Former SDF Spokesman Says Syria Rebel Group Was Created as Cover

The former spokesperson of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), Talal Silo, who previously fled to Turkey, told the Anadolu news agency on Saturday that the rebel group was allegedly created by the US as a cover to provide weapons to the Kurdish People’s Protection Units (YPG) that is thought to be affiliated with the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) listed as a terrorist organization by Ankara.

“It is only a name. Nothing else. We take everything, including our salaries, from YPG. The US authorities wanted to give arms to Kurds. The announcement of SDF’s establishment was only a drama. The US gave the leadership to the Kurds and PKK,” Silo told the agency, Sputnik reported.

According to him, the SDF was just signing documents to receive arms, but all of them went to the PKK. At the same time, despite talks about fighting terrorism, the US was trafficking the self-styled Islamic state terrorists via an agreement reached with the regional PKK leader.

He voiced the belief that all the ideas came from special presidential envoy for the global coalition to counter IS, Brett McGurk, who allegedly wanted to establish a force, during the Raqqa operation, in the name of the Arab coalition.

Thus, according to Silo, the coalition provided huge amounts of arms, but only a small part of them went to the Arabs, Turkmens and Assyrians, with all the schemes having been created to “cover that these arms were actually delivered to the PKK. But we were sure that these advanced arms were going to PKK and YPG.”

Last week, Reuters reported that the Pentagon is likely to announce that there are about 2,000 US troops in Syria as the military acknowledges that an accounting system for troops has simply under-reported the size of forces on the ground.