Peoples Protection Units

The People's Protection Units (YPG), also known as the Popular Protection Units, serves as the military wing of the Democratic Union Party (PYD). The YPG was founded to combat the Assad regime and Islamist opposition forces in Syria. The group also aims to establish an independent Kurdistan and shares the nationalist ideology of the Iraq-based Kurdish Worker’s Party (PKK). The YPG fights predominantly in Syria, though it also carried out operations in Iraq in an alliance with the Kurdish Peshmerga. The group gained attention in the summer of 2012 for its efforts to provide security after the Syrian army withdrew from Kurdish areas in eastern Syria. The YPG has fought against Jabhat Fatah al-Sham (now known as HTS) and the Islamic State (IS) in the Syrian civil war. It received American air support and reinforcements from the Kurdish Peshmerga during the IS siege of Kobani, a city in the Aleppo governorate, from September 2014 to June 2015. Following the YPG's victory in Kobani, the group controlled area in Syria’s Aleppo, Raqqa, and Hassaka governorates along the border with Turkey. In October 2015, the YPG joined the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) umbrella group that was founded to combat IS in northern and eastern Syria. The YPG has had unstable relations with Turkey. In 2016, Turkish forces shelled the YPG after the group captured the Syrian army Menagh airbase in the Aleppo governorate.