Syria’s Kurdish autonomy is fading as Arab unrest challenges Damascus’s control

Sunni Arab Syrians held large-scale demonstrations after Friday prayers in the northern Syrian city of Hasakah. The demonstrators, many of whom were members of Arab tribes, came from neighborhoods surrounding Hasakah, with some arriving from the adjoining Deir al-Zur province in Syria’s southeast.

Protesters assembled outside the Abu Bakr al-Siddiq Mosque in Ghweiran, where the protests began last week. After Friday prayers, they marched to the city’s main square, Liberation Square, carrying the flag of the new Syrian regime. The demonstrators were accompanied by members of the government’s internal security forces.

Regional outlets have given the unrest in Hasakah over the last week only minor attention, and almost none in the international media. The tensions in the city are noteworthy, however, because they attest to the ongoing instability bubbling beneath the surface in Syria, even as the new regime seeks to present an image of firm and exclusive authority.

Hasakah was the main city of the Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration of Northeast Syria, prior to the fall of the Assad regime in December 2024. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which partnered with the US-led coalition in the fight against Islamic State in the 2014-19 period, were the armed element of that administration.

However, after a swift military push by the Damascus government across the Euphrates in January, the SDF and the administration quickly agreed to dissolve. An agreement concluded on January 29 formally terminated the autonomous administration, and the SDF was formally dissolved on August 26.

But while the Kurdish-led authority was dissolved on paper, many of its institutions continued to function in reality. The SDF’s leaders deliberately sought to avoid confronting the new authorities. They understood that without external backing or protection, following the US abandonment of the Kurds and withdrawal, such a path would surely lead to bloodshed and their own forceful suppression.

Instead, they have sought to preserve as much autonomy as possible while remaining in formal cooperation with the central authorities. At the same time, semi-independent Kurdish political formations linked to the circles of the SDF remain.

This approach derives from a basic mistrust between the Kurdish structures and the new authorities, combined with the Kurds’ desire to make the best of the new situation and avoid the government-facilitated sectarian slaughters that have taken place in the Druze south and the Alawi western coastal area since the fall of the Assad regime.

The Syrian Kurds note the apparent reluctance of the Damascus authorities to punish those elements among its supporters who have engaged in violence against minorities. Only a tiny number of people have been tried, and only one or two convicted for involvement in the sectarian massacres in Sweida and Latakia.

Arab population appears determined to force the dissolution of Kurdish autonomous structures

THE LATEST incidents appear to derive from a determination by elements among the Arab population of Hasakah to force the pace of the dissolution of the Kurdish-led autonomous structures, and to demand the imposition by the central authorities in Damascus of speedy, full, and immediate control.

A source in the Kurdish authority in Hasakah told The Jerusalem Post: “The situation began approximately a week ago, when a coordinated campaign emerged on social media involving fake accounts and certain Syrians residing in Europe, particularly Germany.

“These accounts called upon Arab residents of the Ghweiran neighborhood in Hasakah to organize demonstrations and raise the Syrian national flag in the city center, under the pretext of ‘restoring state authority’ throughout Syrian territory.

“The Kurdish governor of Hasakah and the local authorities had already decided to raise the Syrian flag themselves during an official ceremony. But the social media campaign continued, calling on people from outside Hasakah city and the governorate to participate.

“It is particularly significant that the local Arab tribal leaders did not participate in these demonstrations. Instead, the gatherings consisted largely of groups of young agitators, including individuals reportedly associated with the former Islamic State and elements of the former Ba’athist establishment.

“During the demonstrations, participants raised portraits of Saddam Hussein, chanted inflammatory and explicitly sectarian slogans, including ‘Syria without minorities,’ and attacked Kurdish national symbols, flags, and banners. These actions appeared deliberately calculated to provoke a Kurdish reaction and potentially trigger wider ethnic confrontation.”

The source in Hasakah added: “These developments raise serious questions about the intentions of certain elements within Damascus. There are strong grounds to suspect that factions opposed to the integration process are actively seeking to undermine its implementation.

“These factions are believed to maintain close ties with Turkey, which may itself be encouraging such destabilizing activities, given Ankara’s apparent dissatisfaction with certain aspects of the integration agreement and its outcomes.”

'There is no deterrence or law to stop the tension in Hasakah by the government'

THE ROLE OF the Damascus authorities in the latest events remains open to question. A civilian source in Hasakah told the Post: “There is no deterrence or law to stop the tension in Hasakah by the government. Kurds and Arabs started to become afraid of moving inside the city. The risk of kidnapping has started to rise.”

The source from the Hasakah authority suspects that a broader political agenda may lie behind the latest events, namely “to exploit divisions between Arab and Kurdish communities, particularly through the mobilization of sections of the Arab tribal population, to create conditions conducive to sectarian or ethnic confrontation.

“Should such tensions escalate into widespread violence, the Kurdish authorities could find themselves under considerable pressure to request intervention by the central government to restore order.

“Damascus could then use such a request, or the wider deterioration of security, as justification for deploying additional government forces and progressively assuming direct security and administrative control over Hasakah.

“This would bear certain similarities to the approach initially envisaged toward Sweida and its Druze population, whereby internal instability could provide a political and security justification for expanding central government authority.”

A report on the Enab Baladi website, meanwhile, which is sympathetic to the Damascus authorities, blamed the Kurdish “Revolutionary Youth” for the tensions. This term is used to denote a Kurdish youth organization linked to the political organizations behind the Syrian Democratic Forces.

According to individuals quoted in the article, at Enab Baladi, the Revolutionary Youth established checkpoints in areas of the city, and “stopped passersby, searched their phones, and treated them in a humiliating manner.”

According to Abdulrahman al-Hassan, an Arab resident of Ghweiran, “The city was experiencing severe tensions because of the Revolutionary Youth’s conduct.” Al-Hassan said that in his assessment, “residents were not seeing sufficient intervention by government security forces to stop these practices or establish control throughout the city.”

In the period ahead, the stage appears to be set for further steps by the authorities in Damascus to terminate the remnants of Kurdish autonomy east of the Euphrates, and to extend the authority of the new Islamist regime to this area in its entirety.

Recent experience in southwest Syria indicates that such efforts have been conducted via a combination of local unrest, and then the entry of a combination of government-aligned “irregular” forces and official security forces into the area in question. The coming period will indicate whether such an effort is now beginning in northeast Syria.