ERBIL, IRAQ — Syria’s Kurds have mostly escaped prolonged bouts of direct conflict in the country’s civil war, but with rebel units pushing east toward the resource-rich Kurdish heartland, Kurdish militias proliferating and calls for greater autonomy growing, this may not remain the case.
Last summer, the Democratic Union Party, known by its Kurdish-language acronym P.Y.D., seized control of many towns and villages in the Kurdish majority northeast. The group also holds territory in a few Aleppo neighborhoods and some towns around the city.
The P.Y.D. is the most powerful Kurdish faction in Syria and has a well trained militia. This is perhaps a product of its ties to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, or P.K.K., a guerrilla group that has been fighting for Kurdish autonomy in Turkey.