‘You took us to the middle of the road and left us there’: Syrian Kurds fear more upheaval as US troops plan withdrawal

When Abu Amar heard the news that the US would be pulling its troops from Syria, an old love song drifted into his head.

“It goes: ‘You took me to the middle of the road and you left me there,’” says the Kurdish 50-year-old used car salesman*. “That is what the Americans are doing to us.”

The actual line in the song is slightly different, but the meaning is the same.

Over the last few years, Syria’s minority Kurdish population has faced down the threat of Isis, gone on to win new freedoms and built an autonomous administration that they hope will outlast the country’s civil war.

They have done so in large part due to the protection afforded to them by the US military, which allied itself with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces and sent 2,000 US troops to Syria to help bring an end to the Isis caliphate.

Read the full article and more in The Independent.