BAGHOUZ, Syria: War is personal. And in Syria, after eight years of a grinding conflict, there are as many stories of loss, dispossession and desperate hope as there are people.
What started as peaceful protests in 2011 asking for government change turned into one of the cruelest modern wars and left a trail of broken lives among the country’s pre-war population of 23 million. Now half are displaced, nearly half a million dead and many live with permanent scars or have joined militias.
The years of war have left their mark on Dia Hassakeh’s 45-year old face. The Arab fighter in the Kurdish-led U.S-backed Syrian Democratic Forces has seen his family suffer on the conflict’s many fronts.
In the early days of the conflict, two of his brothers were wounded fighting in the government military against the armed opposition. In November, another brother was killed by the Daesh group. Now Dia is battling the militants at Daesh’ last holdout, a speck of territory along the Euphrates River near the Iraqi border called Baghouz.
“As Syrians, every citizen has paid the price,” he said, speaking just outside Baghouz. He took the name of his hometown Hassakeh as a nom de guerre when he joined the SDF.
While the Daesh group’s territorial defeat will close one bloody chapter, Syria is still wracked by conflict on the eighth anniversary of its long-running civil war.
Syrian President Bashar Assad’s government appears to have won the war against the insurgency trying to topple him. But much of the country is out of Assad’s hands. The northeast and east, wrested from Daesh, is largely held by the US-backed Kurdish-led forces. But their fate as well is uncertain. Though President Donald Trump announced he would withdraw American troops, the US is apparently keeping a small force, hoping to encourage the Europeans to strengthen their presence to protect its Kurdish allies from their nemesis Turkey, and counter Iran’s expansion in the region.
Militants are still a potent force. The Daesh group has planted the seeds to wage an insurgency. The northwestern province of Idlib — an opposition stronghold throughout the war — is home to other jihadists as radical as Daesh. Nearly 3 million Syrians live in the province, most displaced from other parts of Syria that fell under government control. A Turkish-Russian truce that averted a government assault on Idlib and took pressure off Assad is fraying, threatening new bloodshed.
Assad remains hostage to his massive need for cash to rebuild and his reliance on his allies, Russia and Iran, which are pursuing their own interests. Moscow wants to keep access to the Mediterranean and a position to challenge the West; Tehran is keeping an array of militias in Syria to preserve its domain of influence stretching from Iraq to Lebanon.
And public opposition is not extinguished.
Like Groundhog Day, protesters in southern Syria took to the streets of Daraa, the city where the 2011 anti-government rallies first erupted and where the government only finally managed to re-establish control last year. Men and children this month held day and night protests chanting against Assad after authorities planned to erect a statute for his late father.
“The people want a new president,” protesters chanted, a 2019 version of “the people want to bring down the regime.”
Within this maze of conflicts, players and interests, Syrians try to find their way.
Dia never liked the anti-government protests. When they erupted in 2011, he left Hassakeh — in the northeast of Syria — to live in northern Iraq. There, while two of his brothers fought in the military against the rebels, he ran a home appliances business and sat out the war — until the war caught up with him unexpectedly. The Daesh group, feeding off Syria’s chaos, swept over much of Syria and northern Iraq. Dia returned to Hassakeh and found the militants closing in on his home province.
He volunteered to fight against them to “protect our family, land and country,” he said.
He blames outsiders— militants and superpowers — for breaking up his country. Having fought in the SDF and served in his own government’s army before the revolts, he still believes the country will be put back together and heal.
“Any country that goes through this needs time.”
The irony is he is fighting in a force backed by a foreign power — the US — and led by Kurds determined to stay as separate as possible.
Sefqan, a 29-year old Kurd who commands an SDF unit of more than 200 special forces fighters, has no issues with his country breaking up and the central government losing authority.
“The Baath regime is no good for us Kurds,” he said, referring to Assad’s ruling party. “Our rights were lost in Syria ... Our war is to get out from under of this injustice.” Sefqan fought against Daesh and prior to that other jihadist groups who threatened his hometown, Amuda, in Hassakeh province.
Kurds, who made of 10 percent of Syria’s pre-war population, have long complained of discrimination and oppression by Damascus. Sefqan belongs to an even more disenfranchised community — he’s one of thousands of Kurds who are stateless, because in the past they either failed to convince authorities they were Syrian residents or didn’t take part in censuses in the 1960s and 1970s. Referred to as the “foreigners of Hassakeh,” “the muted” or “the concealed,” they were long deprived of basic rights like education and health services and were barred even from moving from province to province.
“Any group has a state. Why do we the Kurds not have one? To go to schools. To speak our language. To have an airport and travel. I can’t even go to Damascus,” said Sefqan, who spoke on condition he be identified only by his first name in accordance with SDF rules for its commanders.
Now Sefqan and many of his people enjoy new found confidence and clout, with the Kurdish-led administration controlling northeastern Syria and bolstered by natural resources and good relations with the U.S-led coalition.
Sefqan and other Kurds dream of emulating the extensive autonomy enjoyed by Iraq’s northern Kurdistan. He said the Kurdish-led administration has made strides in giving real representation to the community and praised its efforts to introduce democracy.
“If they continue this, it will be good,” he said — though with a note of wariness. Rights groups blame the SDF and the administration for arbitrarily detaining critics, forcing military conscription and controlling what are meant to be representative political bodies.
The SDF has emerged as the most organized non-state actor from the war. It and its political arm have successfully established facts on the ground that will likely be hard to reverse — such as teaching the Kurdish language in schools and setting up parallel governing institutions and their own economic infrastructure.
Ali Ahmed Al-Hassan, a 29-year-old Arab, works trucking crude oil from one of the richest oil fields controlled by the SDF. It is a profitable, but highly risky business, because remnants of Daesh have threatened those helping the “Kurdish economy.”
Al-Hassan lived for four years under Daesh rule after the militants took over his home province of Deir Ezzor. Two of his brothers died, one as a bystander when airstrikes hit an Daesh position and another when he was caught in a cross fire.
“No one has been spared. My two brothers. My two nephews. And about six cousins. All were killed in the war,” he said.
Deir Ezzor has been freed of Daesh, but it’s still insecure. He has to be home before dark because of IS sleeper cells lurking in the countryside.
“We need more than a year” to regain security, he said.
Daesh has left its mark. The locals “have become foreigners. Many of the (foreign militants) married locals. Our children have become Chinese,” he said — his term for the many Central Asian fighters who joined Daesh in Syria.
Dia believes the militants’ presence is a pretext for foreign powers to meddle in Syria.
“Everyone is responsible for the creation of Daesh,” he said. “It was created and put on a pedestal to ruin this country, like the Arab spring. “
“All my family has taken part in this war. Five of us. Two were injured — one lost a leg, and another carries a cane — and one was killed. There is only me and another left,” he said. “So long as we have life and our hearts are beating, we will fight to liberate this country.”
For Syrians, 8 years of war leaves stories of loss and hope
For Syrians, 8 years of war leaves stories of loss and hope
- What started as peaceful protests in 2011 asking for government change turned into one of the cruelest modern wars
- The war left a trail of broken lives among the country’s pre-war population of 23 million
Why were so many Thai farmers among the hostages held by Hamas?
- Before the Oct. 7, 2023, attack by Hamas, Israel had 30,000 Thai laborers, primarily working on farms
- 31 Thais were taken hostages. Thailand’s foreign ministry has said 46 Thais have been killed during the war
BANGKOK: Israel says it has retrieved the body of a 35-year-old Thai hostage who was abducted into Gaza during the Oct. 7, 2023, attack that sparked the war.
Nattapong Pinta was among 31 Thais taken by the Hamas militant group. Thailand’s foreign ministry in a statement Saturday confirmed that Pinta, the last Thai hostage in Gaza, was confirmed dead. It said the bodies of two others have yet to be retrieved.
The ministry has said 46 Thais have been killed during the war. Thais were the largest group of foreigners held captive by Hamas. They were among tens of thousands of Thai workers in Israel. Here’s a look at what they were doing.
Why are there so many Thais in Israel?
Israel once relied heavily on Palestinian workers, but it started bringing in large numbers of migrant workers after the 1987-93 Palestinian revolt, known as the first Intifada.
Most came from Thailand, and Thais remain the largest group of foreign agricultural laborers in Israel today, earning considerably more than they can at home.
Thailand and Israel implemented a bilateral agreement a decade ago to ease the way for workers in the agriculture sector.
Israel has come under criticism for the conditions under which the Thai farm laborers work. A Human Rights Watch report in 2015 said they often were housed in makeshift and inadequate accommodation and “were paid salaries significantly below the legal minimum wage, forced to work long hours in excess of the legal maximum, subjected to unsafe working conditions and denied their right to change employers.”
A watchdog group found more recently that most were still paid below the legal minimum wage.
How many Thai nationals work in Israel?
There were about 30,000 Thai workers, primarily working on farms, in Israel prior to the attack by Hamas.
In the wake of the attack, some 7,000 returned home, primarily on government evacuation flights, but higher wages than those available at home have continued to attract new arrivals.
The Thai ambassador to Israel, Pannabha Chandraramya, recently said there are now more than 38,000 Thai workers in the country.
What happened after some left?
Faced with a labor shortage in the wake of the exodus, Israel’s Agriculture Ministry announced incentives to try to attract foreign workers back to evacuated areas.
Among other things, it offered to extend work visas and to pay bonuses of about $500 a month.
Thailand’s Labor Ministry granted 3,966 Thai workers permission to work in Israel in 2024, keeping Israel in the top four destinations for Thais working abroad last year.
Thai migrant workers generally come from poorer regions of the country, especially the northeast, and even before the bonuses, the jobs in Israel paid many times what they could make at home.
Israel backs an anti-Hamas armed group known for looting aid in Gaza. Here’s what we know
IJERUSALEM: Israel is supporting armed groups of Palestinians in Gaza in what it says is a move to counter Hamas. But officials from the UN and aid organizations say the military is allowing them to loot food and other supplies from their trucks.
One self-styled militia, which calls itself the Popular Forces, led by Yasser Abu Shabab, says it is guarding newly created, Israeli-backed food distribution centers in southern Gaza. Aid workers say it has a long history of looting UN trucks.
Gaza’s armed groups have ties to powerful clans or extended families and often operate as criminal gangs. Aid workers allege Israel’s backing of the groups is part of a wider effort to control all aid operations in the strip.
Israel denies allowing looters to operate in areas it controls.
Here’s what we know about anti-Hamas armed groups in Gaza:
Who are these groups?
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said in a social media video Thursday that Israel had “activated” clans in Gaza to oppose Hamas.
He didn’t elaborate how Israel is supporting them or what role Israel wants them to play. Netanyahu’s comments were in response to a political opponent accusing him of arming “crime families” in Gaza.
Clans, tribes and extended families have strong influence in Gaza, where their leaders often help mediate disputes. Some have long been armed to protect their group’s interests, and some have morphed into gangs involved in smuggling drugs or running protection rackets.
After seizing power in 2007, Hamas clamped down on Gaza’s gangs — sometimes with brute force and sometimes by steering perks their way.
But with Hamas’ weakening power after 20 months of war with Israel, gangs have regained freedom to act. The leadership of a number of clans — including the clan from which the Abu Shabab group’s members hail — have issued statements denouncing looting and cooperation with Israel.
A self-proclaimed ‘nationalist force’
Besides the Abu Shabab group, it is not known how many armed groups Israel is supporting.
The Abu Shabab group went public in early May, declaring itself a “nationalist force.” It said it was protecting aid, including around the food distribution hubs run by the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, a mainly American private contractor that Israel intends to replace the UN-led aid network. Aid workers and Palestinians who know the group estimate it has several hundred fighters.
The Abu Shabab group’s media office told The Associated Press it was collaborating with GHF “to ensure that the food and medicine reaches its beneficiaries.” It said it was not involved in distribution, but that its fighters secured the surroundings of distribution centers run by GHF inside military-controlled zones in the Rafah area.
A spokesperson with GHF said it had “no collaboration” with Abu Shabab.
“We do have local Palestinian workers we are very proud of, but none is armed, and they do not belong to Abu Shabab’s organization,” the spokesperson said, speaking on condition of anonymity in accordance with the group’s rules.
Before the war, Yasser Abu Shabab was involved in smuggling cigarettes and drugs from Egypt and Israel into Gaza through crossings and tunnels, according to two members of his extended family, one of whom was once part of his group. Hamas arrested Abu Shabab but freed him from prison along with most other inmates when the war began in October 2023, they said, speaking on condition of anonymity for fear of reprisals.
Abu Shabab’s media office said he was summoned by police before the war but wasn’t officially accused or tried. It also said claims the group was involved in attacking aid trucks were “exaggerated,” saying its fighters “took the minimum amount of food and water necessary.”
Aid workers say it is notorious for looting
The head of the association in Gaza that provides trucks and drivers for aid groups said their members’ vehicles have been attacked many times by Abu Shabab’s fighters.
Nahed Sheheiber said the group has been active in Israeli-controlled eastern parts of Rafah and Khan Younis, targeting trucks as they enter Gaza from the Kerem Shalom crossing with Israel. Troops nearby “did nothing” to stop attacks, he said.
Sheheiber said that when Hamas policemen have tried to confront gangs or guard truck convoys, they were attacked by Israeli troops.
One driver, Issam Abu Awda, told the AP he was attacked by Abu Shabab fighters last July. The fighters stopped his truck, blindfolded and handcuffed him and his assistant, then loaded the supplies off the vehicle, he said. Abu Awda said nearby Israeli troops didn’t intervene.
These kinds of attacks are still happening and highlight “a disturbing pattern,” according to Jonathan Whittall, from the UN humanitarian coordinator, OCHA.
“Those who have blocked and violently ransacked aid trucks seem to have been protected” by Israeli forces, said Whittall, head of OCHA’s office for the occupied Palestinian territories. And, he added, they have now become the “protectors of the goods being distributed through Israel’s new militarized hubs,” referring to the GHF-run sites.
The Israeli military did not reply when asked for comment on allegations it has allowed armed groups to loot trucks. But the Israeli prime minister’s office called the accusations “fake news,” saying, “Israel didn’t allow looters to operate in Israeli controlled areas.”
Israel often accuses Hamas of stealing from trucks.
What does all this have to do with aid?
Muhammad Shehada, a political analyst from Gaza who is a visiting fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, said he doesn’t believe Israel’s support for armed groups is aimed at directly fighting Hamas. So far there has been no attempt to deploy the groups against the militants.
Instead, he said, Israel is using the gangs and the looting to present GHF “as the only alternative to provide food to Palestinians,” since its supplies get in while the UN’s don’t.
Israel wants the GHF to replace the UN-led aid system because it claims Hamas has been siphoning off large amounts of supplies. The UN denies that significant amounts have been taken by Hamas. Israel has also said it aims to move all Palestinians in Gaza to a “sterile zone” in the south, around the food hubs, while it fights Hamas elsewhere.
The UN and aid groups have rejected that as using food as a tool for forced displacement. The Abu Shabab group has issued videos online urging Palestinians to move to tent camps in Rafah.
Israel barred all food and other supplies from entering Gaza for 2 ½ months , pending the start of GHF – a blockade that has brought the population to the brink of famine. GHF started distributing food boxes on May 26 at three hubs guarded by private contractors inside Israeli military zones.
Israel has let in some trucks of aid for the UN to distribute. But the UN says it has been able to get little of it into the hands of Palestinians because of Israeli military restrictions, including requiring its trucks to use roads where looters are known to operate.
“It’s Israel’s way of telling the UN, if you want to try to bring aid into Gaza, good luck with this,” said Shehada. “We will force you to go through a road where everything you brought will be looted.”
US-backed Gaza group suspends aid for a day over threats, Hamas vows to protect UN aid
- The Hamas-run Gaza government media office said later on Saturday that GHF operation has "utterly failed on all levels" and that Hamas was ready to help secure aid deliveries by a separate long-running U.N-led humanitarian operation
JERUSALEM/CAIRO: A controversial humanitarian organization backed by the United States and Israel did not distribute any food aid on Saturday, accusing Hamas of making threats that "made it impossible" to operate in the enclave, which the Palestinian militants denied.
The Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, which uses private U.S. security and logistics firms to operate, said it was adapting operations to overcome the unspecified threats. It later said in a Facebook post that two sites would reopen on Sunday.
A Hamas official told Reuters he had no knowledge of such "alleged threats."
The Hamas-run Gaza government media office said later on Saturday that GHF operation has "utterly failed on all levels" and that Hamas was ready to help secure aid deliveries by a separate long-running U.N-led humanitarian operation. Hamas also called on all Palestinians to protect humanitarian convoys.
HIGHLIGHTS
• Hamas source says to deploy snipers to protect U.N. aid convoys
• US-backed aid group says to resume distribution on Sunday
• Nattapong Pinta among 251 abducted by Hamas in October 2023
• 55 Palestinians killed in latest Israeli airstrikes -Gaza medics
Israel and the United States have accused Hamas of stealing aid from the U.N.-led operations, which the militants deny.
A Hamas source said the group's armed wing would deploy some snipers from Sunday near routes used by the U.N.-led aid operation to prevent armed gangs looting food shipments. The U.N. did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Israel allowed limited U.N.-led operations to resume on May 19 after an 11-week blockade in the enclave of 2.3 million people, where experts have warned a famine looms. The U.N. has described the aid allowed into Gaza as "drop in the ocean."
Israel and the U.S. are urging the U.N. to work through the GHF, but the U.N. has refused, questioning its neutrality and accusing the distribution model of militarizing aid and forcing displacement. The GHF began operations in Gaza on May 26 and said on Friday so far it has distributed nearly 9 million meals.
While the GHF has said there have been no incidents at its so-called secure distribution sites, Palestinians seeking aid have described disorder and access routes to the sites have been beset by chaos and deadly violence.
Dozens of Palestinians were killed near GHF sites between Sunday and Tuesday, Gaza health authorities said. Israel has said it is investigating the Monday and Tuesday incidents, but said it was not to blame for Sunday's violence.
HOSPITAL FUEL LOW
The GHF did not give out aid on Wednesday as it pressed Israel to boost civilian safety beyond its sites, then on Friday it paused some aid distribution "due to excessive crowding."
The Israeli military said on Saturday that 350 trucks of humanitarian aid belonging to the U.N. and other international relief groups were transferred this week via the Kerem Shalom crossing into Gaza.
Israel makes the U.N. offload aid on the Palestinian side of the crossing, where it then has to be picked by the U.N. and aid groups in Gaza. The U.N. has accused Israel of regularly denying access requests and complained that its aid convoys have been looted by unidentified armed men and hungry civilians.
Israel has in recent weeks expanded its offensive across the Gaza Strip as U.S., Qatari and Egyptian-led efforts to secure another ceasefire have faltered. Medics in Gaza said 55 people were killed in Israeli strikes across the enclave on Saturday.
The Palestinian Health Ministry said on Saturday that Gaza's hospitals only had fuel for three more days and that Israel was denying access for international relief agencies to areas where fuel storages designated for hospitals are located.
There was no immediate response from the Israeli military or COGAT, the Israeli defence agency that coordinates humanitarian matters with the Palestinians.
Meanwhile, the Israeli military said it had uncovered "an underground tunnel route, including a command and control center from which senior Hamas commanders" operated beneath the European Hospital compound in southern Gaza.
The war erupted after Hamas-led militants took 251 hostages and killed 1,200 people, most of them civilians, in the Oct. 7, 2023, attack, Israel's single deadliest day.
Israel's military campaign has since killed more than 54,000 Palestinians, most of them civilians, according to health authorities in Gaza, and flattened much of the coastal enclave.
Israeli Defence Minister Israel Katz said on Saturday the Israeli military had retrieved the body of a Thai agricultural worker held in Gaza since the October 2023 attack. Nattapong Pinta's body was held by the Mujahedeen Brigades militant group, and recovered from Rafah in southern Gaza, Katz said.
Thousands protest in Tel Aviv for release of Gaza hostages
- The crowd gathered at the so-called Hostages Square chanting “The people choose the hostages!“
- Earlier on Saturday, Hamas released a photograph of one of the remaining hostages, Matan Zangauker, appearing to be in poor health
TEL AVIV: Thousands of people demonstrated Saturday night in Tel Aviv to demand the release of hostages held in the Gaza Strip and a ceasefire after 20 months of war between Israel and the Palestinian Islamist movement Hamas.
The crowd gathered at the so-called Hostages Square chanting “The people choose the hostages!” and demanding “a comprehensive deal” for their return, according to a statement from the Hostages and Missing Families Forum.
Earlier on Saturday, Hamas released a photograph of one of the remaining hostages, Matan Zangauker, appearing to be in poor health, with a warning that he would not survive.
His mother, Einav Zangauker, speaking at the protest in Tel Aviv, said “I can no longer bear this nightmare. The angel of death, Netanyahu, continues to sacrifice the hostages,” AFPTV footage showed, referring to the Israeli prime minister.
Noam Katz, the daughter of hostage Lior Rudaeff, who has been declared dead but whose body is still in the Gaza Strip, called for an immediate halt to the fighting.
“Do not send more soldiers to risk their lives to bring back our fathers. Bring them back through an agreement. Stop the war!” she declared to the crowd at the square, the Families Forum said.
On Friday, the Israeli army announced the death of four soldiers in the Gaza Strip and said it lacked 10,000 troops to meet its needs in the Palestinian territory.
Negotiations aimed at ending the fighting, mediated by Egypt, Qatar and the United States have remained unsuccessful so far.
Tal Kupershtein, father of Bar Kupershtein, who was abducted at the age of 21, demanded that his son “come home now!“
“I call on the prime minister to accept an agreement for the return of all the hostages.”
Of the 251 people abducted on October 7, 2023, 55 are still held in the Gaza Strip, at least 31 of whom are dead, according to Israeli authorities.
What will it take for Syria to win permanent US sanctions relief?
- Temporary relief already available, but a lasting end to sanctions depends on several steps, experts say
- They say that without deep reforms and sustained diplomacy, reprieve could be short lived
LONDON: After 13 years of war and international isolation, a glimmer of hope emerged for Syria on May 23 when the US government announced a temporary easing of sanctions, ushering in an opportunity for recovery and reconstruction.
But Syrian officials warn the relief may be short-lived. Without the full and permanent lifting of restrictions, they say, the door to recovery could close just as quickly as it opened, especially with fresh conditions now attached.
Syria’s interim government, led by President Ahmad Al-Sharaa, must navigate multiple US demands, from expelling foreign militants to integrating Kurdish forces and verifying the destruction of chemical weapons.
The road to full sanctions relief is further complicated by political realities in Washington, where a divided Congress remains largely opposed to reengaging with Damascus.
“There is considerable disappointment in Damascus that sanctions are only being suspended temporarily and not definitively,” Joshua Landis, director of the Center for Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma, told Arab News.
“But many of the sanctions were imposed by Congress and will have to be lifted by Congress.”
Following President Donald Trump’s announcement at the Gulf Cooperation Council summit in Riyadh, where he offered Syria “a fresh start” by removing sanctions, the Treasury Department issued General License 25, temporarily suspending key restrictions.
The Treasury said relief was conditional on Syria denying safe haven to terrorist groups and protecting religious and ethnic minorities.
Parallel to this, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced a 180-day Caesar Act waiver to enable humanitarian aid to enter Syria and help restore essential services like electricity, water, and sanitation.
FAST FACTS
• Western sanctions began in 1979 and expanded sharply after 2011 in response to Bashar Assad’s crackdown on protests.
• Arms embargoes and dual-use controls remain, and new targeted sanctions have been imposed on human rights abusers.
• In May, the US and EU lifted most economic sanctions after Assad’s ouster and the formation of a transitional government.
This relief marked the first phase of a broader US strategy aimed at pushing Syria’s interim government to meet a series of sweeping demands.
A US official told AFP that while some Trump administration officials support immediate sanctions relief, others prefer a phased approach, making broader actions conditional on Syria meeting specific targets.
This shift reflects a broader recalibration of Western expectations. “With the fall of the Assad regime, the US and its European allies have clearly stepped back from the demands they once directed at Damascus,” Syrian-Canadian analyst Camille Otrakji told Arab News.
“US Vice President JD Vance has repeatedly stated that his country will not promote democracy anymore. The new priority is stability, seen as a foundation for regional development and future peace agreements.”
As part of that shift, Washington’s earlier insistence on compliance with UN Security Council Resolution 2254 — adopted in 2015 to guide Syria’s democratic transition — has largely faded. In its place, Otrakji said, are more focused and immediate goals.
These include “removing foreign fighters from the Syrian army, and possibly from Syria as a whole, reaching a settlement with the Kurds, and reducing violence against Alawite communities in the coastal region,” he added.
Yet even these goals appear increasingly flexible. On June 2, the US gave its approval to a Syrian government plan to integrate thousands of foreign fighters into the national army, as long as the process remains transparent, Reuters reported.
Despite the evolving benchmarks, progress is underway. Landis explained that Al-Sharaa is already working to fulfill US demands, including the removal of Palestinian militants.
“Al-Sharaa has arrested or expelled the top Palestinian militia leaders and militants living in Syria,” Landis said.
Leaders of pro-Iran Palestinian factions allied with the Assad regime have left Syria under pressure from the new authorities, handing over their weapons as part of a broader US demand to curb Iran-backed groups, two Palestinian sources told AFP on May 23.
Syria is also under pressure to integrate the US-backed and Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces into the national military and take responsibility for prisons and camps holding thousands of Daesh fighters and their families.
“Securing Daesh detention centers will require coordination with the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria and the SDF,” Landis said. “The effort to find a compromise with US-backed Kurdish forces continues, despite some important differences.
“Two Aleppo neighborhoods were recently turned over by the YPG to Al-Sharaa’s forces. More recently, a prison exchange was negotiated between the new Syrian military and the SDF.”
After Daesh’s 2019 defeat, thousands of suspected affiliates were detained in northeast Syria. The largest camps, Al-Hol and Roj, are run by the Kurdish-led AANES and guarded by the SDF.
Security at the camps is fragile, with the SDF stretched by conflict with Turkish-backed forces and resource shortages. A 2023 Daesh attack on Al-Hasakah prison highlighted the risk of mass escapes.
Aid cuts and a potential US withdrawal from northeast Syria threaten further destabilization, raising fears that thousands of Daesh-affiliated detainees could escape, posing a threat to global security.
Recent developments suggest progress. In March, the Al-Sharaa government reached key agreements with the Kurdish-led administration to integrate the SDF into the national army, place Kurdish-run institutions under central control, and jointly manage Daesh detainees.
The first formal steps followed in May, when Kurdish authorities and Syria’s transitional government agreed on a plan to evacuate Syrians from Al-Hol camp to government-held areas. Previously, repatriations had only been allowed to Kurdish-controlled zones.
In Aleppo, the YPG, which is a component of the SDF, handed over the Sheikh Maqsoud and Achrafieh neighborhoods to the Syrian government. These predominantly Kurdish districts had been under YPG/SDF control since 2015 and remained semi-autonomous even after the Assad government recaptured most of Aleppo in 2016.
Landis said similar negotiations are underway with Druze militias in southern Syria. “Arriving at an agreed-upon solution will take time, and both sides are still debating how integral regional militias will be allowed to remain and how much local authority their commanders will have,” he said.
In the past few months, Syria’s Druze community has faced renewed violence and sectarian tensions, particularly in areas near Damascus like Jaramana and Sahnaya.
In late April, a fake audio recording triggered sectarian violence in the Damascus suburbs of Jaramana and Sahnaya. Clashes between Druze militias, Sunni groups, and government forces left dozens of civilians dead. Human rights monitors reported extrajudicial killings by government-affiliated units.
Although local ceasefires and Druze police deployments have eased tensions in some areas, mistrust runs deep. The Druze community continues to demand greater autonomy and security guarantees, resisting government disarmament efforts amid fears of future attacks.
Concerns have been amplified by sectarian killings targeting the Alawite community, particularly along Syria’s coast. Between March and April, armed groups — including some tied to the transitional government — reportedly executed Alawite civilians and torched their homes.
On May 28, the EU sanctioned two individuals and three groups accused of carrying out the attacks. While the EU has announced plans to lift sanctions, foreign policy chief Kaja Kallas said the move was “conditional” and that sanctions could be resumed if Syria’s new government does not keep the peace.
That fragile peace, analysts say, depends largely on how the transitional leadership navigates Syria’s complex social fabric.
“For the new transitional leadership, managing relationships with Syria’s minorities and broader society, each with its own aspirations, will be essential to stabilizing the country and permanently lifting the threat of renewed US sanctions,” said Otrakji.
One of the most delicate challenges, he said, lies in the relationship between Al-Sharaa’s administration and the Alawite community, which held significant power under the Assad regime.
“Establishing a local police or security force may be the only realistic solution to address mutual distrust and security concerns,” Otrakji said.
“A handful of influential Alawite figures are now competing to convince their community, and other relevant actors, that they should play the leading role in protecting and representing Alawite interests.”
As Al-Sharaa struggles to assert control, fears of renewed civil war persist. US Secretary of State Rubio warned in late May that Syria could be only weeks away from “potential collapse and a full-scale civil war of epic proportions.”
Progressing to the next phase of US relief will require Syria to normalize relations with Israel by joining the Abraham Accords.
The Abraham Accords are a series of diplomatic agreements brokered by the US in 2020, normalizing relations between Israel and several Arab states, including the UAE, Bahrain, Sudan, and Morocco.
The accords marked a significant shift in Middle East diplomacy, promoting cooperation despite the ongoing Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Their potential has been undermined, however, by public outcry over the war in Gaza.
Al-Sharaa has publicly signaled openness to diplomacy. “Al-Sharaa has reiterated his interest in arriving at a peaceful settlement with Israel,” said Landis. “He has made a trust-building gesture by handing over the papers of the celebrated Israeli spy Eli Cohen.”
The Syrian leadership reportedly approved last month’s return of 2,500 documents related to Cohen and his personal belongings. The Israeli spy was executed in Damascus in 1965. The archive, held by Syrian intelligence for six decades, included his letters, will, passports, and surveillance photos.
“Word is that Al-Sharaa has also been trying to reach out to Israel through the US to establish talks,” Landis said.
READ MORE
• Israel says retrieved official Syrian archive on executed spy Eli Cohen
• Syria and Israel in direct talks focused on security, sources say
Despite Syrian statements seeking peace, Israel remains cautious. Since Assad’s fall, it has conducted hundreds of airstrikes across Syria and seized control of a UN-monitored buffer zone inside Syrian territory.
Taking advantage of the power vacuum left by Assad’s ouster, Israeli troops advanced up to 15 km into Syrian territory, establishing a “zone of control” and a deeper “sphere of influence” reaching as far as 60 km east, particularly in the southern provinces of Quneitra and Daraa.
In recent months, the Israeli military has established at least nine new outposts and bases, including on Mount Hermon and within the former UN Disengagement Observer Force buffer zone. Israeli troops have also occupied several Syrian villages, including Al-Kiswa, Al-Bakar, Sidon Al-Golan, Sidon Al-Hanout and Al-Adnaniyah.
Still, some see potential for reconciliation. “The majority of Syrians want to have peace at home, and they want to have peace in the neighborhood,” Ibrahim Al-Assil, a senior fellow at the Middle East Institute, told CNN.
“The issue with Israel is indeed complicated, but it’s not impossible to resolve the issue of the Golan Heights, the issue of the borders, the concerns of both sides are deep and real and serious,” he said.
“That means there is a potential for these talks, and there is a potential for having better relationships on both sides, the Israeli side and the Syrian side, and that require both sides to start a long journey of negotiations between both of them, and to believe that a better relationship is possible between both of them.”
Ghassan Ibrahim, founder of the Global Arab Network, believes the real test for Al-Sharaa’s government will be reconstruction.
“The key now is how the government handles the opportunities it’s being given — politically, regionally, internationally, and with sanctions relief,” he told Arab News.
“Will reconstruction be piecemeal, with companies simply seizing contracts, or will it be comprehensive?”
The London-based Syria analyst added: “Ideally, reconstruction should create opportunities for businesses, rebuild infrastructure, improve quality of life, and promote stability — ultimately encouraging refugees to return.
“These are the things that will be judged moving forward.”
