A-Infos (en) Sirya, Rojava: One Year After the Fall of Assad By Têkosîna Anarsîst (ca, de, fr, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

This article was originally published in heatwave magazine ---- One year 
after the fall of Assad, war has returned to Syria once again. The 
transition agreements signed by Mohammed al-Jolani and Mazlum Abdi in 
March of 2025 have been scrapped. Despite their best efforts at careful 
at times even painful diplomacy, The Democratic Autonomous 
Administration of North and East Syria was only able to delay the 
inevitable war that once again arrived at their gates.
Syrian Democratic Forces flag and Syrian national flag side by side in 
SDF-controlled Qamishli, December 2024. Credit: Delil-Souleiman-AFP
The downfall of a tyrant often becomes a lynchpin in the revolutionary 
process. One year after the collapse of the al-Assad regime in Syria, 
the revolution of Rojava faces tough questions, fresh challenges, and a 
new enemy. To fully understand the state of the revolution in the 
current conjuncture, we reflect on the major developments of the 
previous year.

A new regime on the horizon
On December 1, 2024, Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) regional command 
informed us that a general emergency was being declared across Rojava. 
Two days before Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) had started a new military 
offensive in Idlib and broken through the lines of the Syrian Arab Army 
(SAA), under the command of Bashar al-Assad, near Aleppo. At the same 
time, the mercenaries of the Syrian National Army (SNA, the proxy force 
of Turkey in Syria) started to attack SDF controlled areas. The 
frontlines between the SDF and the SNA rapidly heated up, with attacks 
in the western region of Shehba (near Afrin) and more bombing than usual 
in the occupied strip between Serekaniye and Gire Spi, along the 
contested M4 Highway.1

On December 4, after rumors circulated on social media that the leader 
of HTS had been killed in a Russian bombing, a man known at the time as 
Mohammed al-Jolani dispelled them by releasing a public video from the 
citadel in Aleppo. He was wearing a green military shirt instead of the 
camo uniform and turban he had worn during a press conference announcing 
the formation of HTS in 2017. He had also trimmed his beard, attempting 
to appear more moderate in the eyes of Western media. Two days later, 
when he gave an exclusive interview to CNN, it became clear that 
something was up.

Soon after, on December 8, al-Assad fled Syria for Moscow. The leader of 
the HTS, Mohammed al-Jolani, quickly took his place, receiving 
diplomatic visits and journalists at the presidential palace in 
Damascus. Not tired of the charade, he swapped his olive drab guerilla 
attire for a politician's suit and tie. To complete the transformation, 
he also stopped using his jihadist nom de guerre, exchanging it for his 
legal name, Ahmed al-Sharaa, before finally claiming the Syrian presidency.2

Syrians across the diaspora celebrated the collapse of the regime, 
convinced that whatever came next would have to be better. The 
twelve-year civil war had left over half a million dead and several 
million displaced, while foreign powers competed to impose their agendas 
on the country. The future was still filled with uncertainty, but that 
did not dampen the celebratory mood. There was dancing in the streets, 
and many statues of the al-Assad family came crashing down as people 
celebrated the fall of the regime. Amidst the fear and uncertainty, 
those days became an unexpected wellspring of hope and euphoria. We 
could almost taste freedom and peace, knowing that a brutal 50 year-long 
regime had finally ended.

We closely followed those developments from Rojava, the liberated lands 
within war-torn Syria, where the Kurdish-led revolution had become a 
source of hope, not only for Kurds, but for many Arabs, Assyrians, 
Armenians, and people from other ethnic communities that call Syria 
home. Many international revolutionaries have traveled here over the 
course of the Syrian Civil War, some motivated by the war against ISIS, 
some by the ideals of the Kurdish Liberation Movement. Those ideals were 
called "democratic confederalism," a framework developed by Abdullah 
Öcalan during his years in Turkish prison where he is still captive 
today. The proposal was the construction of a stateless, classless 
society, where communes, cooperatives, and academies are the fundamental 
units of self-administration and self-defense of the people.

In the eight years that we have been in Rojava, we've seen two 
authoritarian systems collapse: first the Islamic State and now the 
al-Assad regime. As new forces line up to fill the power vacuum left by 
al-Assad, it is still uncertain how this collapse will impact Syrian 
society and the Kurdish-led revolutionary project. First and foremost, 
among these new forces is the fundamentalist coalition under Jolani, 
which initially presented itself as a democratic alternative to the 
regime and claimed the legacy of the Arab Spring. Jolani concealed his 
past involvement as a jihadist and adopted a more moderate appearance. 
He was careful not to disclose that he had received funding from the 
caliphate of the Islamic State, Abu Bakr al-Bagdadi, to establish 
al-Qaeda in Syria and cautiously crafted a palatable image of himself as 
a reformer who could stabilize a chaotic war-torn region. Jolani's star 
quickly rose, while Assad's regime became a thing of the past in a 
matter of weeks. We were entering a new reality, with a new autocratic 
regime on the horizon. 3

The Blitz that swept Syria
In November 2024, a coalition of military groups in Idlib, located in 
northwestern Syria, led by Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS)4 launched a broad 
military operation against Bashar al-Assad's regime. This offensive, 
backed by the Turkish state and with tacit support from Western powers, 
used locally produced drones on a scale never seen before in Syria. 
Bashar al-Assad's allies were distracted elsewhere: Russia was busy in 
Ukraine, and Iran was focused on the Israeli offensive against Hezbollah 
in Lebanon and Hamas in Gaza. Of course, this is a simplification, and 
much more could be said about the role of different geopolitical forces 
in Syria. Nevertheless, the result was that the HTS advanced through the 
lines of Assad's forces in a matter of weeks.

Current territory held by SDF as of January 26th, 2026. Source: 
https://rojavainformationcenter.org/2026/01/20-01-emergency-update

Although there were some clashes in Aleppo,5 within the first few days 
it became clear that HTS was focused on fighting the regime army rather 
than the SDF forces stationed in Ashrafiya and Sheikh Makhsoud (the 
majority Kurdish neighborhoods in Aleppo). After expelling regime forces 
and their military supporters from Aleppo, HTS soldiers moved forward 
towards the cities of Hama, Homs, and finally Damascus. The conscripted 
soldiers of the regime, cold, hungry, and scared of the approaching 
enemy, deserted their barracks and fled. Russia attempted a handful of 
symbolic air attacks alongside a few scattered responses from Hezbollah, 
but the offensive did not meet significant resistance anywhere. We were 
cautiously optimistic; it appeared that the future rulers of Syria were 
uninterested in picking fights with the SDF. Now, a year later, the 
cards have been dealt, and we have a better sense of our hand.

Turkey, who would be the ultimate dealer, has never relented in its 
hostility towards Rojava, and it used the chaos of the blitz to attack 
it. The SNA, trained and armed by the Turkish state, with salaries paid 
in Turkish liras, attacked the region of Shehba and its main town Tal 
Rifaat. That region was home to several refugee camps housing those who 
escaped the invasion of Afrin back in 2018. These refugees were 
displaced from their homes once again under the threat of executions, 
kidnappings, and looting standard practice for Turkish mercenaries. They 
fled towards other regions under the control of the SDF, unaware that 
they would be displaced again a year later when the SDF was forced to 
retreat even further. Shortly after the occupation of Tal Rifat, the SNA 
moved on to attack Manbij. Kobane, a city symbolic for its resistance 
against ISIS in 2015, strategically located on the other eastern side of 
the Euphrates River along the Turkish border, was now in the crosshairs 
of the SNA.

On the road from Tishrin dam towards the front, with some of the cars 
destroyed by enemy drones, April 2025.

Qereqozah Bridge and the Tishrin Dam, crossings over the Euphrates which 
separates Manbij and Kobane, became vital choke points where the SDF was 
able to break the advance of SNA. Waves of attacks were launched against 
both bridges, but the SDF together with the support of civilian convoys 
that travelled to support the resistance held strong. People from across 
northeast Syria vigilantly guarded the dam for months, manifesting the 
classic antifascist watchword from the Spanish Civil War, "No Pasaran." 
The defense of Tishrin serves as a powerful illustration of successful 
resistance, reflecting the unity and maturity of a revolutionary 
movement where military and civilian political struggles were 
inextricably intertwined.

Of course, resistance came with a price. For over 3 months, civilian 
convoys that were organized across the DAANES to support Tishreen Dam 
became the target of Turkish drones and mortars. More than 20 civilians 
were killed, among them several important figures from Kurdish civilian 
life, including Kurdish comedian Bave Teyar and two Kurdish journalists, 
Cihan Bilgin and Nazim Dastan. After a ceasefire agreement in March 
2025, the civilian convoys to Tishreen Dam ended. The Turkish state's 
opportunistic attempt to gain control of northeast Syria while HTS 
advanced on Damascus had failed. The revolution in Rojava had survived 
and looked like it might have a seat, albeit a short lived one, at the 
table of the new coalitional power emerging in Syria.

A night demonstration on Tishrin dam, April 2025. Credit: TA

Shortly after Bashar al-Assad fled the country, the Syrian Salvation 
Government, an administrative body linked to HTS that was running Idlib, 
relocated to Damascus. There was some minor reshuffling of names after 
negotiations and agreements with other forces, accompanied by a handful 
of scandals. One of the most egregious was a video from 2015 where the 
new Minister of Justice, Shadi Mohammad al-Waisi, appeared on the 
streets of Idlib reading death sentences for women accused of 
prostitution. These women were shown being shot in the head after he 
finished his verdict. Others included a statement by Aisha al-Dibs, the 
only female member of the transitional government, who called on women 
"not to go beyond the priorities of their God-given nature". These 
positions are in direct opposition to the women's revolution in Rojava, 
whose central slogan "Jin, Jiyan, Azadi" (Women, life, Freedom), rejects 
state violence against women.

On January 29th the main military leaders of HTS and SNA groups gathered 
in the presidential palace of Damascus to celebrate what they called the 
"Conference for Announcing the Victory of the Syrian Revolution"  . SDF 
was not invited, nor were the armed Druze groups or other armed factions 
in Syria. In that closed conference, al-Jolani was declared president of 
Syria, only one month after the US removed a bounty of 10 million 
dollars from his head.


Al-Jolani and Donald Trump. Public domain.
Agreements and massacres
After a violent winter filled with military offensives, the situation 
seemed to have settled down and negotiations began. The prior leader of 
HTS sitting in the presidential palace was an important victory for 
Turkey, even though its proxy force had failed to push the DAANES to the 
east of the Euphrates. Israel, also seeing an opportunity, launched the 
biggest air campaign in Israeli history. A series of air strikes at the 
end of February wiped out all of the Syrian Arab Army's remaining 
advanced weaponry, with nearly 90% of military capabilities reportedly 
destroyed. Air defenses, munitions factories, and the navy were the 
primary targets, but many armored vehicles and military bases were also 
demolished. The IDF also expanded their occupation of the Golan Heights 
to a "buffer zone" in southern Syria under the guise of blocking 
potential Hezbollah supply routes in reality, making sure that Syria's 
new rulers would not pose a threat to Israel.

In the midst of this, HTS and SDF attempted to create agreements for 
coexistence. Mazlum Abdi, the commander in Chief of the SDF, and 
al-Jolani, the provisional president of Syria, had been in communication 
to avoid direct confrontation in Aleppo where they both had forces 
present. During the more than decade long conflict, DAANES had been the 
most stable region in Syria, both politically and economically. During 
this time, the Kurdish-led administration had never called for secession 
from Syria, but for a democratic and federated country. In early 2025, 
the main administrative buildings of the DAANES began displaying the 
Syrian independence flag next to the Rojava flag, a gesture signaling 
their desire to build a new Syria rather than pursue a secessionist 
agenda. Many demonstrations were organized in major cities like 
Qamishlo, where SDF's flag and the independence flags flew side by side.

SDF also made some military advances in the winter following the 
collapse of the regime, taking control of some areas in the south of 
Raqqa and the city of Deir Ezzor. Such advances were needed to counter 
the increasing level of activity from ISIS sleeper cells, who were also 
taking advantage of Assad's collapse to raid towns and military depots 
in the central desert areas of Syria. Deir Ezzor's oil fields are 
strategically valuable to the US and as such the US agreed to offer 
conditional support to the SDF to ensure those fields did not become a 
revenue stream for ISIS once again. The oil fields have also become a 
priority for the new administration in Damascus, who hope to generate 
enough profits to fund the fragile new state. As an overture during the 
peace negotiations, the SDF made the concession of handing over Deir 
Ezzor, with the hope of building some goodwill. Such steps were also 
necessary to calm tensions with Turkey, who was openly threatening to 
enter Syria and wipe out the Autonomous Administration. While this 
bought the SDF time, in the long run these concessions and gestures did 
not win them any lasting goodwill.

TA militants in an SDF tunnel at an undisclosed location, January 2025. 
Credit: TA

Meanwhile, the provisional government in Damascus was in a strong 
position: they could count on the full support of Turkey, as well as 
formal recognition from many Arab and Western states. This provided them 
with the legitimacy to rule as the new authority in Syria and paint 
their power grab as a necessary step to break free from the brutality of 
the Assad regime. It was no secret that their military force was 
comprised mainly of fundamentalist Sunni Muslims, leaving other 
minorities uncertain about what might happen next. The transitional 
government staged symbolic meetings with religious figures from these 
different minorities to deter such fears, promising peace and stability 
for all ethnic groups in Syria. However, it soon became clear that these 
promises were merely smoke and mirrors.

At the beginning of March 2025, HTS started military operations in the 
coastal areas of Latakia, where majority Alawite communities live.6 HTS 
soldiers unleashed attacks against the Alawite population, with brutal 
sieges and executions of civilians. SNA brigades joined those 
operations, many of them making public calls for "Jihad against 
infidels." Entire villages were raided, with the brutality broadcast 
over social media. Those videos revealed to the outside world what many 
already suspected: despite their portrayals in Western media, the new 
rulers of Syria were far from the democratic reformers rebelling against 
a tyrannical regime. To protect his newly minted image as a moderate and 
reformer, Al-Jolani called for investigations into the massacres, a 
clever diversion to calm tensions and delay any consequences for the 
sectarian violence orchestrated by his soldiers.

On March 10, while those massacres were still ongoing, a symbolic 
ceremony with Mazlum Abdi and al-Jolani was held in Damascus. They 
signed a memorandum of understanding, that emphasized their joint will 
to work together for a peaceful and inclusive Syria. That agreement was 
intended as a cornerstone for further negotiations, establishing 
dialogue committees with the task of developing a proposal by end of the 
year. These talks were to define how the institutions of northeast Syria 
civilian and military were to be integrated in the new Syrian state. 
Included in the negotiations were Kurdish rights and the right of return 
of people displaced by the war. However, the language employed was vague 
and the memorandum was not legally binding. It was just a statement of 
good intentions and cooperation nothing more. The deadline decided for 
implementation was by the end of the year. But as the year closed, we 
saw that different plans had been drawn up in its place.

Integration and Dissolution
Until very recently, the ongoing negotiations were a lively topic of 
discussion in the streets of northeastern Syria. Everyone was tired of 
war. Everyone had lost relatives and loved ones at the frontlines. 
Although it was clear that any agreement with the provisional government 
would require significant concessions, there was also a consensus that 
giving up most of the advances made during the revolution would be 
unacceptable. The question then became how much DAANES was willing to 
concede to avoid a new war one that would ultimately be forced upon them 
despite their attempts at diplomacy. Now, in hindsight, it appears that 
the lines of concessions were always receding towards the redlines of 
the Kurdish movement.

TA militants playing chess on the front lines, February 2025. Credit: TA

The negotiations for integrating into the new Syrian state focused on 
two key processes: the integration of SDF forces into the military and 
the reorganization of the civilian administration. Damascus has demanded 
that the SDF dissolve and integrate its members as individuals into the 
new Syrian Army. In a counterproposal, the SDF insisted that it join the 
Syrian army as regiments that abided by the command structure of the 
Syrian Army. This counterproposal would ensure that the armed forces of 
northeast Syria remained intact. One of the most important yet still 
unresolved questions in this integration process is the fate of the 
Women's Defense Forces (YPJ). The YPJ are the vanguard of the women's 
revolution, empowering women not just to take arms, but also to assume 
leadership in civilian and military roles. The Islamist government in 
Damascus has no interest in gender equality or women's freedom, and this 
is a point on which the SDF is not willing to budge.

The civilian administration raised its own questions, such as the fate 
of the co-chair system implemented in the DAANES to ensure equitable 
leadership in civilian institutions. In addition to gender 
representation, the co-chair system also promotes ethnic and religious 
diversity, creating a system in which one can find Kurdish women and 
Arab men working together as co-presidents on regional councils. Another 
major point of contention was students' right to education in their 
mother tongue. Since declaring autonomy, schools in Rojava, from 
pre-schools to higher education, have been studying in Kurdish. Indeed, 
the struggle over linguistic freedom has been central to the Kurdish 
movement that is active in four countries (Turkey, Syria, Iraq and 
Iran). Al Jolani's government would like to limit Kurdish to a 2 
hours-per-week foreign language elective.

Much has been written about Democratic Confederalism, so we won't 
elaborate more here. But briefly, DAANES was based on local communes 
that come together in regional councils. These regional councils then 
form canton institutions and a federal congress where delegates 
coordinate their policies and work.7 It is a complex system based on the 
idea that implementing true democracy necessitates a formal ground-up 
decision-making process that limits centralized state power. It 
encourages people to take responsibility over their lives and find 
solutions to social problems through collective discussion and action.

With three regional powers vying for control, what happens in Syria 
rarely stays in Syria. In particular, the interests of the Turkish state 
have negatively impacted the negotiations in Damascus. For Erdogan, the 
revolution in northeastern Syria is a threat to his Neo-Ottoman 
imperialist agenda. He would prefer a Syria that is a servile Turkish 
protectorate. The Turkish state has fought a protracted war against the 
Kurdish liberation movement, both within and outside its borders. The 
military operations in Afrin during 2018 and along the Gire 
Spi-Serekaniye strip in 2019 established Turkish-occupied regions in 
Syria, with Turkish soldiers on the ground and Turkish language taught 
in schools. Turkish diplomats have not concealed their desire to control 
these territories, like they control Northern Cyprus and the Caucuses. 
Meanwhile, Israel is also moving deeper into Syria, expanding out of the 
occupied Golan Heights into the southern part of the country. Squarely 
within the orbit of Turkey and the US, it's no surprise to hear that 
al-Jolani is considering joining the Abraham accords and normalizing 
relations with Israel.

Map of Syria and its neighbors prior to January offensive. Source: 
https://www.economist.com/middle-east-and-africa/2025/01/21/how-turkey-plans-to-expand-its-influence-in-the-new-syria

Amid these delicate and multipolar negotiations, there came an 
unexpected announcement. After a series of negotiations between Abdullah 
Öcalan the imprisoned leader of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK)8 and 
the Turkish state, the PKK announced that it would be dissolving. This 
was a surprise for many, and the reasoning behind the decision is still 
hotly contested. But one thing that all parties acknowledge is that the 
talks between Öcalan and Turkey had as much to do with Syria as they did 
with Turkey.9

As previously discussed, Syria is torn between at least two powers: 
Turkey in the north and Israel in the south. As a result of this tug of 
war, Kurdish autonomy achieved in Syria exists in a perpetually fragile 
state, even more so now. Israel has recently made gestures towards the 
Kurdish people, although it has not offered material support as it did 
to the Druze people in the south after attacks they suffered.10 Israel 
took advantage of these attacks to present itself as a defender of the 
Druze, using this to further legitimize their expansion into southern Syria.

After the collapse of the Assad regime, Hezbollah's Syrian smuggling 
networks crumbled. The Israeli air attacks on Iran in June last year 
pointed to Netanyahu's eagerness to take down the Iranian regime. IDF 
planes bombed numerous military facilities in northwest Iran which 
border Kurdish regions, leading some to speculate that this might be an 
attempt to instigate a Kurdish uprising that would deepen Iran's 
instability. Kurds are eager for a different Iran but are not eager to 
fight as a fifth column in a war started by Israel. With Iran recently 
neutered, the two major powers left in Middle East are Israel and 
Turkey. Some believe it is only a matter of time before a conflict 
breaks out between Turkey and Israel. One geopolitical bargaining chip 
in the latest peace process in Turkey has been this potential future 
conflict. Kurdistan is right in the middle of both countries. Öcalan is 
aware that if war breaks out between them, Kurds may be pushed into 
another deal with the devil for survival, this time with Israel. 
Avoiding becoming pawns in a Zionist game was one of the chief reasons 
Öcalan gave for initiating the peace process between Kurdistan and Turkey.

Earlier attempts to start peace negotiations, including in the early 
2000s and again in 2013, taught the PKK bitter lessons, as has 
witnessing the tragic negotiations between FARC and the Colombian state. 
They are not naïve enough to think that peace will be an easy process. 
The disarmament of the PKK has begun, but it will not fully materialize 
until the Turkish state demonstrates its willingness to resolve the 
Kurdish question through political means. The Kurdish guerrillas will 
keep their weapons as means of self-defense, with the full understanding 
that self-defense is a fundamental necessity of survival, the only thing 
that can protect them from annihilation. The SDF has already stated that 
they welcome the peace process, but that the call for disarming the PKK 
does not concern them and that they do not plan to lay down their own 
weapons. The dissolution of the PKK was therefore a political move, not 
a military one. However, given the state of recent events in Syria, it 
is increasingly unclear if the agreement between Turkey and the PKK will 
survive.

Retreating to Rojava
One year after the fall of Assad, war has returned to Syria once again. 
The transition agreements signed by Mohammed al-Jolani and Mazlum Abdi 
in March of 2025 have been scrapped. Despite their best efforts at 
careful at times even painful diplomacy, the Democratic Autonomous 
Administration of North and East Syria was only able to delay the 
inevitable war that once again arrived at their gates.

The current sequence of events began in early January, when two historic 
Kurdish neighborhoods in Aleppo Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafieh were 
brutally attacked by the new army of the Syrian transitional government. 
These neighborhoods, although geographically isolated from DAANES, had 
been self-governed like much of Rojava for over a decade. The violence 
displaced 150,000 Kurds and Syrians, with the attackers killing at least 
24 people and committing numerous acts of brutality. Overwhelmed, the 
SDF negotiated a ceasefire and withdrew from Aleppo. This ceasefire 
would be the first in a series of broken agreements. Jolani's forces 
quickly widened their offensive, ambushing the SDF as they withdrew. The 
SDF and its wider project of self-governance disintegrated as Arab 
populations and tribal leaders distanced themselves, hoping to avoid the 
ire of Damascus.

On January 19, Mazlum Abdi once again travelled to Damascus and met with 
Mohammed al-Jolani and other representatives of the current government. 
Emboldened by the partial withdrawal of the SDF, al-Jolani demanded the 
complete integration of the SDF as individual soldiers rather than units 
and the dissolution of DAANES into the Syrian state; in exchange, he 
promised a permanent ceasefire. Hoping to avoid a widening conflict, 
Mazlum Abdi agreed to the ceasefire. Abdi asked for a period of 5 days 
to confer with other heads of SDF and DAANES. This was rejected attacks 
on the SDF continued. Ultimately, the Syrian transitional government 
retook the cities of Raqqa and Tabqa, which had been liberated from ISIS 
and governed by the SDF since 2017. These were important majority Arab 
centers in the Autonomous Administration, demonstrating their commitment 
to pluralistic ground-up democracy in Syria. They also took the 
strategic Deir el-Zour oil fields. This rapid advance brought al-Jolani 
to the outskirts of the revolution's stronghold, Kobane the proud yet 
scarred city that has stood as a symbol of the victory over ISIS since 
2015. Currently, the attack has ended in a stalemate, but the territory 
once under the aegis of DAANES has been reduced by nearly 80%, leaving 
only the majority Kurdish region under the Autonomous Administration: 
Rojava.

The zones previously controlled by the SDF housed several prison camps 
holding ISIS members and their families, such as al-Hol and another in 
the town of Sheddadi. These camps have been part of the cynical bargain 
with the US and European powers. What was to be done with the worst of 
the worst prisoners, some of them European citizens? The SDF had guarded 
the camps for nearly a decade, but during the war and ensuing retreat, 
they were abandoned to the HTS, whose members often share the jihadist 
ideology of the prisoners. Scenes of detainees from these prisons 
escaping or being "liberated" quickly spread, along with footage of 
someone flying the ISIS flag in what was once the capital of the 
caliphate, Raqqa. These images sparked fear and shock among the Kurds 
and all who had experienced this brand of extreme jihadi fundamentalism. 
Although Trump declared his full confidence in HTS's ability to guard 
the prisons, this is clearly a farce, as American planes have been 
airlifting thousands of prisoners out of Syria for safekeeping in Iraqi 
prisons.

With Assad gone, Israel unleashed, and the Turkish state asserting its 
regional dominance once more, it appears that the imperial powers have 
decided that their use for the Kurdish liberation movement has come to 
an end. The relationship was bluntly stated on January 20 as "expired" 
by Tom Barrack, who is both the US ambassador to Turkey as well as the 
special envoy to Syria, making clear his strategic role in the region. 
This has been presented as a betrayal by many commentators, but such 
abandonment is not unfamiliar to the Kurds. Undoubtedly, they have 
planned for this tactical, not political, alliance to come to an end. 
The longer-term question facing the movement is why the project of 
Democratic Confederalism did not take hold among Arab populations living 
under the Autonomous Administration. Had the revolutionary ideology of 
the Kurdish Liberation Movement taken root, the current isolation and 
rapid defection of Arab participants in the SDF might have been prevented.

What comes after survival?
The future of Rojava is less clear than it was a year ago and laden with 
new challenges. Neighboring states with imperialist ambitions are once 
again vying for control of a Syria that is primed for a war between 
Al-Qaeda in a three-piece suit and the Kurdish Liberation Movement. 
Given the current crisis and the perpetually unstable nature of Turkish 
politics, it is also unclear if the PKK will forego its dissolution. 
Yet, despite this uncertainty, the Kurdish Liberation Movement remains 
committed to its aims. The social and political proposals they have 
articulated present the only way towards a liberatory coexistence of 
peoples who have been pitted against each other for more than a century. 
These ideas are not only valuable for Syria and the Middle East, but 
also for all revolutionaries across the world trying to overcome the 
confines presented by nationality, ethnicity, or religion. Faced with an 
existential threat, the liberation movement in Rojava is planning for 
survival by redefining itself, just as it once challenged the old limits 
of democratic centralism and national liberation with democratic 
confederalism and internationalism. The revolution will do everything it 
can to defend itself. If it can survive this moment, perhaps it can 
spread beyond Rojava, and build a new world out of the ruins of Syria.

Têkosîna Anarsîst

Têkosina Anarsîst is an anarchist organization active in northern Syria. 
For almost a decade, they have practiced international solidarity 
through working and fighting alongside the revolutionaries of the 
Kurdish Liberation Movement. Read more about them at 
https://tekosinaanarsist.noblogs.org/

December 2025 January 2026

Footnotes
The M4 is strategically important because it connects the western and 
southwestern regions of northeast Syria for trade and transport and has 
long been a focus for Turkey during the Civil War.
A note on names: Mohammed al-Jolani is the nom de guerre that Ahmed 
al-Sharaa operated under when he was a militant in al-Qaeda. Here, we 
are sticking to al-Jolani rather than obscure his origins.
For an earlier analysis and evaluation, you can read our article 
published in April "Between autonomy and integration: Rojava navigating 
the new Syria", written for UCL journal. 
https://tekosinaanarsist.noblogs.org/between-autonomy-and-integration-rojava-navigating-the-new-syria/
To reemphasize, HTS is the "moderate" re-branding of al-Nusra, which was 
the chapter of al-Qaeda in Syria.
For an evaluation of these early days, we recommend Leila Al-Shami's 
article in Lundi Matin: 
https://autonomies.org/2024/12/leila-al-shami-the-future-of-syria-will-be-decided-by-the-syrians-and-nobody-else/
Alawites are Muslim and branch off the Shia denomination instead of the 
Sunni one. The Assad family is Alawite, as well as many high-ranking 
figures of the regime, which has fostered much resentment over decades.
For those interested in knowing more about the inner process of the 
DAANES, we recommend the dossier "Beyond the frontlines The building of 
the democratic system in North and East Syria" from the Rojava 
Information Center (RIC), published in 2019. 
https://rojavainformationcenter.org/2019/12/report-beyond-the-frontlines/
The PKK, Kurdish Workers Party was formed in Turkey during the late 70s 
under the leadership of Abdullah Öcalan, conducted its first actions in 
the mid 80s and endured a heavy war in the 90s. It has managed to stay 
active over decades despite heavy setbacks including the imprisonment of 
its leader in 1999.
Comrades writing for Crimthinc have made a thorough analysis in "Making 
sense of the PKK self-dissolution," which explains the wide range of 
conditions that lead to such situation. 
https://crimethinc.com/2025/07/13/making-sense-of-the-pkks-self-dissolution-what-does-it-mean-for-the-middle-east
The coastal massacres of Alawites in March were followed by more 
massacres against the Druze population in April. The Druze people are an 
Arabic-speaking ethnoreligious group originating from 11th-century 
Ismaili Shiism, with major populations in Syria, Lebanon, and Israel 
plus smaller groups in Jordan.

https://tekosinaanarsist.noblogs.org/category/article/
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