More than a month into the academic year in northeastern Syria, students enrolled in a number of schools remain locked out of their classrooms as a years-long struggle continues over what and how students learn in areas held by the SDF.
A ceasefire halted clashes between Syrian government forces and the SDF in two Kurdish-majority neighborhoods of Aleppo city this week, but the outburst of violence highlighted how far the two sides are from implementing stalled integration agreements.
Syria’s worst drought in decades has wiped out rain-fed crops and diminished yields across the country, devastating farmers and raising the risk of food shortages.
Planned talks between the AANES and Damascus were postponed this week, while efforts to implement the March 10 agreement remain slow and complex. Two separate delegations from the northeast aim to negotiate, while Damascus still rejects decentralization.
Long-suppressed by the Assad regime, the Kurdish language underwent an educational and cultural revival in Syria over the past decade. In the new Syria, its speakers refuse to lose ground and are fighting for recognition.
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.
