They fought ISIS in Syria for years. Now U.S. allies say they’ve been abandoned.
Much of the territory, which also includes Syria’s biggest oil fields, a major hydroelectric dam and agricultural regions, was captured from the Islamic State by the SDF when the Kurdish-led force was the main U.S. partner fighting the jihadists in Syria.
‘Significant blow’
Integration has largely been forced on the Kurds by Washington and the government in Damascus, Sanam Vakil, director of the Middle East and North Africa program at the London-based Chatham House think tank, said Thursday.
“This is a significant blow,” Vakil said, adding that many see the development as the “loss of hard-won autonomy rather than a genuine power-sharing arrangement.”
“The prevailing sentiment is one of anxiety and political marginalization rather than reconciliation,” she said.
Under a deal announced Tuesday, which came after Syrian forces seized swaths of territory in the northeast, the SDF was given four days to agree on integrating into the state, with its key ally, the United States, pushing it to accept.
U.S. envoy Tom Barrack welcomed the truce as an “inflection point, where former adversaries embrace partnership over division,” as he made clear the SDF’s role as a key ally in battling the Islamic State had become obsolete with the emergence of a new central power to partner with.
He said the U.S. had “no interest in long-term military presence; it prioritizes defeating ISIS remnants, supporting reconciliation, and advancing national unity without endorsing separatism or federalism.”
“This moment offers a pathway to full integration into a unified Syrian state with citizenship rights, cultural protections, and political participation,” Barrack added.
Barrack is the ambassador to Turkey, a NATO member wary of the SDF’s links to its own Kurdish population. Iran and Iraq also have significant Kurdish communities.
ISIS fears grow
The SDF blamed “international indifference” toward ISIS for the withdrawal, as concerns grow of an ISIS resurgence in Syria.
The SDF and Syrian government are trading blame over a mass prison escape in the town of Shaddadeh amid a breakdown in the truce between the two sides.
“This mutual understanding and joint cooperation between us and the international coalition — led by the United States — created a kind of stability in our regions from 2015 until 2025,” one senior SDF commander told NBC News. “But now, it seems the circumstances and international interests have changed.”
