrian government units. The same report notes that Ankara has maintained close counterterrorism cooperation with Damascus, underscoring an emerging pattern: while publicly hostile to Bashar al-Assad’s regime, Turkey is prepared to work with it when it comes to pursuing shared enemies, particularly Kurdish factions it designates as terrorists.
For people living in Syria’s northeast—where the YPG and its broader umbrella, the Syrian Democratic Forces, have acted as the main ground partners for U.S.-led operations against ISIS—the consequences feel painfully familiar. Kurdish families and Arab communities aligned with the SDF already face pressure from multiple directions: Damascus, remnants of ISIS, Turkish-backed rebels, and Turkish forces themselves. The idea that Syrian government offensives against their areas are being quietly assisted by Turkey, a NATO power whose jets share data with the U.S. in other theaters, reinforces a sense of abandonment and strategic vulnerability.
Strategically, Turkey’s actions expose a widening gap inside the Western alliance over how to handle Kurdish forces that have been indispensable in the fight against ISIS but that Ankara sees as indistinguishable from the PKK insurgency at home. By supporting a Syrian offensive against YPG/SDF positions—even indirectly—Turkey is working at cross purposes with Washington, which relies on those same formations to guard detention camps, police recaptured towns, and prevent an ISIS resurgence. Turkey’s training and advisory support to Syrian units, alongside intelligence sharing on counterterrorism, also mark a quiet erosion of the policy that once sought to isolate Assad.
This dual-track policy helps Ankara address its own security priorities. Turkish leaders view the emergence of an autonomous Kurdish region along their southern border as an existential threat, one they have repeatedly signaled they will counter through cross-border operations and local alliances. Cooperation with Damascus on limited counterterrorism and military actions offers a way to pressure Kurdish forces from both north and south without formally legitimizing the Assad government. But it also deepens mistrust with Washington and European capitals, where officials worry that Turkey’s moves could destabilize a fragile equilibrium in northeastern Syria.
If Turkey continues to back Syrian operations against the YPG/SDF while remaining a central player in NATO, the alliance will face a persistent internal contradiction. On paper, member states are united in countering terrorism and supporting stability; on the ground, one member is enabling attacks on the very forces another relies on for counterterrorism. This complicates U.S. force protection around small but strategically placed bases in Syria and raises questions about how long Washington can maintain a light-footprint presence without becoming entangled in clashes between nominal partners.
For Damascus and its backers, the DIA’s assessment, if accurate, represents a quiet strategic win. Any measure of Turkish cooperation, however transactional, helps erode their isolation and reinforces the regime’s narrative that the world is slowly, reluctantly, coming to terms with Assad’s staying power. Tehran and Moscow, both heavily invested in Assad’s survival, will welcome a dynamic in which U.S.-backed Kurds are squeezed while Turkey is drawn, however indirectly, into their orbit on select security files.
Key Takeaways
- A U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency report says Turkey supported Syria’s January offensive against YPG/SDF forces and continues training and advising Syrian units.
- Turkey also maintains close counterterrorism cooperation with Damascus, despite publicly opposing the Assad regime.
- These moves put Turkey at odds with U.S. policy, which relies on YPG/SDF forces as core partners against ISIS in northeastern Syria.
- The arrangement deepens mistrust within NATO and signals a quiet erosion of efforts to isolate the Syrian government diplomatically and militarily.
- For Kurdish-led forces and local communities, Turkish-Syrian coordination amplifies security risks and uncertainty about long-term Western protection.
Outlook & Way Forward
In the near term, Ankara is likely to maintain this pragmatic, compartmentalized approach: cooperating with Damascus where interests align against Kurdish groups, while publicly keeping political distance from Assad and preserving its NATO commitments. U.S. officials will have to decide how forcefully to challenge a partner that is simultaneously hosting allied assets, mediating in other regional conflicts, and undercutting a key U.S. partner in Syria.
Over the longer term, the durability of YPG/SDF structures in northeastern Syria will hinge less on tactical battlefield outcomes and more on whether outside patrons maintain consistent support. If Washington opts for a gradual drawdown or recalibration, Kurdish leaders may be forced to cut harsher bargains with Damascus and potentially even with Ankara. That, in turn, would reshape not only the map of Syria but also the way NATO manages internal dissent over which local partners are acceptable when counterterrorism and alliance politics collide.
Sources
- OSINT