Many Kurdish other folks shall be feeling betrayed by means of america after the Syrian military, sponsored by means of america and armed by means of Turkey, introduced an offensive in opposition to the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in early January. The SDF has lengthy been hailed because the west’s best spouse in opposition to the Islamic State (IS) terrorist organisation.
Led by means of Ahmed al-Sharaa, the Syrian president who used to be previously an al-Qaeda commander, the military first of all focused two Kurdish neighbourhoods within the town of Aleppo. Executive forces then captured the SDF-held provinces of Deir ez-Zor and Raqqa additional east earlier than advancing at the Kurdish-majority areas of Hasakah and Kobani within the north-east nook of the rustic.
The Syrian military and the SDF are lately staring at a delicate 15-day ceasefire, brokered by means of america. However in keeping with the UN, a minimum of 134,000 Kurds have already been displaced. And lots of Kurdish civilians worry a repeat of the 2025 sectarian mass killings and standard abuse in opposition to Syria’s Alevi and Druze communities.
Kobani, a town well-known because the web page of heroic Kurdish resistance in opposition to IS in 2014, is underneath siege with its water and electrical energy provides bring to an end. And Elham Ahmad, a senior Kurdish authentic, claims the Syrian military has already accomplished loads of captured Kurdish combatants and civilians. She has characterized the movements of the state as a “war of extermination” in opposition to the Kurds.
Syrian military body of workers deployed close to the entrance traces close to the town of Al-Hasakah in north-eastern Syria on January 23.
Ahmad Fallaha / EPA
Leaving behind Kurdish allies
The geopolitical fulcrum of this upheaval is US regional technique. In a while after changing into Nato’s first secretary normal in 1952, Lord Hastings Ismay stated the organisation’s objective used to be “to keep the Soviet Union out, the Americans in and the Germans down”. In a identical vein, america technique in Syria arguably seeks to stay The usa afar, Iran out and Israel and Turkey aside.
Consistent with the Trump management’s 2025 nationwide safety technique, Washington has sought to dam Iranian affect within the Center East. Willing to shift the load for overseeing the area’s safety clear of america, it has additionally appeared to withdraw US forces from Syria after al-Sharaa’s Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) coalition of Turkey-backed Islamist teams toppled longtime dictator Bashar al-Assad in December 2024.
A robust HTS-led Sunni Muslim state this is opposed to Iran and its Shia proxies in Iraq and Lebanon, underneath Turkish tutelage and supported by means of the Gulf states, used to be deemed the most suitable choice. But diverging Israeli and Turkish priorities have difficult this means.
Israel seen al-Sharaa’s al-Qaeda previous and the inclusion of overseas jihadist combatants within the Syrian army as grave safety threats. This is helping provide an explanation for why, instantly after Assad’s fall, Israel destroyed a lot of Syria’s strategic army infrastructure to stop it from falling into Islamist fingers.
Turkey, in the meantime, has lengthy appeared the autonomy of Syrian Kurds (efficient since 2012) as a risk, given the decades-long fight of its personal massive Kurdish inhabitants for political and cultural rights. Washington sought to sq. those competing pursuits thru a two-pronged means.
First, it driven Syria and Israel against negotiating a security-economic deal, addressing Israeli issues in go back for sanctions reduction and reconstruction help for Syria. Searching for state consolidation, al-Sharaa authorised the de facto demilitarisation of Syria’s southern areas. He additionally signalled Syria’s readiness to sign up for the Abraham accords, a sequence of agreements to normalise members of the family between Israel and Center Japanese nations.
2nd, america confused the Kurds to combine their army and administrative establishments into the brand new Syrian state to deal with Turkish issues. This ended in an settlement between the SDF and Damascus in March 2025, with exact main points left to be labored out by means of joint particular operating committees.
Alternatively, implementation quickly stalled over Kurdish calls for for native autonomy and integrating the SDF into the nationwide military as a bloc to keep its organisational coherence, corresponding to the Kurdish Peshmerga forces in Iraq. Spurred by means of Ankara, Damascus rejected Kurdish calls for, generating a impasse.
All the way through US-mediated talks in Paris in early January 2026, the security-economic deal between Israel and Syria used to be agreed and can quickly be finalised. On the identical assembly, a Syrian govt proposal for a restricted operation to recapture SDF-held territory reportedly met no objections. And nearly instantly thereafter, the Syrian military introduced its offensive.
Kurdish forces that were managing the Al-Hol camp, which properties 1000’s of other folks suspected of getting hyperlinks to IS, withdrew amid an advance by means of Syrian govt troops.
Mohammed Al-Rifai / EPA
Any other blowback within the making?
US coverage in west Asia has again and again generated blowback – from improve for the anti-Soviet Afghan jihad of the Eighties to the 2003 invasion of Iraq and the chaotic 2022 withdrawal from Afghanistan. Leaving behind the Kurds in favour of an anti-Iranian govt in Syria dangers repeating this development.
Locally, it might embolden al-Sharaa to forcibly subordinate Druze, Alawite, Assyrian and different minority teams. This could reproduce a centralised state sustained by means of repression, like Saddam Hussein’s Ba’athist Iraq, and dangers renewed civil struggle.
Locally, it destabilises neighbouring Iraq. Nouri al-Maliki, an influential flesh presser who has been nominated for top minister by means of dominant Shia factions within the Iraqi parliament following the October 2025 elections, has described al-Sharaa’s Syria as being ruled by means of terrorists.
Certainly, alarmed by means of the handover of camps conserving former IS combatants from the SDF to Damascus, the Iraqi govt requested Washington to relocate 1000’s of IS detainees to Iraq. America has authorised this request, in spite of having admitted Syria into the worldwide anti-IS coalition simplest two months previous.
Maliki may be intently aligned with Iran. In the meantime, Iran-backed Shia defense force teams in Iraq are involved in regards to the deployment of Syrian govt forces on border crossings prior to now held by means of the SDF. Any US assault on Iran, as Donald Trump has threatened lately, may just thus attract Iraq.
Across the world, the risk of forsaking the Kurds is the go back of IS terrorism to towns within the west. Reviews recommend many IS detainees escaped from detention camps as SDF forces guarding them got here underneath assault. And movies launched by means of the SDF display what it claimed had been IS individuals being damaged out of a jail by means of armed “Damascus factions”.
Washington will have to honour its personal prerequisites: improve for Syria’s transitional govt will have to be contingent at the introduction of a in truth democratic, plural and inclusive political order that constitutionally enshrines and protects minority rights – together with the ones of the Kurds.
