By Arian Mufid:

When civil war broke out in Syria in 2011, the Assad Regime lost control over Syrians. The Kurdish area became an autonomous area of its own called Rojava which was founded in July 2012. The remainder of rebel-held areas were under the control of ISIS and similar organisations such as HST,  Nusra and other Al-Qaeda adjacent groups. Rojava, meaning West  in Kurdish, refers to the Kurdish-majority areas of northern and northeastern Syria. Its goals reflect liberation, socialism, direct democracy, gender equality, eco-socialism and federalization of Syria. Rojava has survived since 2012 with the help, from late 2014, of air cover from allied forces. The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) were set up and supported by the US. The main ambition of ISIS in Syria was to dismantle SDF and build a Caliphate state. Their leader Al Baghdadi was killed by US forces but they struggled to eliminate ISIS without the help of the SDF. SDF forces comprised of Kurds and Arabs.

Rojava’s main enemy is Turkey because Turkey sees such a successful model of autonomy for Kurdish people in the western part of Kurdistan as a threat. Turkey has made several attempts to destroy Rojava since 2013. All these attempts have been documented by the Peoples Tribunal in Belgium in March 2025. Turkey has used several plans to bring down the hope and aspirations of Kurds for their independent state and self rule. Turkey held secret negotiations between Hakan Fidan, Head of MIT the Turkish intelligent services, President  Erdogan and  Al Qaeda forces of  Ahmed Shibani and Ahmed Shariq in Idlib Syria. They decided to send $18 billion support for Syrian affiliated Al-Qaida forces to overthrow the Bashar Al Assad regime, on this one condition: that Turkey would be in full control of the new government, allowing Turkey to smash Rojava self rule. On December 8 ,2024 the Syrian Regime toppled by forces of Sharrah belonging to HTS. On 4th Jan 2026, the Syrian provisional government, with the help of the Turkish secret agency MIT, has launched ethnic cleansing style attacks similar to what happened in the former Yugoslavia, starting from Aleppo, in order to target the Kurds over the last several days. Although a ceasefire was declared on Tuesday, foreign observers’ predictions are not optimistic.