A security agreement between Israel and Syria regarding arrangements in southern Syria appears feasible and possibly imminent. There are obvious short-term gains for both sides in such an agreement, which appear to be providing momentum in the contacts between the sides. Perhaps most importantly, the United States Administration clearly wants a deal of this kind, which would provide a significant diplomatic achievement for Washington in the Middle East context.
The new government in Damascus similarly has a clear interest in an arrangement that would prevent further Israeli military actions on Syrian soil and over Syrian skies.
Well-connected Israeli journalist Ben Caspit, writing at al-Monitor this week, quoted Israeli sources as suggesting that Israel also has a particular incentive in concluding an agreement with Syria at the present time, because it would buy Jerusalem more time and leeway to pursue its offensive in Gaza. The new government in Damascus similarly has a clear interest in an arrangement that would prevent further Israeli military actions on Syrian soil and over Syrian skies.
But while an agreement of some kind appears possible, the future direction and prospects for future stability in Syria remain far less clear. Even as President Ahmed Sharaa is fêted at the UN General Assembly in New York, Syria remains divided, with the Sunni Islamist central government unable to reconcile or provide security and exclusive governance to the country’s large non-Sunni and non Arab minorities. The tempo of events in New York suggests that the US administration has chosen to back the Sharaa government, in the hope that one way or another, Damascus will, in the period ahead, impose its will across the country, and make the problems go away. This prospect, however, remains far from certain.
Large-scale violence in Syria
Syria has already witnessed three instances of large-scale sectarian strife since the toppling of the Assad regime last December. These were: the massacres of Alawi Syrians in the western coastal area in March, attacks on Druze in the Jaramana and Ashrafiyat Sahnaya in April and May, and the large-scale massacres of Druze in Swaida in July. Sunni Islamist supporters of the current government carried out all these actions.
THE ISSUES between the new government and the Alawi and Druze populations remain unresolved, and daily acts of violence continue.
According to one Asyrian Alawi source, “We are in an extremely difficult situation, especially women. Since the 7th of March, there have been documented abductions, and rape cases are happening almost daily. The most recent one was a gang rape in a village very close to my own. These crimes are not isolated incidents but part of a pattern of systematic intimidation and destruction of our community fabric.” The source summed up the situation facing the Alawis as “surrounded by suspicion, demonization, and escalating targeted violence.”
The situation of the Druze in the south remains similarly uncertain. Hundreds of Druze men and women kidnapped during the July violence remain missing, their fate unknown.
A Druze leader quoted by the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said this week that the government in Damascus was obstructing the conclusion of a prisoner exchange deal (armed Druze factions are still holding 34 members of government security forces).
It is unclear what impact a security arrangement between Israel and the Sharaa government would have on the situation of the Druze. Israel is likely to insist on safeguards for the Druze communities in any future arrangement.
The most important obstacle to the consolidation of Turkish-backed Sunni Islamist rule across Syria remains the presence of the Kurdish-dominated Autonomous Administration of North East Syria, and its formidable armed element, the Syrian Democratic Forces.
Support for federalism and even for secession and alignment with Israel remains widespread in the Druze-majority Sweida province, where demonstrators have raised Israeli flags in recent weeks.
Perhaps the most significant and ominous developments, however, are taking place further north.
Currently, the most important obstacle to the consolidation of Turkish-backed Sunni Islamist rule across Syria remains the presence of the Kurdish-dominated Autonomous Administration of North East Syria (AANES), and its formidable armed element, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). The AANES controls around 30% of Syrian territory. Its area of governance is the most peaceful and orderly part of Syria. Its armed force numbers around 100,000 fighters. While multi ethnic in nature, the SDF is built around the core of the Kurdish volunteer Peoples’ Protection Units (YPG).
The question of the integration of both the civil and military aspects of the AANES into the new Syrian governing structures remains unresolved.
On March 10, an agreement was reached in Damascus between the Sharaa government and the AANES. Implementation of the agreement, however, has been slow, and fundamental disagreements appear to remain. Indeed, it is difficult to see how these two fundamentally different bodies can be formally reconciled.
The emergent government in Damascus is conservative, overtly Sunni Arab, and religious in nature. It favors a centralized Syria, with authority concentrated in Damascus. The AANES wants a federal, decentralized Syria, and to maintain its autonomous structures, including its own security formations, albeit within a formally united Syria.
Recent statements suggest that the central government, and more importantly its Turkish backers, are aware of the essentially irreconcilable aims of the two governing bodies in Syria, and intend to contest the issue by force.
Turkish foreign minister and former intelligence chief Hakan Fidan, a close associate of President Erdogan, said earlier this month that “the SDF is stalling in implementing the March agreement with Damascus, banking on renewed instability to improve its negotiating position.” Fidan added that “Turkey will not stand idly by in the face of these threats.”
An unnamed Syrian official, meanwhile, told the Reuters news agency earlier this month that Turkey may back a military operation against the SDF if the agreement for the latter’s integration and disbandment is not implemented by the end of the year. The official added that the US has effectively granted Turkey and its allies in Damascus “freedom of action” in Syria should they wish to undertake such action.
The track record of Islamist governance in the Levant—which so far comprises the former regimes of Hamas in Gaza and ISIS in parts of Iraq and Syria—would not appear to give great cause for optimism.
While this is probably an exaggeration, it is clearly the case that Washington, for now, is backing the Sharaa government and appears to be distancing itself from the SDF, which was its key Syrian ally in the fight against ISIS.
The US interest is straightforward – it wants quiet in Syria. It appears that currently, backing Sharaa and Turkey’s efforts to establish a centralized, Sunni Islamist regime offers the best pathway to this. Since this is the prevailing direction of opinion in Washington, Israel is also adapting to the current atmosphere. It remains, however, deeply questionable whether the emergent regime in Damascus will prove able to maintain the quiet and order that the West is seeking, given its own religious and ideological preferences and those of the forces on which it depends and does not entirely control.
The future fortunes of the AANES and of other minority projects in Syria will depend on the government’s success in this regard. The track record of Islamist governance in the Levant – which so far comprises the former regimes of Hamas in Gaza and ISIS in parts of Iraq and Syria – would not appear to give great cause for optimism. The coming months will tell.
Published originally on September 26, 2025.
