Three weeks on, little tangible progress has been made towards implementing the SDF-Damascus agreement, which faces a range of internal and external challenges.
Twenty people were killed and injured when an AANES-sponsored protest convoy approached an area of active fighting around Syria’s Tishreen Dam on Wednesday and was targeted by Turkish aircraft. What happened, and why?
Longstanding disputes between the two largest Syrian Kurdish political blocs stymie efforts to form a unified political vision and send a delegation to negotiate with the transitional government in Damascus.
SDF-held Raqqa city is tense, its nights under curfew punctuated by gunfire and arrests. Residents feel cut off from the rest of Syria, fearing the possibility of partition and a return of IS.
Kurdish and Arab residents of northeastern Syria described joy at the fall of the Assad regime, while views of the new authorities in Damascus and the future of SDF-held areas range from optimism to trepidation.
Hasakah residents who cannot afford costly cooking gas rely on the babur, a traditional kerosene stove, risking death or injury because locally available fuel is impure and highly flammable.
Syrian-Turkish normalization would be a worst-case scenario for the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), which has called rapprochement a “great conspiracy” against the Syrian people.
For journalists, northeastern Syria is a minefield of unspoken red lines. While the AANES says it is committed to freedom of the press, restrictions have proliferated in recent years.
After facing major local, regional and international pushback—including a Turkish threat to invade northeastern Syria—the AANES postponed municipal elections scheduled for this week until August, citing “internal” reasons and "the demands of the political parties and alliances participating."
A sharp decrease in the wheat price set by the AANES sparked protests and has left northeastern Syria’s farmers questioning the economic viability of cultivating their land next season.
