By Rob Geist Pinfold, King’s College London
(The Conversation) – The new Syrian government has signed a deal with to integrate the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) militia into the regime, in what is a big step towards uniting the fractured country.
The Hayat Tahrir al-Sham-led (HTS) government has been struggling for legitimacy since it ousted Bashar al-Assad late last year, following more than a decade of civil war in a country riddled with sectarian divisions. The deal recognises the Kurdish minority as “an integral part of the Syrian state” and guarantees “the rights of all Syrians to representation and participation in the political process”.
It’s a timely development for the interim leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa. The deal follows days of violence in the coastal region of Latakia in the west of the country in which more than 1,000 people – mainly civilians – were killed.
The ostensible spark was a government raid to arrest former regime officials who had gone to ground in the region. But there was nothing spontaneous about what happened next. In synchronised attacks, squads of Assad regime remnants ambushed and killed scores of government security forces.
Snipers then pinned down reinforcements and fired on ambulances. Adding to the fog of war, thousands of armed Sunni civilians streamed into Latakia to prevent a coup against the new government.
The security forces have regained control, but at a terrible cost. In scenes that resembled the worst moments of Syria’s civil war, hundreds of civilians were killed. A rally to defend a free Syria had descended into calls for vengeance and ended in a shocking, sectarian massacre. But for anyone watching, all the warning signs had been showing for some time.
Mounting tension
The first indication of building tension was that other anti-Assad rebel groups were beginning to lose patience with the new government, particularly after al-Sharaa announced in December 2024 that all the militias would be dissolved and integrated into the HTS-controlled defence ministry. This was flatly rejected by some factions. Others endorsed it, but deliberately obstructed efforts to move forward with al-Sharaa’s plans for the integration process.
These events directly precipitated the massacres of early March. HTS is a relatively small rebel group. It was quickly overwhelmed by the recent uprising. The government had to rely on other militias – the very same ones it had failed to place under its control.
The result was chaos. There is no evidence that al-Sharaa ordered the massacres, but he could not prevent them. The worst violations appear to have been carried out by foreign Jihadists and the Syrian National Army, a coalition of Turkish proxy militias.
It is doubtful that al-Sharaa can punish those responsible, given that he is reliant on Turkish patronage to stay in power. The uprising and the massacres have only strengthened this dynamic.
File. “Syrian children play outside in Al-Hasakah Province, Syria, Feb. 12, 2019. Continued efforts of the Coalition and its partners maintain peace and stability in the region. (U.S. Army Photo by Staff Sgt. Ray Boyington). DoD. Public Domain.
The new government also failed to delineate a transparent framework for transitional justice. Their reluctance to do so is understandable. After over a decade of brutal civil war, there are few innocent parties in Syria today. It was not only the Assad regime but also HTS and many other rebel groups that committed war crimes.
Equally, Syria’s minorities – particularly Alawites, an offshoot of Shia Islam that comprises around 10% of Syria’s population – were over-represented in the Assad regime’s top echelons. Most rebel groups were Sunni dominated. Any public attempt to settle scores, then, could alienate Syria’s minorities.
This approach backfired in two ways. First, the new government’s security forces conducted secretive operations to root out high-profile regime remnants. Since the wanted individuals were often Alawites, it was these communities that felt disproportionately targeted.
This, in turn, exacerbated the Alawite community’s fears and insecurities. Indeed, it was one of these security sweeps that preceded the recent violence.
Second, without a transparent process of accountability and justice, many Syrians took the law into their own hands. These “revenge killings” were mostly carried out by Sunnis against Alawites.
Consequently, Alawites felt that they could not rely on the government to protect them and many refused to hand in their weapons. These three trends – the Alawite community’s increased alienation, the failure of many of its members to disarm and the Sunni-led extrajudicial killings – all culminated in the recent violence.
Bitter insurgency
But the insurgency did not emerge overnight. In December 2024, a group calling itself the Syrian Popular Resistance declared war against the government.
In the same month, a senior Iranian general advocated that Tehran use its “networks” to “form resistance cells” in Syria. This was not just bluster. Not only was there a steady increase in attacks against security forces in early 2025, but Iran also continued to use Syria as a conduit to supply weapons to Lebanon’s Hezbollah.
Members of these longstanding networks had nothing to gain from turning themselves in. Many committed war crimes for Assad and were wanted men. But they also had financial motivations. These networks were crucial conduits for smuggling captagon, an amphetamine-like drug.
Under Assad, Syria manufactured upwards of 80% of the world’s captagon supply. Increased demand for the drug, in turn, kept the sanctions-hit regime afloat.
Assad may have fled to Moscow, but the smuggling networks stayed put, as did captagon’s customer base. Syria’s new government fought against the captagon trade and weapons smuggling alike. This was a noble aim, yet it also made some form of armed resistance inevitable.
Elsewhere in the country, the SDF’s decision to lay down its arms is a major breakthrough, given that oil-rich eastern Syria has functioned as a de facto independent state since the Syrian civil war broke out in 2011.
But the dynamics that provoked the March massacres have not gone away. The SDF deal gives the HTS-led government an opportunity to focus on addressing the grievances of the Alawite community and on providing a transparent framework for justice and reconciliation, while acting forcefully against pro-Assad remnants.
This is a difficult balancing act, but it is a necessary one. Syria remains a country with too many guns and not enough investment, accountability and good governance.
Rob Geist Pinfold, Lecturer in International Security, King’s College London
This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons license. Read the original article.
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