On 23 June 2020, a Turkish drone strike killed three female Kurdish activists near Kobane, the Syrian city famed as the site of a crucial Kurdish victory against Isis. While Turkey has long deployed drones against the Kurds, the attack marked the beginning of an intensified campaign of drone strikes targeting social, political and military figures in the Kurdish-led polity known as the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (DAANES). Kurdish representatives see these strikes as a direct challenge to their efforts to establish a democracy based on the principle of women’s autonomy.
Turkish attacks against DAANES have been on the rise since. Where in 2021 the Rojava Information Center recorded 88 strikes, 2023 saw some 198, with 106 attacks reported this year alone. Unable to get a green light from its allies to invade the region again – Turkey’s two previous assaults were backed by the US and Russia respectively – it has increased drone warfare as a means of weakening the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the Kurdish-led group that allied with the US against Isis.
