The Kurdish-dominated Autonomous Administration of North East Syria (AANES) currently controls around 30% of the Syrian territory. Its area of de facto control includes the greater part of Syria’s oil and gas, and a large part of its best agricultural land and water resources. This area is also of strategic significance.
Prior to the fall of the Assad regime, it served as a partial barrier to Iran’s ability to move fighters and materiel toward Lebanon, the Mediterranean Sea, and Israel. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), AANES’s military force, is the main ally of the US and the global coalition in the ongoing fight against ISIS.
The sudden fall of the Assad regime in December 2024 presents the Autonomous Administration and the SDF with a new set of dilemmas. The Syrian Kurds are well acquainted with the Sunni jihadis of the Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) organization, who now rule in Damascus.
As a veteran reporter of the Syrian war, I remember covering the fighting in Sere Kaniyeh/Ras al Ain in mid-2013, when the Kurds resisted an attempt by an early iteration of HTS, then called Jabhat al Nusra, to break into their area of control.
Now rebranded as politicians and statesmen, HTS leaders are the happy recipients in Damascus of a stream of senior officials from European countries and other nations. HTS has made it clear that it intends to extend its authority over Syria’s entire territory.
They reject any possibility of a federal system for Syria. The new rulers also dismiss any continued role for the SDF, either as a separate force or as a unit within a new Syrian army, which has yet to be established.
TWO WEEKS ago, I was in northeast Syria, where I interviewed Ilham Ahmed, a senior official of the Autonomous Administration, to hear how the Syrian Kurds see the current situation and the options before them. Ahmed’s official title is Co-chair of the Foreign Relations Department of the Autonomous Administration. In practice, she serves as the foreign minister for this body.
Ahmed's background
Hailing from Afrin in Syria’s northwest, Ahmed is a veteran Syrian Kurdish oppositionist and activist. She has emerged in recent years as an articulate and influential Syrian Kurdish official. Famously, at an informal meeting at the Trump International Hotel in 2019, then-president Donald Trump pledged to Ahmed that he would not abandon Syria’s Kurds.
I first met and interviewed her in 2016 in the city of Qamishli. Recently, we talked at an office used by the SDF close to the city of Hasakah.
On the question of the differing visions of the new rulers in Damascus and the administration of which she is a part, Ahmed noted: “Militarily and administratively, there are many divisions in Syria. NE Syria has the AANES. The coastal cities have their own special situation. The Druze communities have their own administration and their own factions for protecting their regions. In Idlib and other regions, they also have their own administration and factions.
“So now, if someone suddenly comes to gather or unify all these people under one system, it will open the way for internal civil war. This will not be acceptable to the different parts of Syria.”
But is this what HTS is trying to do? “The concern is that HTS might take the route of ‘one ruler’ in Syria and not give others the chance to participate. We all know the background and the history of HTS.”
HTS have claimed that they have changed from their jihadi origins. Should this be taken seriously? “It’s still very early to draw conclusions on this. They are sensitive to this issue and are trying to give the impression that they have separated from al Qaeda. So let’s wait and see.”
In the meantime, she is opposed to material concessions to the Islamist rulers in Damascus, in the areas of sanctions relief and HTS’s designation as a terror organization, saying that the current restrictions should remain.
“Removing HTS from the terror list and removing the sanctions from Syria will lead to two things: HTS will take the whole rule of Syria and create their own system, and they will not give others any role and will not change their ideology.”
What about the SDF? Under certain circumstances, would it agree to its amalgamation into a new Syrian army?
“We have no problem with the SDF being part of the ministry of defense or of the official Syrian army – but with its own special status,” she said. “It would have to have some involvement in leading the whole army.”
IT IS clear that if a crisis erupts between the SDF and HTS (and at present, the positions of the two seem somewhat irreconcilable), the role of the US will be crucial.
The continued presence of US forces east of the Euphrates acts as the main guarantee for the Syrian Kurds against a possible invasion from Turkey or an allied Islamist group. But will America stay? Concerning this, Ahmef sounded optimistic.
“At the beginning of the year, there were several ISIS attacks in the US. And in our region, too, the rate of ISIS attacks is increasing. Turkish attacks are encouraging ISIS. Given all this, I think the position of the Trump administration will be clear in this regard.”
How does she view relations between Israel and the Syrian Kurdish leadership?
Ahmed – who recently spoke with Foreign Minister Gideon Sa’ar by phone, according to Israeli media reports – answered cautiously and diplomatically. “The crisis of the Middle East requires that everyone understand that without Israel and Jewish people playing a role, a democratic solution for the region will not happen.
“The security of the border areas in Syria requires everyone to be engaged in the solution, and Israel is one of the parties to that. Its role is going to be very important, so having the discussion with Israel at this time is very important.”
What is the deeper significance of the fall of the Assad regime? She paused for a moment. “I was arrested by the Syrian regime in Lebanon once, years ago. I spent two months in the regime prison. From the way I was investigated, and slapped, I knew the reality of the Syrian regime.
“I knew that for as long as it existed, there wasn’t the slightest hope of anyone having even the smallest degree of freedom in this country. So overthrowing it was essential. What is needed now is that personnel of the former regime should be held accountable.
“We have concerns now, but the overthrow of the regime at least gives us the chance of building the new Syria that we want for the Syrian people.”
These hopeful sentiments notwithstanding, it is difficult to see how the agendas of HTS and the Autonomous Administration/SDF can be reconciled in the longer term. The former, very clearly, is pushing toward a centralized, Islamic regime, ruling on the basis of Sharia law. The latter is holding out for its own vision of decentralization, women’s rights, and secularism.
There is also the question of whether the combination of the SDF’s strength and international support will be sufficient to deter Islamist and Turkish aggression, or whether the West’s desire to be rid of the Syrian problem will leave the Kurdish administration abandoned, with a choice between defiance and renewed conflict or capitulation to an emergent Islamist regime.
We will know before too long.
One thing can be said with confidence: The SDF base where I met Ahmed looked like that of a regular army. The Syrian Kurds have spent 14 years building, with considerable sacrifice, what they currently hold. They won’t concede it lightly.