In a comprehensive analysis on the attacks against Rojava written for the American think tank Atlantic Council, Prof. Holmes noted that the interim government in Damascus has deliberately violated the agreements it signed with the Kurds.
Prof. Holmes, who also serves as the acting director of the U.S. Foreign Area Officer Program, explained in detail how the interim Damascus government under the leadership of al-Sharaa systematically invalidated the agreements made with the Kurds, creating deep mistrust on the ground.
Prof. Holmes wrote: “The March 10 agreement between Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) commander Mazloum Abdi and interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa was intended to integrate the SDF into the new Syrian army. The Aleppo Agreement, signed in Syria’s second largest city in April, was the first practical implementation of the March 10 agreement, because it entailed the integration of local police forces: the Kurdish Asayish and Internal Security Forces linked to the interim government.”
She added: “The Kurdish Asayish and Arab Internal Security Forces were already operating shared check points in Aleppo. In October, the SDF has submitted a list of their commanders who could serve in the Ministry of Defense in Damascus, as part of integration talks. And in other parts of Syria, the SDF and certain units of the new Syrian army aligned with Damascus had already begun coordinated activities under US supervision, as I learned during fieldwork in Syria in December.”
But “on January 6, Damascus launched an assault on Aleppo,” she continued, adding: “Some 150,000 people were displaced just in two days of fighting, according to the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs. An estimated 1,200 Yezidi families were caught up in the fighting, some of whom were resisting what Iraqi Member of Parliament Murad Ismael described as a “brutal attack” by the factions of the Damascus authorities.”
A stalemate in negotiations
Prof. Holmes underlined that “US mediation efforts have been led by Tom Barrack, who is dual hatted as the US ambassador to Turkey and also special envoy to Syria. The mediation was a tough job, but it had already achieved important progress. The two sides did not trust each other, having fought against each other in the past. Al-Sharaa is the former commander of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which evolved out of Jebhat al-Nusra, an al-Qaeda offshoot. In an earlier phase of the war, Jebhat al-Nusra had fought against Syrian Kurds in the Kurdish People’s Defense Units, or YPG (the predecessor of the SDF).”
Prof. Holmes recalled that “On January 10, Barrack called for a return to the March 10 and Aleppo agreements. Turkish Ambassador to Syria Nuh Yilmaz said he also welcomed the return to the Aleppo Agreement, which allows for local governance in the two Kurdish neighborhoods.
In the days that followed, al-Sharaa’s forces continued their offensive against SDF-held areas, capturing large parts of Raqqa and Deir Ezzor, areas the SDF had held after defeating the Islamic State. On January 17, US Central Command Commander Admiral Brad Cooper called on al-Sharaa’s forces to “cease any offensive actions.” But the offensive continued.”
Prof. Holmes said that “understanding the origins of the violence in Aleppo is critical. While each side blames the other for the escalation, a full investigation will be needed to establish the facts. But it is equally important to examine the underlying conditions that made this eruption possible.
The Aleppo Agreement was proof that both decentralization and integration could work in practice. Damascus had agreed that the two Kurdish neighborhoods in Aleppo could continue to provide their own local security, could continue to offer Kurdish language instruction, and that women could continue to serve in the police—just not at shared checkpoints with men. Both sides agreed to all of this, illustrating that the two major power blocs could come to a peaceful compromise and coexist. This set an important precedent for how other contested regions of Syria could potentially be integrated.”
Prof. Holmes wrote that “rebuilding trust will be even harder than before, and will take time. Proper vetting of the various armed factions will also take time. The Islamic State militant who killed three US troops in December was a member of the Syrian government’s security forces. Al-Sharaa should prioritize rooting out jihadists from within his own ranks, rather than attempting to seize more territory and subjugate minorities.”
She argued that “instead of pressuring the SDF to integrate on a rushed timeline that carries serious risks, President Trump should pressure al-Sharaa to remove sanctioned warlords from his army and guarantee equal citizenship rights for all Syrians. Al-Sharaa must accomplish this through a constitutional guarantee, not a presidential decree that could be easily revoked.”
Amy Austin Holmes
Amy Austin Holmes is a research professor of international affairs and acting director of the Foreign Area Officers Program at George Washington University. Her work focuses on Washington’s global military posture, the NATO alliance, non-state actors, revolutions, military coups, and de-facto states. She is the author of three books, including most recently, “Statelet of Survivors: The Making of a Semi-Autonomous Region in Northeast Syria.”