Can the Kurds Help Build a New Syria?

The Syrian Kurdish movement has long advanced a bold vision for a new Syria, based on a leading role for women, municipal democracy and respect for minority rights. The “Rojava revolution” saw this vision implemented in a multiethnic federation numbering some 4 million Syrians that is spread across a third of Syria’s territory. And after dictator Bashar al-Assad was finally toppled in a shock advance spearheaded by al-Qaeda Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), it might seem like there’s a golden opportunity for the Kurdish-led federation formally known as the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria to play a part in a new and more democratic Syria. 

Instead, the DAANES now faces the gravest threats at any point since the Kurds achieved autonomy with the 2011 outbreak of the Syrian Civil War, as Turkey launches a brutal military campaign that has killed over 80 people, including 31 civilians, from Dec. 8-10. For millions in the north, Syria’s war is not only far from over, but potentially entering its deadliest phase. “Kurds suffered a lot at the hands of the Syrian regime, and they are glad today for Assad’s fall,” says Hoshang Hasan, a journalist based in Qamishlo, the de facto Syrian Kurdish capital. “At the same time, they’re afraid for what will happen next.” 

Certainly, there were scenes of jubilation as Assad fled Syria, and Kurds joined Arabs flooding into former regime garrisons to tear down statues of a hated dictator responsible for the bulk of the deaths in the Syrian conflict, who had long repressed the Kurdish language and identity. Kurdish activists were among those emerging dazed from Assad’s dungeons into the daylight of a new Syria, facing the uncertain prospect of rule by HTS. The opposition faction had spent years biding its time, cultivating a more modern image and renouncing al-Qaeda’s stated aim of global jihad to focus on building its military strength, while imposing an authoritarian interpretation of Islam over millions of Syrians. Then it struck, taking advantage of Assad’s weakened hand after Israel had dealt successive blows to his key allies in Iran and Hezbollah, with both Moscow and Iran abandoning their erstwhile ally to his demise.

HTS — which has jailed thousands of opposition activists and journalists while executing people on charges of apostasy and witchcraft — has much work to do if it is to prove itself ready to follow through on its promises of delivering peace and governance to Syrians weary of 13 years’ conflict. But with Western powers rapidly moving to reconsider HTS’ ongoing listing as a terror organization, it’s becoming possible to imagine a future Syria in which both the DAANES’ progressive multiethnic federation and HTS’ technocratic-authoritarian Islamism both play a role — an outcome that would have seemed utterly implausible only two weeks ago. HTS is reportedly engaged in negotiations with the DAANES to ensure the safe future of over 100,000 Kurds now surrounded by its forces in isolated Kurdish neighborhoods of Aleppo, and has carefully avoided any confrontation with the DAANES’ military wing. For its part, DAANES has moved to seize territory from Assad, repeating scenes from other parts of Syria by springing open his former jails, while repeating its desire to work with any parties willing to build a progressive and federal Syria.

The real threat comes from Turkey. Tens of thousands of Kurds have already been displaced in the latest offensive; not by HTS, but by an alliance of 30 or so militias bankrolled, armed and directed by Ankara. This so-called Syrian National Army includes militias long accused by the United Nations and Amnesty International of war crimes, including rape, mass killing of Kurdish civilians, torture, electrocution, execution and using caged civilians as human shields. During prior Turkish military campaigns, the militias killed hundreds and displaced hundreds of thousands of civilians.

Rather than striking Assad’s crumbling army, the Turkish Air Force has spent the past week pounding DAANES regions, most recently massacring a family of 12, including six children, in the town of Ain Issa. Likewise, many of Turkey’s pet militiamen have never fired a shot in anger against Assad. Rather than advancing on Damascus, they’re rampaging through northern Syria, conducting summary executions targeting Kurds and other locals on the basis of their ethnicity or collaboration with the Kurdish-led federation. One particularly gruesome video shows two severely wounded men shot dead in their hospital beds. The Syrian Observatory of Human Rights has reported dozens of similar executions.

Next in Turkey’s sights is the border town Kobane, site of a heroic stand by the Syrian Kurds’ against ISIS in 2014. It was there that Kurdish units and their Arab allies turned the tide against ISIS, winning global support and launching their unexpected battlefield collaboration with the U.S. Armed Forces. It remains to be seen whether the U.S. will prove able or willing to call its key NATO ally Turkey to heel, or once again step aside and abandon their nominal partners to their fate, as they did in 2019 when Donald Trump gave the green light to a devastating Turkish invasion that killed hundreds and displaced hundreds of thousands of locals.

“We have a solution, now we need the support,” said Sinam Mohamad, the Syrian Kurds’ top representative in Washington. The DAANES’ diplomatic representatives are advancing a five-point plan based on humanitarian support for internally displaced peoples; an immediate end to destabilizing Turkish attacks on Kurds and Syrians at large; protection for religious and ethnic minorities; an acknowledgement of the DAANES as a key player in a stable Syria; and the establishment of a “democratic, pluralistic and secular Syrian state that includes all communities in the decision-making process.”

DAANES has struggled to win conservative Islamic populations over to its vision of a secular, progressive society led by women and will have to compromise further as they seek any potential settlement with the Islamist forces now dominant throughout the rest of Syria. At the same time, its proven ability to preserve Syria’s highest standards of humanitarian provision and rule of law throughout a third of the country’s territory means it remain an indispensable part of any future settlement.

“With Syria in chaos, it’s time for the international community to take our proposal for multiethnic governance seriously,” Mohamad says. Whether the fall of Assad paves the way for a new Syria based on inter-communal cooperation despite difference, or the same old sectarian violence, remains to be seen.