Talal Silo, former spokesman of SDF, Anadolu Agency
On December 2, Talal Silo former spokesperson for the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) revealed during an interview with the Turkish Anadolu Agency that the US and Kurdish factions including the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PPK) agreed to found the SDF only as an excuse to provide arms and supplies to Kurdish militias: the PPK, the People’s Protection Units (YPG) and the Women Protection Units (YPJ).
“It is [the SDF] only a name. Nothing else. We take everything, including salaries, from the YPG… The basic reason for the SDF’s establishment is the US. The US authorities wanted to give arms to Kurds. Announcement of the SDF’s establishment was only a drama. They mentioned the unity of the components, but there is no such thing,” Silo told Anadolu.
The former spokesmen for the SDF also said that the US gave the leadership of the SDF to the Kurds and the PKK. The US and a leader of the PKK and the SDF named “Shahin Jilo” agreed to allow ISIS fighters to withdraw from Raqqa, according to Silo.
“They wanted to influence the ideas of citizens in the region via the SDF. They introduce the SDF as a force that is liberating and fighting against the terrorism. But because of them, houses were demolished, people were forced to emigrate. They did not even let the people stay in the camps, they drove them into panic,” Silo said.
Silo revealed that the Arabi units of the SDF were just signing documents given by the US for receiving the arms. But all of the arms were going to the PKK in the end. According to Silo, Brett McGurk Special US Presidential Envoy for the US-led coalition was behind the idea of using the Arab units as a tool to traffic arms to the PKK and other Kurdish militias.
“All of the ideas were coming from Brett McGurk. During the Raqqah operation, McGurk wanted a force to be established in the name of Arab Coalition… Arab Coalition’s only duty was to receive arms. And it received very large amounts of arms. But only small arms were distributed to Arabs, Turkmens and Assyrians excluding the Kurds. Coalition’s name was Arab, but Arabs have nothing to do in it. The Deir ez-Zor Military Council only puts signature.”
According to Silo, the US didn’t monitor the weapons it was suppling to the YPG and the PKK, and continued supplying the weapons whenever the SDF leadership demanded more. Supposedly “Shahin Jilo” was the one who submitted the SDF demands list to the US-led coalition. Silo said that many advance weapons were hidden from the media. So no one know the SDF has received it.
“Americans did not care where the arms would go. They did not ask us even once that what are we doing with the arms and where do we use them … They would be played by “We are out of arms” game [by YPG] and new delivery of arms would start right away,” Silo said.
According to the former spokesman of the SDF, “Shahin Jilo” is the real commander of the SDF. Saleh Muslim only plays the role of being the leader of the SDF in the media as a propaganda move. Silo even revealed that “Shahin Jilo” himself is under the command of “Bahoz Erdal”, a commander of the PKK in Qandil Mount in northern Syria.
“The PKK took advantage of Salih Muslim’s role in the media and was successful in using him. Normally, he had no role. During the announcement of autonomous government, they made Muslim sit on the seventh row in the hall because he doesn’t have any role in this project,” Silo said.
According to this, the entire SDF is only a branch of the PKK in Syria. The PKK is considered a terrorist organization not only by Turkey, but also by the US, the main backer of the SDF.
During the interview, Silo revealed that the SDF has only 50,000 fighters, over 70% of them are Kurdish members of the YPG and the YPJ. The SDF’s Assyrian Military Council (MFS) has only 50 fighters while the SDF promotes it as a large Christian force. The Turkmen force that was under Silo command had only 65 fighters, according to him. The SDF refused to allow any more Turkmen to join its ranks.
“I recommended 150 names, but they [the SDF] said “Why 150? 50 are enough”. There are Al-Sanadid Forces from Arabs in Shammar Ashira. Seikh Bender is the head of this force,” Silo said.
Silo said that Arab fighters were “cheated” by the SDF command during the Raqqa battle and revealed that 80% of the fighters who died during the battle were Arabs. Meanwhile, Kurdish forces that launched the battle lost far less fighters.
SDF field commanders don’t receive salaries according to Silo as they made money simply from “smuggling and bribe”. Most of the foreign fighters who joined the SDF and YPG did so only to get media attention and never fought, one of them was even a model from Canada.
“They were coming from various countries and joining the YPG. They included women. We saw some of them coming for publicity. A Canadian woman was found out to be a model in her country. The ones who return to their countries say that they fought against Daesh [ISIS] and they try to declare themselves as national heroes,” Silo said.
While many would doupt Silo statements for many reasons, the fact that he was the “third man” in the SDF proves that he knew a lot about the SDF, before he willingly defected from it on November 15.
Silo strikes me as a “Will lie for $$$ or security, just tell me what me to say!” kind’a guy!
FIRST he’s a SYRIAN SDF OP, now he’s a TURK OP, (and, I believe that he did another “flip/flop” before his SDF time)….Nonetheless, it’s always TAKYYIA time with him!
You’ll get ALL the INFO you want or need….for said price. “You want MORE info? SURE! NO PROBLEM! That’s just a bit more $$$!”…He happily assures you! Yup! TOTALLY B.S.!
regardless of his role, what he is saying will certainly deteriorate relations between Turkey and US.
That was my first thought as well, the timing is off and these are huge revelations that are kinda coming out of no where. But we also have some stuff we can’t deny; he was definitely actually their spokesperson for a while and did have access to this information, his reasoning isn’t full proof but it does kinda makes sense. Like he said the Kurds try to glorify their ethnic groups and he was a turk to begin with so it’s not wierd. Not trying to make something out of nothing, but I can actually believe the Kurds put em in a position where he had access to this information without thinking about what happens if it goes wrong.
“..Kurds put em in a position where he had access to this information..”
Probably a US dictate to have a public token Arab face.
Yes, but what Silo says rings some bells historically as well. USA gave weapons without tracking and monitoring to any group fighting the legitimate Syrian government (Assad). Significant portion ended up with ISIS. Today we hear that USA gives weapons to this mysterious entity branded as SDF, composed mainly of PKK, with no monitoring whatsoever. Today we also have reports of US-ISIS agreement of withdrawing from Raqqa. PKK is known of terrorist attacks in Turkey.
All this explodes the complete mess of US criss crossing real policies and stated policies in Syria, Turkey and Iraq out of the water. If we take queues from history, what probably was the real US goal here: the mysterious entity known as SDF (PKK) is armed to the teeth to continue the fight against Assad, and without pissing the Turks off. Well, the Turks are pissed off now and since SDF true identity is revealed, they can now be squeezed from all sides in a coordinated fashion in the post-ISIS/”moderate rebel” world. And PKK has no claim on Syrian territory.
He also confirmed what South front has been saying for nearly a year, the sdf is exclusively kurdish.
Thing is that he doesn’t tell anything that we don’t know already. Or do you want to tell us that SDF are freedom fighters, most of them a local Arabs and US very carefully controlling their arms deliveries? What exactly is BS in his statements?
Exactly. His statements are more along the lines of confirmation, not revelation. Good point.
One more proof that the SDF is a terrorist organization (PKK), which had become quite clear last spring already.
The US Government and Military would never have expected the current situation where ISIS ,Al Nusra and other US Coalition sponsored alphabet terror gangs are staring at defeat .
Had the US plans to project a medieval warlord system of control in Syria and Iraq (similar to the Gulf states and the KSA) that would owe fealty to the New King ( the USA ), their sins of arming Kurdish terror gangs would never have been found out.
The way the US is likely to respond to the anger of Erdogan may well be by assassinating him or creating another coup attempt in order to place a US puppet in control of Turkey.
Better a western puppet then this fake islamic madman
The US has had a long list of Presidents who are Fake Christian Madmen so Erdogan is merely joining the club.
Oh I don’t know. Erdogan does appear to have come to his senses, if not, he certainly understands the realities of the Middle East now and who his REAL enemies are.
Erdogan is typical of all power hungry people. He cares only about himself. If that was not the case he would not have hidden many millions, possibly billions of his ill gotten gains in tax havens.
It is more money than he could ever spend on a luxurious lifestyle in many lifetimes and is akin to a drug habit in my opinion.
“Erdogan is typical of all power hungry people”
In that respect he has much in common with the so-called leaders of the ‘west’.
The leaders from East are different? Give me a break.
At least those being accused of actions without any proof of evidence presented have heard of and practice diplomacy and respect International law, something totally lacking in the Empire.
Indeed he has.
Better for who? Better – like those Saudi Arabia western puppets? Good enough for you? Matt we all know (and you do as well) that wast doesn’t give a hoot about human rights or any other “values” if foreigtn leader is obeying to orders and keeps the business going.
If they do attempt to do so, they damn well better be successful. I can imagine how the little dog will react if the west is unsuccessful. I doubt that they will do any such thing, as the blowback would be tremendous(especially in Europe), even if they are successful. Who would run Turkey in the event of success? Gulan? Anyone? If they fail, say goodbye to Turkish NATO and Incirlik, the Kurds would see a Turkish military totally unleashed on them and Israel would likely be included in the Turkish ‘shitlist’. These are not outcomes that the west would desire…I don’t think even they are confident enough to try such a thing. Having said that, there is the matter of insanity in the west and the tendency to shoot oneself in the foot, as has been seen more than once. The one thing it might do, especially should Turkey descend into anarchy, that the west has been trying to do, is unleash unlimited war. In the end, it’s a toss-up. Luckily, there is Trump to talk sense to them…(cough, hack).
This is what happens of course when men with the morals of children play war games with loaded guns and the few adults left in NATO are afraid to say NO to the big kids.
Anadolu agency is one of the propaganda tools of Erdogan the Dictator
And all the MSM media in the US and it’s western vassals is the propaganda tool of the US Empire.
He better watch for drones now :)
You guys at SF need to improve your English, this article is atrocious.
I’m grateful for the information, and I do not expect perfection in English which is a foreign language to SF. If you want perfection, get engaged as a lector / author, or donate sufficiently so SF can afford language specialists.
That’s not an excuse. If you wanna be taken seriously you need to at least have a competent level in English. English is not my main language either I don’t go around asking for money to improve it lol
Kolarov, seriously: Do you want to moan, or do you want to help improve SF? If the latter, get involved. SF has already improved a lot in its English since last year, and I have even then taken it seriously. “To err is human”, and mistakes in English really are pardonable. We are not at school here!
Because perfect syntax is necessary to tell the truth? Their use of English is obviously competent enough to be understood. If you want perfect English, you’ll probably have to go to western outlets, of course the ‘news’ you get might be all lies or some variation of such, but you might have perfect English(no guarantee of that either). I’ll take honesty. BTW, ‘wanna’ is not perfect English and not using periods or commas correctly isn’t either.
One good think of Arab if you back stab them their reveal the truth.Thanks atleast for the truth.
Where is dutchnational? I want him to see this.
Why in hell would you conjure up the nitwit from Zioland? Leave sleeping dogs lie.
Shhhh…if you say its name, you may wake it from its troll slumber under a bridge.
Getting Turkey out of the Zionist/Wahhabi orbit was the smartest thing that Erdogan has done, and joining the One Belt Road with China is even smarter. Cementing closer and friendlier relationship with fellow Eurasian power Russia is the way to go. West Europe and NATO are in decline and over-bloated.
cuando las bombas sirias, rusas y turcas les caigan encima veremos que hacen los yanquis
The zionist american strategy is to ensure as many people as possible in Syria have direct links to terrorist trainers, funders, and weapon suppliers. The idea is that PEACEFUL political activity in Syria is off-the-table, so ‘politics’ always seeks a violent option first. Syria is never again to be allowed to return to an age of peace (when the only violence was the frequent car bombs Israeli depravities would explode in major urban locations).
To defuse a tendancy to use violent means once violent means have been normalised is incredibly difficult. But when foreign actors offer their military services to disaffected people, returning to civilised conduct is impossible.
Take N Ireland or S Africa. In both cases decades of terrorism and violence ended ONLY because all foreign actors agreed to no longer support violence to any degree. With Syria, the USA, UK, Israel and KSA have PROMISED to continue to fund and arm any ‘opposition’ group in Syria.
Putin’s FANTASY of game over in Syria only applies at the highest level- a government that cannot be displaced by terror. But on the ground zionists will continue to rape, torture and mass murder for decades to come. Israel, and the planet of jews that support Israel, is a force for pure demonic evil. They get off on the suffering of non-jews. Look at the jewish rape machine Weinstein, and look at how the jew establishment in the UK and France ensured Weinstein received the HIGHEST industry honours in both nations.
Some people think true power is the power to carry out the worst atrocities imaginable with no chance of retribution. This is the zionist definition of power- just look at the zionist posts in these forums for instance.
Every body in Syria that does not today actively attempt to unify with the government of Syria is a zionist terrorist entity. That includes every ‘rebel’ organisation no matter what their stated methods or aims.
The massive ethnic cleansing and forced deportation of the indigenous Arab inhabitants of Raqqa confirmed straight from the horse’s mouth. And then they want to claim that the pseiudo elections held exclusevely for foreign Kurdish invaders and occupiers of Syrian Arab sovereign land are truly free elections. Give me a break!
ABORTION RIGHTS FOR RAQQA!