In a statement published on X, the US Ambassador to Türkiye and Syria, Tom Barrack, said that “the original role of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) as the primary ground force fighting ISIS has effectively come to an end, as Syria moves into a fundamentally different political and security phase.” The statement came after more than a decade in which Kurdish groups, organised under the Syrian Democratic Forces, worked closely with the United States in Syria. The Kurds have once again found themselves aligned with a global power, encouraged to believe their political future would be secured—only to be sidelined once that power’s strategic priorities shifted elsewhere.
Syria’s Kurds
The Kurds of Syria have long resided in the country’s northeast and made up around 10 percent of Syria’s population, numbering as many as 2.5 million people before the Arab Spring uprising. They are concentrated primarily in Hasakah province, parts of Raqqa and Aleppo, and cities such as Qamishli and Kobane. Linguistically and culturally distinct, they were nevertheless denied formal recognition by the Syrian state.
Under Bashar al-Assad and his father, many Kurds were denied citizenship, Kurdish-language expression was restricted, and political organisation was closely monitored by Syrian intelligence services. Despite this repression, the relationship between Damascus and the Kurds was managed rather than annihilatory. The state often tolerated Kurdish areas so long as they remained politically quiet and did not openly challenge regime authority.
Arab Spring Comes to Syria
When the Arab Spring reached Syria in 2011–2012, the Assad regime rapidly withdrew forces from the northeast to focus on uprisings elsewhere in the country. As regime forces pulled back, Kurdish groups moved to fill the vacuum.
What followed was a cold, transactional coexistence. Both sides deeply distrusted one another, yet neither sought direct confrontation. There was occasional coordination against shared enemies—most notably ISIS—but full-scale conflict never emerged. Each side was preoccupied with larger existential threats.
The Enemy of My Enemy Is My Friend
The situation changed dramatically in 2014 when ISIS swept across eastern Syria and northern Iraq, declaring its so-called caliphate. Faced with an existential threat, Kurdish groups mobilised to defend their territory.
Multiple factions coalesced into the SDF, with the largest component being the Democratic Union Party (PYD) and its armed wing, the People’s Protection Units. Both were closely linked to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party, which had waged a protracted insurgency against Türkiye since the 1980s.
By the end of 2014, the United States deployed special forces to work alongside the SDF, marking its first official troop presence in Syria. The US–Kurdish partnership expanded rapidly. With US airpower and intelligence support, the SDF recaptured large swathes of territory from ISIS, including Raqqa in 2017. ISIS’s final territorial holdout in Syria, Baghouz, fell in 2019. The SDF went on to control Hasakah, Raqqa, and Deir ez-Zor, including Syria’s oil-rich eastern regions, while fending off repeated attempts by the Assad regime to reclaim them.
The Kurds have once again found themselves aligned with a global power, encouraged to believe their political future would be secured—only to be sidelined once that power’s strategic priorities shifted elsewhere
The ISIS Prison Problem
With ISIS defeated territorially, the Kurds inherited a new burden. Tens of thousands of ISIS fighters and their families fell into SDF custody. More than 10,000 ISIS fighters were detained in makeshift prisons across northeast Syria. Meanwhile, camps such as Al-Hol and Roj housed tens of thousands of women and children associated with ISIS. Separate from these camps, thousands of fighters had surrendered or were captured during successive Kurdish–US offensives. The SDF became the jailer of ISIS on behalf of the international community—an unenviable role that brought little long-term security guarantee.
Türkiye and the Limits of Partnership
The rise of Kurdish power in Syria deeply alarmed Turkey, which viewed the SDF as an extension of the PKK. In October 2019, following President Trump’s abrupt decision to withdraw most US forces from northern Syria, Turkey launched an incursion, seizing a strip of Kurdish-held territory that it continues to occupy today.
For Syria’s Kurds, autonomy was the ideal outcome, and alignment with Washington was seen as the pathway to achieving it. For the US, however, the relationship was always conditional and transactional. Washington never endorsed Kurdish independence and repeatedly made clear it would not confront Turkey militarily to defend Kurdish positions.
Frenemies in a Fragmented Syria
By 2020, Syria had hardened into zones of control. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) ruled Idlib and parts of Aleppo, while Kurdish authorities governed northeast Syria. Relations between the two were structurally hostile but largely indirect. They did not fight a sustained war against one another, yet they were ideological adversaries, backed different patrons, and controlled non-contiguous territories. Turkey’s seizure of Afrin in 2018, carried out with Syrian rebel factions, proved decisive in Kurdish perceptions. Although HTS was not the primary force in Afrin, its non-opposition and ideological proximity to participating factions made it complicit in Kurdish eyes. From that moment, reconciliation with Islamist opposition forces became politically toxic for Kurdish leadership.
Assad Falls, Sharaa Rises
When the Assad regime collapsed in December 2024, Kurdish forces organised under the SDF froze their frontlines. They did not march on Damascus or attempt to seize Arab-majority cities beyond areas they already controlled. Any rapid territorial expansion would have unified Arab factions, Turkey, and external powers against them. Instead, the Kurds sought to appear state-like rather than insurgent—particularly in the eyes of Washington and European capitals. They opened cautious political channels with Ahmed al-Sharaa and other post-Assad power brokers. Their position was clear: Syria should remain unified but adopt decentralised or federal governance. Kurdish forces, they insisted, would not disarm without constitutional guarantees. No dissolution of the SDF, no absorption into a new army, unless autonomy, language rights, and local security were enshrined in law.
The first meeting between al-Sharaa and SDF commander Mazloum Abdi took place soon after Assad’s fall. The US facilitated several tripartite meetings, even transporting Kurdish delegations by helicopter from Hasakah to Damascus. In March 2025, a deal was signed to integrate SDF civilian and military institutions into the new state, though Kurdish leaders continued to push for preserved self-rule and an independent chain of command.
The Middle East’s Ukrainians
Washington’s strategy is now centred on a unified Syria under Ahmed al-Sharaa, with all armed factions integrated into a centralised state. Kurdish, Alawi, Druze, and Israeli preferences diverge from this vision—but for now, US priorities prevail.
Barrack framed the shift as a historic opportunity, arguing that Assad’s fall removed the conditions that once justified US reliance on the SDF. Syria now has a recognised central government and has joined the Global Coalition to Defeat ISIS as its 90th member. But the consequences for Kurdish autonomy were stark. Barrack stated that the SDF must integrate into the national military as individuals, hand over oil fields, dams, and border crossings, and transfer control of ISIS prisons and camps to Damascus. The rationale for the US–SDF partnership, he argued, had expired. Washington quietly endorsed Syrian army advances where the SDF resisted compromise. The Nobel Peace Prize laureate Nadia Murad explained: “The US-led coalition relied on Kurdish forces in Rojava to fight and defeat ISIS. Now, at a critical moment, those who stood on the front lines against evil are being abandoned.”
A Familiar Ending
Syria’s Kurds have once again fallen victim to shifting great-power priorities. They were indispensable in defeating ISIS and hosting US bases. That chapter is now closed. For nearly a century, Kurdish movements across the Middle East have aligned with global powers in pursuit of autonomy or statehood—only to be abandoned once their usefulness expired. Syria’s Kurds are the latest example of this enduring pattern. Ukraine would do well to study Syria—not for lessons about courage or sacrifice, but to understand what happens when strategic value runs out.
For further reading see the Geopolitics of Syria
