Reporter Richard Ashmore in Syria (Image: Supplied )
As the world watched agog at the speed at which in a lightning rebel seizing of power, I, like many people I imagine, was pleased to see the end of a brutal dictatorship.
But beyond the western cities of Damascus, Homs and Aleppo, which are now all reportedly under rebel control, there has also been a quiet push by the mostly Kurdish-run Syrian Defence Force (SDF) into the deserts of the east.
In a divided country, the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), known as Rojava by the Kurds, is where these fierce-fighting stateless people helped the US and British coalition forces defeat in 2019.
Those same Kurds who helped destroy the Islamic State have guarded the detention and prison camps that house thousands of men, women and children who were once part of a death cult which terrorised the region.
Some of those in the camps joined ISIS after arriving from the same Western nations the Kurds fought alongside.
In 2022, I visited the al-Roj female detention camp with filmmaker Andrew Drury to see where Britain’s most famous former ISIS bride, , is held alongside thousands of other women and children.
Around 90 miles south, Shamima’s former ISIS husband, Dutch national Yago Riedijk, is also still held with roughly 50,000 mostly male former Islamic State fighters.
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Kurdish forces in eastern Syria on December 8 (Image: Getty )
Shamima Begum at the Roj Camp (Image: GETTY)
Just a few miles north of Shamima’s camp, close to the town of Derik, is the Turkish border from where that nation has been attacking and launching airstrikes against the Kurds.
views Kurdish forces as backers of the terrorist separatist group Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or PKK, which wants to claim part of Turkey as its own as part of a bid for a homeland for the Kurdish people.
Now the rebels in the west have seized control of Syria’s major cities, I fear Turkey could use its influence to encourage those elements within the group it is backing to open a new front against the Kurds.
Previously US forces stationed in eastern Syria have afforded their Kurdish former allies some protection, especially from the Russians, and President in the past 48 hours.
But with set to enter the White House in January, the future for people in a country they do not formally own looks uncertain.
The President-elect already took to his X account on Saturday to write: “Syria is a mess, but is not our friend, & THE UNITED STATES SHOULD HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH IT. THIS IS NOT OUR FIGHT. LET IT PLAY OUT. DO NOT GET INVOLVED!”
And Trump’s thoughts now seem to chime with his actions in 2019, when after a phone call with Turkish President , he allowed Turkey to partly establish a ‘buffer zone’ in northeast Syria on SDF-controlled land, much to the fury of the Kurds.
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Tens of thousands of former jihadis are still held in camps in eastern Syria (Image: Supplied )
When Trump takes office in a few weeks, will he still want US forces in eastern Syria? And if they leave, who will support the Kurds policing the ISIS camps?
Many of those inside the camps have by no means renounced the Islamist ideology that created ISIS, and with the rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) possibly poised to lead Syria, the question remains if Islamic extremists might now be welcomed again in the region.
The rebel leader of HTS, Saudi-born Abu Mohammed al Jolani, cut ties with al-Qaeda in 2016 having previously told journalists Syria should be governed with no room for the country’s Alawite, Shiite, Druze and Christian minorities.
A decade later, Abu Mohammed al Jolani has seemingly changed his tune, telling CNN during the revolution that “people who fear Islamic governance either have seen incorrect implementations of it or do not understand it properly”, and when referring to different groups in Syria, he added that “no one has the right to erase another group. These sects have coexisted in this region for hundreds of years, and no one has the right to eliminate them”.
His promises will now likely be truly tested in the east of Syria over the fate of the Kurds guarding camps holding thousands of ISIS fighters he once fought alongside.
My fear is that if the US leaves Syria, and if Turkey wants some return for its backing, the gates to the ISIS camps could soon be left open by a Kurdish people too busy fighting for their own survival.