The Story of a Kurdish General

The Daily

The New York Times

Daily News, News

4.4 • 102.8K Ratings

🗓️ 14 October 2019

⏱️ 25 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Turkey has invaded Kurdish-controlled territory in Syria, upending a fragile peace in the region and inciting sectarian bloodshed. The Trump administration has ordered a full evacuation of the 1,000 American troops that remain in northeastern Syria, leaving Mazlum Kobani, the commander of the Kurdish-led militia, and his forces to rely on Russia and Syria for military assistance. Who are the Kurds? How is it that Kurdish fighters came to be seen as allies to the United States and terrorists to Turkey? And what would the fall of Kurdish territory in northeastern Syria mean for the region? Guest: Ben Hubbard, Beirut bureau chief for The New York Times. For more information on today’s episode, visit nytimes.com/thedaily. Background coverage: Turkey’s invasion upended a fragile peace and risks enabling the resurgence of the Islamic State.American troops who fought alongside Kurdish allies have expressed regret after the U.S. abandoned posts in northeastern Syria. “It’s a stain on the American conscience,” one Army officer said.

Transcript

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0:00.0	From the New York Times, I'm Michael Barrow. This is David.
0:10.4	Today, the Trump administration has ordered a full evacuation of the 1000 American troops
0:18.2	that still remain in northern Syria, as Turkey intensifies its bombardment of the Kurdish forces there.
0:25.6	How is it that those Kurdish forces came to be seen as allies to the US and terrorists to Turkey?
0:44.0	It's Monday, October 14.
0:46.6	The President
0:51.1	Ben, give us a sense of what's going on today, where you are. What are you doing?
0:55.6	I'm in Irbil and northern Iraq.
0:57.6	I spoke with my colleague, Middle East correspondent Ben Hubbard, on Friday afternoon.
1:02.8	I'm waiting for permission from the Kurdish authorities here to cross the border into Syria,
1:07.3	so that we can go and cover the Turkish military incursion there.
1:19.3	You know, it started the other day with sort of shells flying across the border.
1:23.3	A few air strikes today. There was a large car bomb.
1:29.6	In the main city in this area, where we usually stay and where we've stayed on our previous trips,
1:33.7	it actually happened right down the street from this little fast food restaurant,
1:36.4	where we used to go and buy sandwiches. So that's scary.
1:47.3	We all the time see these images from the Middle East of things getting blown up,
1:50.4	but when you sort of recognize this place, it brings it home a bit more than just kind of seeing
1:55.9	some kind of destruction on the news. How many times have you done this now, gone into Syria?
2:13.2	I've done seven trips into Syria since the start of the Civil War.
2:18.0	My last trip was earlier this year, and that was after Trump had said that he wanted to pull
2:22.8	the United States forces at that time. There were about 2000 American troops based in
	...

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