At this point the guarantors of the SDF against further intervention by Turkey and its allies in the North of Syria are gone. Russia is withdrawing, Assad is gone and the United States pulled out of the area long ago towards the South East. Unless some political arrangement is reached, it seems a confrontation is inevitable.
In the South, Arab SDF militias like the Deir-ez-Zur Military Council and others are probably not going to keep up their affiliation with the SDF with opposition forces victorious. Based on some reports this may have already begun.
I would like to hear your guys' thoughts on whether or not the SDF will survive this new upheaval.
Hi Typically media shows the sdf as being the best side of the Syrian civil war, but I have seen that a lot seem to dislike them here (and on the internet on general)
Is there a side of the story that the media doesn't show ? I have always thought that their idea of federal syria was good tbh
Is it a single entity or just a bunch of different entities cooperating?
Is it Kurdish dominated or Arab dominated? I have a clear picture of all fractions in this conflict expect the SDF
They're Kurdish dominated, but they heavily devolved power into local councils, which are often representative of the areas they control demographically (Deiri council's mostly arab, Qamishli one is mostly Kurd, etc etc) so in a way its several councils that act as one entity. They were created initially as a militia tasked with protecting Kurds, and for the beginning phase of the war mostly stuck to Kurdish majority areas. It was only after US intervention against Daesh that they started heavily expanding into non-Kurd areas.
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What I know is, SDF took some areas the regime evacuated, and is in control of the Aleppo airport. But I'm hearing there are clashes between the rebels and the SDF. How bad are they? And where are they happening?
This should absolutely not be happening. We all knew it would; this is part of Türkiye's plan after all, but if we start fighting each other, we'll just give Türkiye, Assad, and ISIS free reign of our land
Although we can label group of individuals under a few alphabets "SDF" or "HTS" we will not know the individual motives and conflicts.
The struggle i think is to see and plan beyond that. The goal should be on of uniting the people and not dividing them. But geopolitics always come in the way.
There is legit fear of the Turkish influence for the kurds which completely valid. I do believe a true syrian will always see beyond labels and ethnicity as this is how we got raised.
But yeah we shall see, i hope for unity, i pray for peace.
Yesterday when the government's forces left Aleppo they handed over a lot of areas to the SDF. As of today all of these areas including the airport and the thermal plant are under HTS or SNA control. Whats left are a few YPG units in some Aleppo neighborhoods and the Afrin Liberation forces in Tel-rifaat. The clashes currently are with the later.
It seems like the SDF realize they are easily disposable to the West and the United States and their harsh rhetoric against the new government of Syria has been increasing which is a sign of desperation.
What do you think is the future of this movement? Do you think they might try to start another civil war to stay relevant?
This is the region that will revive Syria because it has oil. When will it end?
What’s the issue now, I thought that the SDF signed an agreement back In March 10 to integrate within the government? Why all the sudden fight going on?
Was SDF supposed to be the next Assad of Syria during the early weeks of toppling the Assad’s regime? Swarms of Assad’s regime supporters and sympathizers couldn't absorb the shock of their defeat and seeing their 14-year long enemies winning (any Syrian who is against Assad/Baath’s rule) which left them to switch sides that could save their face, disclaiming their loyalty to the regime while looking for any potential opposite side the victorious revolution... They found an answer at an old mild enemy: The SDF (Syrian Democratic Forces). Ex-Assadists becoming SDF loyalists isn't the criteria which made me wonder that potential; it would be shaky foundation to judge an entity/group/party by its support base. In this article, however, I will highlight evidence from the group's own past and present to help us see the overwhelming danger of the SDF on the Syrian people, a danger that might equate that of Assad's due to the similarity in mentality, relationships, form of authority, propaganda, and politics.
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A convoy of American Special Forces and SDF fighters makes a stop during a patrol near the Turkish border in northern Syria on Nov 4, 2018. Credit: Sam Tarling, Telegraph00. What is The SDF Anyway?
The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) is a coalition primarily dominated by the Kurdish militia known as the People’s Protection Units (YPG), which includes an all-female branch called the Women’s Defense Units (YPJ). Both the YPG and YPJ are Syrian front groups for the Kurdistaan Workers’ Party (PKK), a Marxist-Leninist insurgency with aspirations of Kurdish independence from Turkey. PKK leader and co-founder Abdullah Öcalan, from Urfa – Turkey, lived in exile in Syria, where the group received support from the government of Hafez al-Assad, as well as Iran, and the Soviet Union. In 2012 Assad used the group to crack down on Kurdish demonstrators, such as in Afrin. On 2012 March 29, Reuters reported that the Syrian opposition had accused the PYD of "acting as enforcers for Assad" by putting down demonstrations in Kurdish areas. The SDF also includes other militias that are either long-standing PKK allies, such as the armed wing of the Syriac Union Party, or more recent allies from Sunni Arab tribal groups and remnants of small Sunni Arab rebel groups defeated by the Islamic State. The YPG, with around forty thousand fighters, has sought to protect Kurds in northern Syria, an area referred to by Pan-Kurds as Rojava, which has enjoyed a high degree of autonomy. In 2015, the YPG formed the SDF by aligning with Arab and ethnic Turkmen militias in the region, backed by the United States (To see the detailed composition of the SDF, refer to file: understandingwar.org) It’s thought that the idea of inserting Arab groups into the SDF is to use the SDF as an incubator to breed Sunni Arab militias able to take over where Kurdish territory ends and push deep into Islamic State’s heartland, which is in the Sunni Arab tribal region that connects Syria with Iraq. Relying on the Kurds in that region would create resentment among other Syrian and regional allies, and it would risk pushing locals into the arms of the jihadis. Also, it’s not obvious that the Kurds are interested in dying for U.S. interests that far away from their own home areas. The SDF has successfully defeated Islamic State forces in northern Syria, including the recapture of ar-Raqqah City. However, the SDF's composition and behavior pose risks to the long-term success of the U.S.-led anti-ISIS campaign. The SDF's dominance by the YPG, which is considered a terrorist organization by Turkey and the United States due to its links to the PKK, has strained relations with Turkey and local Arab and Turkmen populations. These populations accuse the YPG of ethnic cleansing and forcibly displacing local communities. Additionally, the YPG's political wing, the Democratic Union Party (PYD), aims to create a semi-autonomous federal region in northern Syria, which is opposed by Turkey, Arab opposition groups, and other Kurdish parties. The SDF's advance towards ar-Raqqah City and the expansion of Kurdish influence into traditionally Arab terrain threaten to exacerbate these tensions, potentially leading to a more violent Arab-Kurdish and intra-Kurdish struggle in the region.
A conscripted "fighter" in the SDF(Sources: 1- warincontext.org 2- www.cfr.org 3- understandingwar.org 4- washingtoninstitute.org 5- csis.org 6- irp.fas.org )
01. The Relationship with Hafez Assad
Assad, both the father and the son, took active role in supporting and funding separatist militia groups in Turkey, mainly the PKK since its early emergence, whose leader Abdullah Ocalan was provided a safe sanctuary in Syria to launch his terrorist attacks on Turkey.
Jamil A-Assad, Hafez's brother, taking picture with Abdullah Ocalan and Mirhac Ural in his houseThe second group was the “Syrian Resistance” (formerly known as the Popular Front for the Liberation of the Sanjak of Iskandarun) whose members are mostly from Alawite Arabs of Antioch, the group sought to take back the current-day Hatay province which Syria lost to Turkey in 1939. The group adopts a highly sectarian fascist ideology that aim to reclaim what they call “the Alawite coast”. The militia’s leader Mihrac Ural (or known in Syria as Ali Kayyali) led, alongside the Lebanese Hezbollah forces, the well-known horrific massacre of Bayda village, classified by The Syrian Network For Human Rights as an “Ethnic Cleansing”, in Baniyas in Tartus’ countryside in 2013, wherein his group executed lined up people in the streets, cut limbs and throats, slaughtered and burned over 450 civilians including women and toddlers in revenge for a regime’s loss against an FSA group near the village
Bayda Massacre. Kids executed by Assad's paramilitary group led by Mirhac Ural, 2013( details on the Bayda massacre can be found here: SNHR - Arabic || Video by Jazeera - Arabic || Wikipedia - Arabic || SNHR - English: Blatant Ethnic cleansing in Syria || Human Rights Watch English Report "No One's Left" )
Ural, the sectarian group’s leader, used to brag about his terrorist attacks on Turkey and publicly condemns Ocalan, the PKK’s leader, as fellow “Resistant”.
02. The Relationship with Bashar Al-Assad
With Bashar’s rule Turkey took a different approach, buying the loyalty of Assad instead of pressuring him to stop his funding, and in 2008 Erdogan’s relationship with Bashar reached at its best. Turkey (and simultaneously France) offered enormous economic advantages and paved the way for Syria to enter the international stage and Assad played along, but it didn’t last long enough until he showed his blatant bigotry to his 4 decades-old allies: Russia and Iran, who didn’t only approve of his brutal crackdown on the Syrian revolution that started in 2011, but also directly provided the means to suppress and massacre the Syrian opposition, while offering the entire country for Iranian and Russian forces with free strategic and economic advantages in exchange for a tight power grip on the country.
The SDF has always maintained a relationship with Assad oscillating between neutral and positive [“Our relationships with the regime continue uninterrupted, and we want to resolve the differences between us.” said Mazloum Abdi, the leader of SDF, in 2021 – Source: washingtoninstitute.org .
Throughout the 14-year Syrian revolution against the tyrant regime, 13 of which were full-on armed conflict, the SDF, and its core component: the YPG, had NEVER engaged in an exhaustive fight with Assad forces! In contrary, they fought against rebels who were fighting the Assad’s army, and actively targeted the rebels while they were fighting the pro-regime forces in Aleppo, especially between 2013 and 2016, through this period the rebels were denied access to vital positions held by the SDF which later were given to Assad forces after rebels’ loss in 2016 in Aleppo city except for the Kurdish-majority neighborhoods of Ashrafiye and Sheikh Maqsood. The Syrian rebels in Aleppo used to avoid going head-to-head with them in order to not widen their circle of enemies and to keep societal tensions under minimum levels the YPG used to speak on behalf the Kurdish population which Syrians of all ethnicity had no problem with them for decades.
Also during the “Deterring The Aggression” operation, the operation of Syria’s liberation from Assad’s dictatorship that spanned from 27 November to 8 December, 2024 – The SDF stood by and watched the rebels advancing and never – just like the past 13 years - shot a single bullet towards Assad’s army, instead, when they saw the Assad army running away from Aleppo’s eastern parts and in Aleppo’s international airport, they took it over as well as some other previous army’s posts, but soon enough they retreated when some SNA groups pushed them back to where they came from, so they were literally taking advantage of the situation to expand their territory while offering the rebels no help or benefit of any sort! The only clashes witnessed between pro-Assad forces and the SDF were in 2023 when Assad and Russia sought new outlets of income as captagone trade was monopolized by his brother Maher and his cousin Wassim, drying out any flow of cash to the regime’s banks making the economy even worse. But Russia wasn’t willing to use brute force to make the SDF bend to their conditions or deals, and that could be attributed to the fact that such move would threaten losing a potential ally and risking going face-to-face with the US and the international coalition that funds and aids the SDF, so only small NDF (National Defense Forces – a militia allied with Assad) group clashed directly with the SDF when trying to seize control over few oil plants in Deir Ezzor, the clash ended with a swift surrender. After the fall of Aleppo, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) established "joint" checkpoints with Assad's forces, particularly in the town of Manbij which the SDF had captured with the international coalition’s support. These checkpoints ensured that rebels in northern Aleppo could not advance towards either SDF-controlled areas or Assad's territory. This collaboration occurred after the US had withdrawn 2000 American troops so the SDF hurried to officially request assistance from the Assad regime to counter Turkey's 2018 operations aimed at reducing the presence of PK-affiliated groups near its borders.
In mid-February 2016, the SDF took control of Tell Rifaat, after battles and confrontations with the remnants of the SNA factions, which had been ravaged by the ISIS in the east, the Syrian regime forces in the south, and the People’s Protection Units (YPG) in the west, amidst the displacement of most of its residents to the border with Turkey.
Mare'e, a major town in Aleppo’s northern countryside witnessed a similar scenario, the Syrian rebels received a simultaneous attacks from: Assad, ISIS, SDF – All at the same time! Yet the rebels there were showed furious resistance despite the great losses and maintained control after Turkey mediated negotiations with Russia.
Some of the revolutionary activists assassinated by the SDF: the martyr journalist and photographer Mustafa Hussein, the martyr civilian activist Samer Mallah, the martyr civilian activist Muhammad Madlaj, the martyr civilian activist Qasim Madlaj, the martyr civilian Hassan Madlaj.(Sources: 1- Telegraph ; 2- Enab Baladi ; 3- Enab Baladi ; 4- Enab Baladi ; 5- Issa Al-Kheder, Syrian activist )
• The SDF kept working with Assad’s security apparatus in such loyalty that they even handed over 600 wanted opposition activists in their regions to Assad’s slaughterhouses in a secret deal in 2024, as revealed in an investigation by Zaman Al-Wasl Syrian news agency.
Report by Zaman Al-Wasl of leaked documents showing the SDF handing over 600 civilians to Assad's bloody political prisons- In Nov 14, 2024, “Shellal Kado” the secretary ofof the Democratic Left Kurdish Party in Syria, expects that the Syrian Democratic Forces will turn to the Assad regime if the American forces withdraw from Syria, noting that 'SDF' has been promoting this idea for years that it will be part of the regime's army. [ Source: Shaam Network ]
03. The Relationship With Russia
(will talk about it later in Part 2 of this article, but here are quick points to go over)
Evaluating the Russian Intervention in Syria - Syria in Crisis - Carnegie Endowment for International Peace SDF maintaining both Russian and American bases and patrols in their region04. Extras:
(will be covered in depth in Part 2, but here are few pointers)
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After and during “Deterring the Aggression” military operation launched by the Syrian rebels that led to the final and fatal fall of the Assad’s regime between Nov 26, to Dec 8, 2024; the SDF was attacking rebels. Sniping civilians in newly liberated districts, in Aleppo they killed over 60 civilians passing by the streets as documented the Syrian Network of Human Rights (SNHR), including a child and two women. [ https://snhr.org/blog/2025/02/06/65-civilians-including-one-child-and-two-women-killed-by-sdf-snipers-in-two-months-in-aleppo-city/ ]
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Child recruitment: 1- https://syriaaccountability.org/one-year-after-banning-the-practice-the-sdf-is-still-recruiting-children/ 2- https://syriadirect.org/sdf-continues-to-recruit-child-soldiers-despite-pledges-to-stop-the-practice/ 3- https://english.enabbaladi.net/archives/2024/02/child-recruitment-by-sdf-raises-concerns-in-germany/
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No freedom of press: https://english.enabbaladi.net/archives/2023/11/journalists-in-northeastern-syria-under-heavy-scrutiny-by-the-sdf/
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The Cult of Personality Running Deep in Their Administration: Glorifying the Leader (replace Hafez with Ocalan) in public spaces as well as school books; Ocalan's pictures and quotes are everywhere!
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A group of Regime’s remnants (Assistants of the head of Assadist Military Security’s Branch in Aleppo) are smuggling people into SDF territories (03 / 09 / 2025). They were apprehended by the internal security forces.
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Exploiting Syria’s Resources. The similarity here is obvious for Syrians. Syria is a moderately rich in natural resources, yet the nation was on average poorer than any neighboring country even Lebanon which is much smaller and has way less resources. And the trend continues with the SDF. Here is a good report in Arabic by: SyriaTV - YouTube about the SDF turning the oil revenue into their own personal earnings while their region suffer from lack of basic public services.
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SDF used the "Minorities" card in the same style as the Assad. Here is a testimony by a Syrian lady from the Ismaili community who was lured to a sketchy social meeting that turned out to be an absolute political propaganda feeding machine: https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1AVkgDKXqj/
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An investigation by the journalist network "Raqqa is being slaughtered silently" that reveals the Shocking Testimonies from Survivors of Recruitment Centers Run by the Future Syria Party, Affiliated with the SDF Militia. One of its objective could be toppling Ahmed Al-Sharaa's government: https://www.facebook.com/100064342493001/posts/1148131787341560/
HTS and SDF have had parts of themselves skirmishing for days, even if officially their leadership don’t want to declare each other as enemies. Now there was a small massacre after the SDF tried and failed to hand over a city to “official government control”.
Look, there’s no universe where the SDF will just lay down its territorial claims and the army that controls it. The reality is that de-facto control is determined by which armies secure which territory, when diplomacy is not a factor.
The answer the equation so to speak is that the HTS and SDF MUST engage in purposeful diplomacy before it’s too late.
Edit: I am not particular pro or against SDF. But unless HTS were to effortlessly take over all of SDF-controlled areas without massacring civilians in those areas, an HTS-SDF divide is one axis the Syrian civil war might continue on for another decade. If Syria wants to avoid that nonsense, now is the time to get on the table and negotiate.
As we know the SDF aren't the best when it comes to human rights. The reason why i think any deal will fail is not because of any oil, land, or anything of that sort. Its because the SDF leaders themselves are involved in some pretty heinous crimes, and the new government assured the Syrian people that transitional justice will be in full force against everyone involved in crimes against the Syrian people. The SDF leadership knows this, so this why the SDF propaganda machine trying to delegitimize the current government, not for any legitimate reason, but because they fear for themselves standing for trial. The question next is what happens next? I think Turkey will just force them into Iraq's northren region. I just hope innocent civilians aren't caught in the cross fire.
My question is, for those of you who live in Aleppo or have family and friends in Aleppo, do you guys feel more at ease under Rebel or SDF control? How do you see this development of the situation?
I will clarify that I'm a foreigner and I sincerely don't want to rub any feathers the wrong way, I just want to get a perspective from you guys that are the ones affected by these events.
Take care
SDF gaining any grounds in the north means direct Turkish involvement, and with Trump in the Oval Office in 2mths he'll give Turkey the green light, the whole Turkish operations since 2019 were to keep PKK/SDF away from the north, but now its much easier since both Iran and Russia are busy with their wars
We would much rather have rebels than SDF, SDF is a hardline communist group that has shown it doesn’t tolerate anyone else. SDF works with Iran and Russia and even with regime of Bashar. They will claim anyone against them is ISIS and have executed thousands of people without trials.
I genuinely don't know enough to know if this is true or not, does anyone mind confirming and elaborating on what's happening if possible. Here are the two links I'm referring to:
https://www.facebook.com/share/p/1GnbQSckdx/
https://www.facebook.com/share/15S4DGrht1/
I think its true and that's exactly what should happen.
Syria shouldn't tolerate a country within a country like the SDF. They are essentially the US's and Israel's presence in the country. They should be brought down like Bashar's regime.
either they make a deal or get fucked, we're tired of being devided, our enemy is one,
it's the terrorist regime who fucked us for 50 years
isn't too difficult to finally finish this and open a new page where we live together like all are one?
I know this may be a sensitive topic and I know that the SDF is not perfect, but their ideology seems to be on the less extreme side of the armed factions in Syria (at least during the civil war), and their war crimes, while inexcusable, seem to be far less severe and numerous than other armed groups. I'm not a Syrian so there may be some things regarding the group that I'm not aware of, but I still don't get why the SDF is disliked so much (at least on this site). Explanations for this are greatly appreciated.