In Syria, a battle of wills that has gone on for almost a year has now turned violent.

The fight is between the Syrian-Kurdish militia known as the Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, and the new interim Syrian government.

What happened?

For almost 14 years of the Syrian civil war, the SDF had been in control of most of northeastern Syria.

When the Syrian civil war started in 2011, the SDF took over territory there that had a Kurdish-majority population as troops — then fighting for the country's brutal dictatorial regime headed by Bashar Assad — withdrew from the area.

The Kurds never fought the Assad regime itself but gained further terrain, including Arab-majority areas like Raqqa, as they defeated the extremist "Islamic State" group. In fighting the "Islamic State," the SDF were allied with US troops.

The area the SDF controlled for over a decade came to be known as the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, or AANES. It's also often referred to as Rojava.

After the Assad regime was overthrown in December 2024, the new interim government — headed by members of rebel militias that ousted the dictatorship — insisted all of Syria be united. It argued the Kurds should return the areas they ran to central government control, as well as merge their fighters into the new Syrian army.

In March 2025, the two sides signed an agreement detailing how that would happen. But that was followed by a lot of debate and very little movement toward making it a reality.

As a result, over the last year, there have been a number of clashes between the SDF and Syrian government forces, with the most intense taking place this past weekend.

Observers say the SDF came out of the weekend worse off, as they lost around two-thirds of the territory they had controlled for over a decade.

On Sunday, a ceasefire was agreed between the two sides but already the next day, fighting continued with Syrian government troops advancing.  

On Tuesday evening, the government gave the SDF four days to agree to integration, promising to uphold the ceasefire during that time, while the SDF said it would not attack unless provoked. It remained unclear whether this would actually stop the fighting.

Who is the SDF?

The SDF was formed in 2015 with US support, and includes Kurdish and Arab fighters. The paramilitary group is dominated by the Kurdish fighters and has strong links to the Kurdistan Workers' Party, or PKK, designated a terrorist group by many countries and the European Union. In Turkey, the PKK fought a bloody insurgency for Kurdish autonomy until announcing that it would disband last May.

The Kurdish people, estimated to number around 30 million altogether, are one of the largest ethnic groups in the world without their own country. Many Kurds are native to the region where four countries — Iran, Iraq, Syria and Turkey — meet and share languages and culture.

That is why the SDF's control of Syrian areas was so significant to many other Kurds. If the SDF kept control, the area could have become a semiautonomous, Kurdish-governed region, similar to nearby Iraqi Kurdistan.

What is the disagreement about?

The disagreement between the SDF and the Syrian government boils down to conflicting visions for the country's future.

The SDF and its supporters want to see a decentralized system of governance, where different communities run their own affairs. The interim Syrian government wants to see the country united and governed centrally, from Damascus. If it allowed the SDF a semiautonomous region, it would also have to acquiesce with similar requests from other Syrian communities.

Neighboring Turkey, which supports the new Syrian government, is opposed to an autonomous Kurdish region with links to the PKK on its borders. It has said it is monitoring events and won't tolerate "any provocations." In the past, Turkey has threatened to take military action against the SDF itself.

Most other issues — such as what to do with the Kurdish paramilitary groups, who controls borders and "Islamic State" prisons, the SDF's alleged support of former Assad regime members, and even which language school exams are held in — can all be connected back to this central disagreement.

There's also a significant economic dimension. Previously Kurdish-controlled areas held much of Syria's oil and gas wealth. Industry observers say that in 2024, around 90% of Syrian oil production was coming from Kurdish-controlled regions.

Who should control Kurdish-majority areas?

The weekend's fighting saw the SDF driven out of the Arab-majority areas they had previously controlled, partially because Arab tribes there turned against them.

But what of the Kurdish-majority areas? At a Monday meeting between Syria's al-Sharaa and SDF commander Abdi, reports say Abdi insisted the SDF be allowed to retain control of them. Apparently al-Sharaa disagreed, and Abdi asked for several days to think about it. Again, al-Sharaa disagreed.

Analysts say a likely problem is that Abdi isn't in complete control of all the Kurdish groups involved and may have needed to consult with other leaders. The SDF under Abdi has tended to be more pragmatic in Syria in general. For example, it has been criticized by PKK leadership for doing oil deals with the US, as a primer for the European Council on Foreign Relations notes.

Analysts have speculated this is why the SDF has gone back and forth with the central government and more recently, why it has maintained maximalist demands, despite the Syrian government announcing state recognition of Kurdish languages and holidays.

Syrian Kurds have also expressed fear about how they will be treated by Syrian government troops and Arabs. It's a valid concern, observers note, based on previous Kurdish experience as well as intercommunal violence and unlawful killing in other minority-dominated areas last year. During recent fighting, hundreds of Kurdish families fled into SDF-controlled areas.

Integration of Kurdish paramilitary groups

Another major issue for the Kurdish paramilitary groups was their proposed integration into the Syrian general army.

The SDF had wanted to hold onto their own units within the army, but the Syrian government was opposed to this. It didn't want a parallel military structure with uncertain loyalty to the central government.

In October, a US-brokered agreement said the Kurdish fighters would be able to merge into the military with full divisions. But the 14-point ceasefire agreement, agreed to by both sides over the weekend, apparently dissolved that plan.

That agreement saw the SDF worse off, Elizabeth Tsurkov, a non-resident fellow at the Washington-based think tank, New Lines Institute, wrote on social media.

Previously, both parties had agreed to mutual control over borders and the integration of Syrian Kurdish fighters into the new Syrian army as full divisions. "Now they have to hand over borders and the SDF will join the Syrian Army as individuals, not units," Tsurkov explained on X.

Edited by: M. Kuebler