Ain Issa

New developments have complicated the situation in Syria. Kurdish officials have announced they have reached an agreement with Bashar al-Assad's government forces. The Syrian army marched north against Turkey's offensive in Kurdish-populated areas. This creates the risk of even greater conflict and direct clash between Syria and Turkey.

Syrian Kurds are taking critical steps to deal with the threat of being caught in a vise between their worsening relations with the Damascus regime, and Turkey’s possible cross-border operations. Syria’s Kurds have just proposed a new governmental structure comprising three federal regions and six cantons in the Democratic Federal System of Northern Syria (previously known as Rojava).

A U.S.-backed Kurdish-Arab alliance pushed closer to the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant's (ISIL) de facto capital of Raqqa in Syria on Nov. 8, a spokesperson said. 

Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) fighters seized a Syrian town back from Kurdish-led forces near Raqqa city on July 6, a group monitoring the war reported, recovering ground near its de facto capital two days after it was pummelled in heavy U.S.-led air strikes.