Just four days after drawing down the bulk of Russian forces in Syria, President Vladimir Putin was quietly redrawing the Syrian map on federal lines, and planting Russian influence in its first semiautonomous region. debkafile’s intelligence sources report that the Russian leader's hand was behind the establishment of the Syrian Kurdish federal region on March 17, at a meeting of Kurdish Democratic Union Party leaders in the Syrian town of Rmeilan.
The new self-ruling entity covers three Kurdish-controlled enclaves:: Jazira, Hassakeh and Qamishli and the two cities of Kobani and Afrin, They include areas captured in battle from the Islamic State. READ MORE
