HUMANITARIAN ACCESS TEAM (HAT) SITUATION REPORT: Tribal Protests against Kurdish Governance in Deir-ez-Zor Governorate

JUNE 17, 2019

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY Protests against the Kurdish Self Administration (KSA) and the Kurdish-led (SDF) erupted across Deir-ez-Zor Governorate during the weekend of April 5, 2019 in Kishkiyeh and towns in subdistrict; as well as Sawa village, Elhisan, and Shaqra village in Deir-ez-Zor subdistrict. Since then, similar protests have been held on a regular basis including in Shiheil and Basira towns, Basira subdistrict; Mhemideh and Lower Safira in Kisreh subdistrict; Mweileh and Hseein in Sur subdistrict; Elhisan again in Deir-ez-Zor subdistrict; Dahleh in subdistrict; and Shinan in Thiban subdistrict. Collectively, these mark the largest wave of public resistance to Kurdish governance in Deir-ez-Zor since the SDF wrested control of these areas from the Islamic State (ISIS) in the fall of 2017. The demonstrators continue to express similar demands, which can ultimately be summarized as: inadequate service provision by the KSA in the face of deteriorating living conditions, the SDF’s ongoing arrest and conscription campaigns, and the fuel shortages in northeast and alleged smuggling of oil into Government of Syria-held territories. These demands were reiterated during a tribal conference sponsored by the political and military leadership of the KSA in Ein Issa on May 3. The meeting was attended by as many as 5,000 tribesmen, and it was explicitly organized in response to the protests. However, it is important to note that criticisms of the KSA outlined by protesters in Deir-ez-Zor are not unique to the governorate, as similar underlying tensions are present in Arab communities across the northeast. As such, the wave of recent protests is not a new phenomenon, but rather an intensification of an established pattern of opposition to KSA rule that has been ongoing for months. The recent fuel shortage has acted as a trigger for these underlying tensions and is the primary factor behind the eruption of protests in Deir-ez-Zor Governorate since April. The protests are likely to persist and expand to other areas in the northeast so long as oil transfers to Government-held areas continue and Arab grievances remain unaddressed. BACKGROUND 1. Inadequate Service provision Local sources indicate that service provision in the northeast, including Deir-ez-Zor governorate, fails to meet the needs of local residents. Most communities in the Kurdish-held northern half of Deir-ez-Zor have centrally provided electricity four to eight hours per day, while water quality is extremely poor due to pollution, destruction of infrastructure, runoff, and other factors. Moreover, healthcare facilities are clustered along the River, creating a major barrier to access for remote and underserved communities. Finally, access to secondary schools is highly limited, and residents cite the poor condition of school buildings as one of the top three barriers for accessing education.1

Case Study Protests against Local Council Corruption and Water Shortages in Kishkiyeh and Abu Hamam, Hajin subdistrict, Deir-ez-Zor governorate During the earliest demonstrations against the KSA, which took place on April 5 in the towns of Kishkiyeh and Abu Hamam in Hajin Subdistrict, protesters specifically decried the poor living conditions and called on the U.S.-led International Coalition to dismiss Local Council officials appointed by the Syrian Democractic Council (the political arm of the SDF), accusing them of corruption. They also demanded the officials resume supplying water within the towns, which had been suffering from a severe water shortage most likely as a result of the reported shutdown of a water pumping station in the nearby town of Abu Hamam on March 26.

2. Arrests and Conscription In the aftermath of ISIS’ territorial defeat the SDF has shifted to identifying and eliminating ISIS sleeper cells across the northeast, yet the raids and arrests that constitute this campaign are increasingly seen by locals as invasive and unjustly targeting predominantly Arab communities. Local sources indicate that especially in Deir-ez-Zor communities which have witnessed protests, residents view the raids as collective punishment and retribution for previous support for ISIS. Case Study Protests against SDF Arrest Operations in Shiheil, Basira Subdistrict, Deir-ez-Zor Governorate On May 9 at least five people were killed and two were arrested during a raid on a suspected ISIS sleeper cell conducted in Al-Katf neighborhood of Shiheil by the SDF and supported by International Coalition aircrafts. While one of the arrested was prominent ISIS member and weapons-dealer Abu Bara’ Al-Deiri, a demonstration erupted in Shiheil later that day because residents maintained that the five people killed were civilians with no connections to ISIS. During the protest an SDF soldier shot a civilian demonstrator, and the SDF was forced to withdraw from the area when residents set fire to SDF military positions in response.

1.According to REACH’s Northeast Syria: Area-Based Assessment of Deir-ez-Zor Governorate (February 2019).

MERCY CORPS Situation Report: Tribal Protests against Kurdish Governance in Deir- ez-Zor Governorate A 2 On May 14 the SDF expanded a military conscription campaign implemented through arrests, which has further challenged community acceptance. Arrests of men aged 19 to 33 who fail to fulfill their mandatory service have occurred in and around Ar- city for months, and on May 14 the SDF announced it would widen the campaign to Al-Hasakeh Governorate. Local media reported that between May 24 and 26 more than 200 men were forcefully conscripted by the Asayish (the KSA’s internal security forces) and SDF-affiliated military police in five subdistricts in Al-Hasakeh Governorate. Conscription policies have had a profound social and economic impact. Local sources indicate that in large numbers, young men have begun to avoid public spaces for fear of being pressed into military service, impacting university attendance and cafes, restaurants, shops, and manual labor, which depend upon a labor force of predominantly military-age men.

3. Fuel Since March Syria’s nationwide fuel shortage has reached crisis proportions. Tightening U.S. sanctions on Iran, specifically its oil exports including those to Syria, have ratcheted up the pressure exerted through U.S. and EU sanctions on dealings with the Government of Syria, which holds key oil infrastructure including ports, pipelines, and refineries. However, the majority of Syria’s domestic oil and gas fields are located on Arab tribal lands now under Kurdish control, especially in central and southern Deir-ez-Zor Governorate. The fuel shortages have taxed communities nationwide, leading to strict fuel rationing and long queues at fuel stations. Direct impacts have been felt in transportation costs, household heating, and electricity generators. The high demand created by reduced fuel imports has given rise to increased cross-line oil trading and smuggling from the northeast to Government areas. Not only have tribes been denied a satisfactory share in mineral rights and revenue sharing within their own ancestral lands, but the export of the northeast’s oil in light of a shortage affecting daily life has exacerbated a profound sense of economic dispossession, continuing a pattern that has repeated itself under the Government, ISIS, and now Kurdish officials.

Case Study Fuel Protests in Omar Oil Field, Deir-ez-Zor governorate On May 8 local media reported that demonstrators blocked trucks allegedly transporting oil from Omar oil field, the largest in Syria, to Government of Syria-held areas, and burned tires along Highway 7 which links al-Hasakeh and Deir-ez-Zor governorates, in protest of cross-line oil trading and smuggling.

In response to the growing number of protests in Deir-ez-Zor, the KSA and SDF with support from the International Coalition, have begun to take steps to mitigate the growing tensions. In addition to the tribal conference held on May 3, on May 14 the SDF released approximately 43 prisoners in Deir-ez-Zor who had been charged as ISIS affiliates. The prisoners’ release occurred one day after leaders of the ‘Ageidat tribe convened a meeting in Shiheil during which they specifically demanded an end to the SDF’s ongoing arrest campaigns and denounced their operations as “murderous” after an SDF soldier shot a civilian protester during demonstrations that erupted in the town on May 9. Local sources reported that on May 18 the SDF and the International Coalition convened a meeting in Omar oil field near Shiheil with the family members of those killed during the May 9 raid on Shiheil as well as an April 25 raid on Daman village in Basira subdistrict. When the meeting proved unsuccessful in reducing tensions, the KSA’s Deir-ez-Zor Governorate Civil Council met with tribal sheikhs in Shiheil on May 20 to discuss residents’ demands for better service provision, and announced plans for the release of additional prisoners. On May 25, approximately 89 prisoners were released from an SDF prison in Kasra town in Kisreh subdistrict after having been arrested from various areas in Deir-ez-Zor for ISIS affiliations.

The conciliatory measures taken by the KSA have had limited success in tempering the stiff resistance to Kurdish authority among Arab tribes. For example, the May 3 tribal conference was boycotted by the leadership of some

MERCY CORPS Situation Report: Tribal Protests against Kurdish Governance in Deir- ez-Zor Governorate A 3 of northeast Syria’s most prominent Sunni Arab tribes, including the predominantly Government-aligned Beggara and Tayy, while members of Arab tribes which maintain ostensibly positive relations with the KSA were also rumored to have refused meaningful participation in the event.2

ANALYSIS Many of the criticisms outlined by protesters in Deir-ez-Zor are not unique to the governorate. Lack of adequate service delivery is a concern across the northeast, as are the SDF’s conscription arrests. In addition, oil shortages have increased the prices of diesel and petrol fuel by 17 percent over the past six months in all KSA areas.3 However, upon close examination, many of these issues are exacerbated by factors unique to Deir-ez-Zor. Like Ar- Raqqa governorate, Deir-ez-Zor’s population is majority Arab, but while Ar-Raqqa’s demographic breakdown is estimated at 25 percent Kurdish, 70 percent Arab, and 5 percent other minority groups, Deir-ez-Zor’s population is estimated to be as high as 95 percent Sunni Arab.4 However, demographics are not deterministic. Nothing inherent to a predominantly Arab Sunni tribal community in itself would mandate antagonism toward the KSA. Nonetheless, collectively, the ‘Aqeidat tribe has a local reputation for antipathy toward Kurds, while Beggara leaders and wider membership have been heavily recruited by the Government of Syria and Iran, especially in the Euphrates River valley. The protests that erupted across Deir-ez-Zor Governorate in April 2019 are not a new phenomenon, but an intensification of resistance to the KSA which has spread across the northeast since early 2018. This is especially evident in majority Arab communities in Ar-Raqqa governorate where security policies implemented by the SDF have led to frequent clashes, and violence against SDF targets has been increasing for months.

2. For additional information on tribal dynamics in north east Syria, please refer to the Humanitarian Access Team’s paper Tribal Cold War: Northeast Syria, the New Tribal System, and the Destabilization of the Kurdish Self Administration (March 2019). 3. According to data from REACH’s Syria Market Monitoring Exercise (April 2019). 4. According to estimates based on KIIs conducted by Navanti researchers.

MERCY CORPS Situation Report: Tribal Protests against Kurdish Governance in Deir- ez-Zor Governorate A 4 As the trigger of protests against the KSA in Deir-ez-Zor in April, Syria’s fuel shortage has been intensified by underlying tensions. The KSA has not satisfied local demands by sharing revenue from oil extraction with the tribal stakeholders. Local media report multiple instances during the current wave of protests in which demonstrators have specifically demanded revenue sharing from oil sales, and decried the high fuel prices and shortages which have occurred as oil extracted in their areas has been transferred to Government areas. It is therefore not surprising that the protests have primarily occurred in communities located near oil fields.In fact, the subdistricts that have witnessed the largest increase in fuel prices over the past six months are also those in which protests have been concentrated. Moreover, even protests that appear to respond to factors unrelated to oil bear some connection to the fuel shortages. For example, demonstrators in Kishkiyeh and Abu Hamam, Hajin subdistrict protested water cuts, yet this was itself likely to be a result of the reported shutdown of a water pumping station in the nearby town of Abu Hamam on March 26, a suspected consequence of the lack in diesel fuel that is required to power it.

FORECASTING The Government has prioritized outreach to Arab tribes in the northeast, including in Deir-ez-Zor, as a means of contesting the monopoly on authority exercised by the KSA. On May 1 the Government conducted a tribal forum in Al-Hasakeh city Security Square and urged attendees to boycott the KSA’s May 3 tribal conference in Ein Issa, which the Syrian Foreign Ministry labeled “treasonous.” On May 12 the Syrian Foreign Ministry specifically raised the SDF raid in Shiheil in a letter to the UN Security Council in which it accused the International Coalition and the SDF of carrying out “massacres” in Syria. Local sources indicate that Syrian state media has published photos of demonstrators carrying signs expressing their desire to see the Government to return to the northeast. It is now evident the KSA and the Government of Syria have both set tribal outreach as a cornerstone of their legitimacy in the northeast and a powerful signal of their influence.Competition between the two over Arab tribal support is likely to continue, especially as local grievances over Kurdish governance continue to go unaddressed. By the same token, the Government of Turkey has also sought to build influence with Arab tribes in the northeast to head off a breakaway Kurdish polity. On May 15 co-chair of the Turkish-backed Supreme Council of Syrian Tribes and Clans Rami Al-Saleh released a statement denouncing the SDF raid on Shiheil and accusing its forces of being “terrorists.” Turkey’s efforts to encourage dissent against the KSA will likely continue, especially as implementation of the northeast buffer zone remains incomplete.

Most significant in terms of the northeast’s long-term stability is that the KSA’s top-level priorities are all but guaranteed to clash with its interests in ensuring community acceptance. In effect, its efforts to root out ISIS sleeper cells, recruit combatants, and strike essential deals for oil are at odds with the practical necessities of placating wide-reaching popular resistance. Thus far, its conciliatory measures have proven wholly inadequate to meet community demands. Because the complaints lodged by demonstrators in Deir-ez-Zor are not unique to the governorate and the KSA has no clear means of redressing its most serious criticisms, it is likely the protests will spread more widely, though it is expected that they will be limited to areas in the KSA’s “peripheral” zones of control.5

Given that the fuel shortage was the catalyst for the protests beginning in April, resistance to the KSA will likely increase as long as northeast oil continues to find its way to Government of Syria-controlled areas. This is possibly the reason behind the recently increasing aggressive approach against oil transfers between the KSA and the Government of Syria taken by the International Coalition (the SDF’s primary allies), which conducted airstrikes near Shiheil on boats carrying oil between the two territories first on May 7 and again on May 31. Nevertheless, although the hostile tactics of the International Coalition may possibly reduce some alleged smuggling activities

5. Tribal mobilization in general reflects the effective division of the KSA between “core” and “peripheral” zones of control, roughly defined as the heavily Kurdish areas located north of the M4 highway, and the predominantly Arab regions to the south and throughout Ar-Raqqa governorate.

MERCY CORPS Situation Report: Tribal Protests against Kurdish Governance in Deir- ez-Zor Governorate A 5 between KSA and Government of Syria-held areas, it is unlikely that such activities would completely cease as other maneuvers are likely to be explored while the fuel crisis continues, and fuel demand remains high in Government- held areas. Of note, local media reported that on May 27 the Government reached an agreement with the KSA to purchase all of the oil production from the KSA-controlled Tanak oil field in Hajin subdistrict in Deir-ez-Zor at 41 USD per barrel.

It is important to note that the growing resistance to Kurdish rule may not be limited to non-violent protests. Since early 2018 Ar-Raqqa governorate has witnessed a campaign of assassinations of KSA affiliates and attacks against SDF targets, it is not improbable that a similar pattern may be replicated in Deir-ez-Zor and other areas of the KSA’s periphery. In combination with currently ongoing ISIS sleeper cell attacks against SDF targets across north east Syria, this would significantly negatively impact the security posture of these areas. Finally, in terms of I/NGO programming, mounting resistance to Kurdish governance may complicate the work of humanitarian operators, if they are viewed as being too closely aligned the KSA. It is essential that organizations build strong community acceptance in Arab-majority communities in order to maintain access.

MERCY CORPS Situation Report: Tribal Protests against Kurdish Governance in Deir- ez-Zor Governorate A 6 CONTACT MALCOLM SAVAGE Humanitarian Access Team [email protected]

Contributing information sources to this document include public and nonpublic­ humanitarian information provided by local partners, UN Specialized Agencies, INGOs, non­state actors, and sources on the ground. The content is compiled by Mercy Corps, is by no means exhaustive, and does not reflect Mercy Corps’ position on the aforementioned subjects. The provided information, assessment, and analysis are designated for humanitarian purposes only. Mercy Corps and its Humanitarian Access Team will continue to closely monitor the evolving situation on the ground and inform accordingly.

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