While I was staying in Hasakah, Syria, last April—only a few months after the Assad regime fell—a Kurdish commander of the Syrian Democratic Forces told me he expected to be fighting the new government in Damascus within a year. The new Islamist rulers of Syria, he said, were never going to tolerate the Kurdish-led SDF, America’s ally against Islamic State. Damascus would attempt to destroy this force; it was only a matter of time. He was right. The attempt is under way.
I first visited what later became the SDF-controlled part of Syria in early 2013. I traveled on a dinghy across the Tigris River with several fighters of the YPG (People’s Protection Units). In subsequent years, I watched the Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria stabilize, grow and make tacit alliance with the West. I saw it partner with the U.S.-led coalition against the murderous Islamic State.
But the West’s decision in December 2024 to back the new Islamist authorities in Damascus meant that, for the past year, the SDF has been living on borrowed time. The sudden advance of Syrian government forces across the Euphrates River last weekend violently broke the uneasy tension between the two sides.
Published originally on January 22, 2026.
Read the full article at the Wall Street Journal.
