People are getting worked up over these photos of US soldiers wearing Kurdish patches while they fight ISIS

Photos of US soldiers wearing patches from the Kurdish People's Protection Unit, or YPG, as they fight the Islamic State alongside Kurds in Syria have reignited the debate over Washington's support for the group, with some calling the patches "politically tone deaf" and others insisting it is "perfectly normal."

The YPG has proved to be the most effective ground force fighting the Islamic State, the militant group also known as ISIS, ISIL, or Daesh, in northern Syria. But the territorial expansion the YPG's victories have afforded it is vehemently opposed by Turkey, an important US ally and NATO member.

Ankara views Kurdish demands for autonomy as a threat to Turkey's sovereignty and backs many of the rebel groups that have clashed with the YPG. Turkey has also linked the YPG to the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, a designated terrorist organization that is waging an insurgency in Turkey's southeast.

As such, some analysts wonder whether the Americans' show of solidarity with the Kurds will further inflame tensions between the US and Turkey.

As one Kurdish activist asked on Twitter, "How will Erdogan react?"

Charles Lister, a Syria expert and senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, said it was "absolutely remarkable seeing US special forces personnel wearing YPG patches in the northern Raqqa operation."

"The US National Counterterrorism Center (NCTC) labeled the YPG the Syria wing of the 'designated' PKK in 2014," he added.

Michael Weiss, a Middle East analyst and coauthor of "ISIS: Inside the Army of Terror," noted on Twitter that the image on the YPG patch appeared to derive from the original PKK flag.

Emile Hokayem, a Middle East analyst at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, tweeted that the photos were "politically tone-deaf and counterproductive in this context." He was most likely referring not only to the US-Turkey relationship but also to the tension between Kurdish forces and Syrian Arab rebel groups associated with the Free Syrian Army.

(REUTERS/Rodi Said)
Syria Democratic Forces fighters on the outskirts of al-Shadadi in Syria's Hasaka countryside.

Mutual distrust continues to cast a shadow over the Kurdish-Arab relationship in northern Syria, even as the Obama administration has tried to bring Arab and Kurdish forces together via the Syrian Democratic Forces to fight the Islamic State.

FSA rebels were reportedly enraged, for example, when they learned that the US's top military commander, Gen. Joseph Votel, visited Kurdish commanders in northern Syria last weekend to discuss the Kurdish-dominated SDF's plans to retake territory from ISIS.

Many FSA groups don't trust the Kurds, who wish to carve out an autonomous region in northern Syria known as Rojava, and are wary of US support for them.

“The Arab fighters [in the SDF] are just camouflage," Gen. Salim Idris, the former FSA chief of staff, told Voice of America on Monday. "The SDF is the YPG, which collaborates with anyone — Assad, the Russians, the Americans — when it suits its purposes."

He added: "I really don't think the Obama administration has thought this through. Will the Kurds give up Arab towns they capture?"

(Thomson Reuters)
Kurdish members of the Self-Defense Forces near the Syrian-Turkish border in the Syrian city of al-Derbasiyah during a protest against the operations launched in Turkey by government security forces against the Kurds.

S

ome analysts worry that photos of US soldiers showing solidarity with the Kurds by wearing YPG patches will infuriate FSA rebels — and Turkey — even further.

But Wladimir van Wilgenburg, a field researcher for the Iraqi Institute for Strategic Studies and a journalist based in the region, said the practice was "quite normal."

"They do it out of respect for the local forces they are working with," van Wilgenburg told Business Insider on Thursday. "It's the same with coalition soldiers in Iraqi Kurdistan. I have seen them with Kurdish flags, or patches of different peshmerga forces (like the Zerevani)."

He added: "It has nothing to do with politics. They are fighting together as a 'band of brothers' against the Islamic state, so it's quite normal."

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