Jihadist terrorist Ahmed al-Sharaa, the president of Syria, signed an agreement on Monday to integrate the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) into the Syrian military – arguably his biggest success since toppling the regime of Bashar Assad in December, as the SDF is one of Syria’s most effective and professional militias.
The SDF, operating in northern Syria, was instrumental in the destruction of the Islamic State “caliphate” based in Raqqa and remains instrumental in keeping the group from once again establishing itself in the country. It has been allied with the United States for years, so its gesture of trust in the current government of Syria could help Sharaa make the case to Washington that sanctions on the country, imposed in response to Assad’s many human rights abuses and alliances with rogue regimes such as Iran, should end.
Sharaa is the leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), an offshoot of the Sunni jihadist terror organization al-Qaeda. HTS was one of nearly a dozen armed groups participating in the chaotic, over-decade-long Syrian Civil War and ended it late last year with the seizure of Aleppo, the country’s second-largest city. HTS fighters dismantled Assad’s forces and headed towards Damascus, resulting in Assad and his family fleeing to Moscow and leaving the country in the jihadists’ hands.
The HTS committee organizing the government officially declared Sharaa its president in January. Sharaa has repeatedly emphasized in his rhetoric, much of it aimed at attracting foreign investment, two issues: “inclusivity” and respect for Syrian minorities, and the importance of a centralized government and an end to roving militias outside of the power of the federal government.
FLASHBACK: Trump — We Will Make a Determination on Whether or Not We’ll Pull Out of Syria
Many have doubted Sharaa’s claims to support the creation of an “inclusive” government and HTS faces even more heightened scrutiny this week after monitor groups and journalists documented a bloody purge of Alawite civilians and others in Syria’s coastal regions this weekend. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), a non-governmental organization (NGO), documented nearly 1,500 killings this weekend, many of entire families of civilians in Alawite communities. The Alawites, a sect of Shia Islam, are being targeted because Assad and his family belong to their group and Sunni jihadis see them as Assad sympathizers. Sharaa has denied that he ordered any attack on civilians and created a “committee” to investigate the crimes.
The HTS demand that it control all armed forces in the country has been taken more seriously than its alleged aspirations towards “inclusivity,” but alarmed many given that the independent SDF is an effective force against the Islamic State, which shares an ideology with HTS. The pro-U.S. militias appears to have come to an agreement with HTS following months of attacks by the Syrian National Army (SNA), a Turkish government proxy, which has hampered its ability to stage security operations against ISIS terrorists.
SDF commander Mazloum Abdi has for months warned that his fighters have had to postpone operations against ISIS because of Turkish proxy attacks.
“This is not a decision but rather a military reality, as the coalition is also preoccupied with the ongoing conflict. Therefore, I stress that if these attacks persist, joint operations will remain suspended,” he lamented in December.
In an interview that month, Abdi warned that “ISIS is now stronger in the Syrian desert. Previously, they were in remote areas and hiding, but now they have greater freedom of movement since they face no issues with other groups and are not engaged in conflict with them.”
The SDF has since asked the United States to place forces on the ground in Syria against the Islamic State, which President Donald Trump has refused to do. It is unclear if the SDF will continue to seek the involvement of the U.S. government against ISIS and Turkish proxies following the agreement with Sharaa.
Abdi represented the SDF at the event on Monday to sign an agreement with Sharaa. The two men shook hands and signed a document that recognized the Kurdish people as indigenous to Syria and granted HTS power not just over the SDF but over state operations throughout Syrian Kurdistan, which the Kurdish people call Rojava.
The document the two signed included eight points, among them a call for a full ceasefire throughout all of Syria and the SDF supporting HTS’s efforts against alleged Assad regime remnants.
“The Kurdish community is an indigenous community in the Syrian state, and the Syrian state guarantees its right to citizenship and all its constitutional rights,” the agreement further reads.
Elsewhere, the document orders the “integrating [of] all civil and military institutions in northeastern Syria into the administration of the Syrian state, including border crossings, the airport, and oil and gas fields,” a boon for HTS.
Abdi and Sharaa also agreed on a generic statement “ejecting calls for division, hate speech, and attempts to spread discord among all components of Syrian society.”
The document as presented by the HTS regime did not address two of the biggest challenges that the SDF faces: the Islamic State attempting to regroup in northern Syria and the Turkish government. Sharaa and HTS have long maintained friendly relations with Turkey, but the SDF reported “intensified attacks” by Turkish proxies against its territories on Tuesday, suggesting the attacks would not be affected by the agreement with Damascus.
“The Turkish occupation and its mercenaries have intensified their brutal attacks on northern and eastern Syria, committing a massacre yesterday in the countryside of Sarrin, which resulted in casualties of three children,” the SDF said in a statement.
Abdi was nonetheless positive in a statement on Tuesday, celebrating the entry into a “transitional phase” to stabilize the country.
“We are committed to building a better future that guarantees the rights of all Syrians and achieves their aspirations for peace and dignity,” Abdi wrote on his official Twitter account. “We consider this agreement a real opportunity to build a new Syria that embraces its components and guarantees a good neighborhood.”
في هذه الفترة الحساسة، نعمل سوياً لضمان مرحلة انتقالية تعكس تطلعات شعبنا في العدالة والاستقرار. نحن ملتزمون ببناء مستقبل أفضل يضمن حقوق جميع السوريين ويحقق تطلعاتهم في السلام والكرامة. نعتبر هذا الاتفاق فرصة حقيقية لبناء سوريا جديدة تحتضن جميع مكوناتها وتضمن حسن الجوار. pic.twitter.com/zUeUgnRzaC
— Mazloum Abdî مظلوم عبدي (@MazloumAbdi) March 10, 2025
The HTS government has presented the agreement as a celebratory occasion, using its Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) to report on allegedly spontaneous street celebrations in response to the deal.
“Al-Assi Square in the city of Hama has witnessed mass gatherings of thousands of citizens celebrating the signing of the agreement to integrate the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) into the institutions of the Syrian Arab Republic,” SANA claimed on Monday. “The crowds expressed their immense joy and great enthusiasm for this historic agreement, which closes a dark chapter in Syria’s history and announces a new phase filled with hope for building a new Syria; a Syria that unites all its people and provinces across the homeland.”
The HTS government has attempted to counter-program reporting of the slaughters of Alawites in western Syria with celebrations regarding the SDF deal. Sharaa himself has distanced himself from the killings and claimed he would approve operations to arrest the allegedly independent abusers participating. SANA reported on Tuesday that HTS forces have arrested four people allegedly involved in crimes against civilians.
