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America’s Anti-ISIS Ally Makes One Final Sacrifice for Syria
0 Share Newsweek is a Trust Project member See more of our trusted coverage when you search. Prefer Newsweek on Google to see more of our trusted coverage when you search. After nearly 15 years of brutal civil war, Syria is being put back together.
The new leadership in Damascus under Ahmed al-Sharaa, a former commander of the Syrian branch of Al-Qaeda, has brought much of the fractured country back under central control since toppling Bashar al-Assad in late 2024.
On Monday, Washington removed Syria from its list of state sponsors of terrorism, opening another door to desperately needed investment and reconstruction.
But for the country to become truly whole again, one of America’s most important allies in the war against Islamic extremism must make an extraordinary sacrifice.
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces , who, for years, waged a bitter fight alongside the U.S. military to defeat ISIS , have been abandoned by Washington in favor of al-Sharaa. Now, Syria’s Kurds are surrendering the military power that safeguarded their freedom and autonomy under an integration agreement with Syria’s new leaders.
It is the ultimate leap of faith. Without America’s backing, the Kurds must trust that a new Syrian state led by a former jihadist will grant them the political, cultural and linguistic rights they spent more than a decade fighting to protect.
When Syria’s civil war erupted in 2011, the Kurds living in the northeast seized the opportunity to finally carve out that which they’d never had—a space where they could live free of oppression.
What they created became an anomaly in the Middle East; a small, de facto autonomous region known as Rojava, with its own democratic political administration, public institutions and security forces.
So, when the Islamic State began spreading like a virus through the Middle East and the Levant, the Kurdish militias proved to be the perfect partner for the United States in the quest to stop the extremists.
Kurdish fighters became famous during the siege of Kobani in 2014, holding out as the jihadist group swallowed huge stretches of Syria and Iraq. In 2015, they united several armed groups to form one Kurdish-led, multi-ethnic militia: the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).
With American weapons, air power, intelligence and Special Forces support, they became the ground army Washington needed to defeat ISIS, but did not want to provide itself. After four years and countless bitter battles, the SDF captured the final sliver of Syrian territory held by ISIS, and declared an end to the caliphate.
But America’s alliance with the Kurds was not forever.
That became brutally clear after al-Sharaa’s Hayat Tahrir al-Sham swept out of Idlib in late 2024 and brought down the Assad dynasty.
With Assad finally gone, Washington saw an opportunity to stabilize Syria, and, in a matter of months, al-Sharaa underwent a scarcely imaginable transformation from sanctioned terrorist to internationally recognized president.
In January, Syrian forces under al-Sharaa scythed into SDF-controlled territory in the northeast, seizing several cities, towns and key oil and gas infrastructure. Washington did not stop them, and the SDF, which had once controlled roughly a quarter of Syria, lost roughly 80 percent of its territory.
Their choice narrowed to two possibilities: fight Damascus and risk another Syrian war—this time without America’s support—or entrust their rights, freedom and safety to a government headed by a former jihadist.
The rest of the world has good reason to make that bet.
In less than two years, al-Sharaa has done what once looked impossible. Syria’s civil war has given way to a fragile postwar order, Assad’s catastrophic regime is no more, and the influence Russia and Iran once held over Damascus has been drastically reduced.
The country is not completely at peace, but it is certainly no longer a pariah state.
It also has massive potential. The median age of the population is less than 24, and there is an enormous Syrian diaspora, including many skilled workers, ready to return. Syria needs a lot of international investment if it is to rebuild—but there is also a lot of money to be made in doing so.
For Damascus, absorbing the SDF and taking control of what remains of Rojava is the next logical step. No government trying to rebuild a sovereign state wants a separate army controlling oil fields and territory inside its borders.
Al-Sharaa and SDF commander Mazloum Abdi first agreed in March 2025 to integrate the SDF and the Kurds’ civilian institutions into the Syrian state. Under the terms of the agreement, the SDF would be absorbed into the wider Syrian military, and Damascus would commit to recognizing Kurdish citizenship and constitutional rights.
But after the offensive on SDF positions by Syrian government forces in January, the Kurds were left with little bargaining power to control the ongoing negotiations. The U.S. envoy to Syria, Tom Barrack, said, in light of the offensive, that the SDF’s role as "the primary anti-ISIS force on the ground" had "largely expired," and supported Damascus in taking control of the region.
On Tuesday, Abdi finally confirmed the SDF, which had defended Kurdish autonomy for more than a decade, was no more.
"Today, we stand at a historic moment in which we turn an important page in Syria’s history and begin to open a new page titled peace, stability and reconstruction," Abdi declared in an address on Tuesday. "We announce the end of the mission of the Syrian Democratic Forces and announce with full responsibility its dissolution as an independent military force."
For Syria, this agreement marks the end of one of the civil war’s last great divisions, and what could be the beginning of a long road to durable peace and prosperity.
For the Kurds, the bargain is not empty. Al-Sharaa has formally recognized Kurds as an integral part of the Syrian people and guaranteed Kurdish-language education, while earlier...
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