U.S.-Backed Syria Deal Ends Kurdish Holdouts as Aleppo Clashes Displace Tens of Thousands

The schoolyard in western Aleppo is crowded again, but not with students. Mattresses line the corridors. Families who fled the nearby Kurdish-majority neighborhoods of Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafieh say they left with minutes to spare as artillery and drones pounded their streets earlier this month.

“We were told, ‘Leave now or you will be caught in the fighting,’” said Hanan, a 38-year-old mother of three who asked that her full name not be published for security reasons. “We have been displaced before, but this time I don’t think we will go back. They want us out.”

Four days of intense clashes that drove Hanan and tens of thousands of others from their homes marked more than the end of Aleppo’s last Kurdish enclave. They were the prelude to a U.S.-mediated political deal that is stripping Kurdish-led authorities of much of their remaining power across northeast Syria and returning control to the Damascus-based transitional government.

Under a 14-point agreement announced Jan. 18 by transitional President Ahmed al-Sharaa and Syrian Democratic Forces commander Mazloum Abdi, the Syrian state is to assume control of major cities, oil fields, border crossings and detention sites previously run by the Kurdish-led administration. The deal, backed by Washington, is widely seen by diplomats and analysts as effectively dismantling the decade-long experiment in Kurdish self-rule known as the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria.

A battle that redrew more than a front line

Fighting erupted in Aleppo on Jan. 6, when government and Kurdish-aligned officials traded accusations over a deadly incident at an army checkpoint and a drone strike in the city’s north. Syrian artillery and airstrikes hit the densely populated districts of Sheikh Maqsoud, Ashrafieh and Bani Zaid, while Asayish internal security forces linked to the SDF shelled government-held areas and fought ground incursions.

By Jan. 8, local hospitals were overwhelmed with shrapnel wounds and blast injuries. Aid officials and local authorities reported at least 20 civilians killed and more than 170 wounded on both sides of the front line. The government imposed a curfew, and state television showed streams of residents moving through what it called “humanitarian corridors” toward central Aleppo.

Syria’s Defense Ministry announced a unilateral cease-fire the same day, warning that “armed groups” in the Kurdish neighborhoods had six hours from early Jan. 9 to withdraw eastward with light weapons. Kurdish local councils rejected the ultimatum as “a call to surrender” and vowed to defend their districts. Sporadic clashes continued until Jan. 10, when a second cease-fire took hold and government forces moved into key positions.

By then, aid groups and local officials estimated that more than 100,000 people had fled, many sheltering in schools, mosques and unfinished buildings in and around the city.

What appeared at first to be another localized flare-up in Syria’s long war quickly became the catalyst for a broader reordering of power in the country’s northeast.

The 14-point deal

As government troops pushed east from Aleppo into the countryside, officials from Damascus and the SDF met under U.S. auspices to revive stalled talks on integrating Kurdish-led structures into the state.

On Jan. 18, al-Sharaa announced that a “comprehensive 14-point framework” had been agreed. In a televised address, he said the deal would “end armed fragmentation and restore one army and one authority over all the Syrian land.”

According to summaries released by Syrian officials and confirmed by Kurdish and Western diplomats, the agreement provides for:

• An immediate, nationwide cease-fire between the Syrian armed forces and SDF units.
• The full transfer of civil and security administration in Raqqa and Deir ez-Zor governorates to the Syrian state.
• The integration of local councils, courts and service bodies in Hasakah province into central ministries.
• The withdrawal of SDF formations to positions east of the Euphrates River, in preparation for their incorporation into the Syrian army and internal security services.
• The handover to Damascus of all international border crossings and oil and gas installations in the northeast.
• Guarantees that rank-and-file SDF fighters and civil servants will not face prosecution solely for their past service, alongside language affirming that Kurds are “an essential component of the Syrian people” with rights to citizenship and cultural expression.

Abdi, the SDF commander, said in a brief statement that his forces had accepted the framework “to spare our people further bloodshed” and to secure recognition of Kurdish rights “within a united Syria.” He added that implementation would depend on “serious guarantees” for local communities.

For Kurdish officials who once hoped to anchor a federal, decentralized Syria from their stronghold in the northeast, the balance of the deal is stark. It strips their administration of direct authority over Arab-majority provinces that provided most of its oil income, removes control over border posts that underpinned its external ties, and subjects its remaining institutions to Damascus.

Washington trades partners

The agreement also underscores a strategic shift by the United States.

For nearly a decade, U.S. special operations forces partnered with the SDF as the main local ground force against the Islamic State group. Kurdish commanders often said they expected that battlefield cooperation to translate into political protection.

That assumption has been steadily eroded since the fall of President Bashar Assad in late 2024 and the rise of al-Sharaa, the former leader of the hard-line group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, as transitional president. After he broke publicly with al-Qaida and pledged to combat ISIS and reduce Iranian influence, Western governments began cautiously engaging with his administration.

In recent months, U.S. envoy Tom Barrack has appeared beside Syrian officials in Damascus and at regional conferences, describing the Syrian state as Washington’s “primary partner” in preventing an ISIS resurgence. He welcomed the Aleppo cease-fire and the Jan. 18 accord, saying in a social media post that “the era of multiple armies and administrations in Syria must end.”

In separate remarks, Barrack said the SDF’s “historic role against ISIS is recognized,” but added that “those functions have largely expired as Syria reunifies.”

At the same time, U.S. forces have begun airlifting ISIS detainees from SDF-run prisons in northeast Syria to Iraqi custody. U.S. and Iraqi officials say an initial group of about 150 high-risk inmates has already been transferred, with plans to move up to 7,000 over time, citing fears that shifting front lines and prison unrest could trigger mass escapes.

Kurdish leaders say the policy changes amount to abandonment.

“The international coalition left us alone with tens of thousands of ISIS members and their families, and now they have decided to work only with Damascus,” an SDF political official in Hasakah said by phone. “Our people are paying the price.”

Camps, prisons and an unfinished war

Nowhere is the transition more visible than at the al-Hol detention camp in Hasakah province, long a symbol of the unresolved ISIS problem.

On Jan. 20, SDF officials confirmed they had pulled their guards from the sprawling site, which holds about 24,000 people, mostly women and children with alleged ties to ISIS fighters from around 60 countries. They cited the end of U.S. financial and logistical support and the redeployment of forces to counter the government offensive.

The next day, Syrian army units and internal security services entered the camp and raised the national flag. State media described the move as “restoring sovereignty” and “protecting the world from terrorism.”

Similar handovers are underway at prisons and smaller camps once run by the Kurdish-led administration. The process has been far from orderly.

During clashes around the Shaddadi prison complex south of Hasakah in mid-January, scores of ISIS inmates broke out. The Syrian Interior Ministry said 120 escaped and that 81 had been recaptured. Kurdish officials claimed the number was far higher and accused pro-government elements of exploiting the incident to discredit them.

Western security officials warn that further escapes during the handover period could strengthen ISIS cells still active in Syria and neighboring Iraq.

“The transfer of control over detention facilities in a war zone is inherently risky,” one European counterterrorism official said. “If it is not tightly coordinated, you can very quickly go from a political deal to a security crisis.”

Turkey’s gains without an invasion

The rollback of Kurdish self-rule also marks a significant, if indirect, victory for Turkey.

Ankara views the SDF and its main Kurdish component, the YPG, as extensions of the Kurdistan Workers Party, or PKK, which it designates as a terrorist organization. Turkish forces have previously crossed into northern Syria to push Kurdish fighters away from the border, seizing the Afrin region in 2018 and other stretches of territory.

This time, Turkish officials have publicly supported the Syrian government’s moves while keeping their own troops largely on the sidelines. The Defense Ministry in Ankara said it “welcomes any step that removes terrorist organizations from Syria” and is ready to support Damascus “if requested.”

Turkey’s main pro-Kurdish party, DEM, has warned that images of Kurdish neighborhoods under bombardment and crowds fleeing Aleppo and Hasakah could inflame opinion among Kurds inside Turkey and complicate a fragile domestic peace process.

An experiment winds down, uncertainties rise

For Syrian Kurds, the developments of January 2026 represent both the loss of territory and the rollback of political and social gains built over more than a decade.

Under the Democratic Autonomous Administration, officials introduced Kurdish-language education, local councils with power-sharing among communities, and gender quotas that put women in senior security and political roles. Those structures now face dismantling or absorption into a centralized, Islamist-leaning state apparatus led by former insurgents.

Al-Sharaa has sought to calm fears, issuing decrees that describe Kurds as “an essential part of Syria’s fabric” and promising to safeguard cultural and citizenship rights. He has also called on SDF fighters to join the reconstituted Syrian army, saying they will “defend the homeland under one flag.”

Many Kurds remain skeptical. In Hasakah and Qamishli, activists and residents say they worry about arrests, the closure of independent civil society groups and restrictions on women’s rights as central security services expand their reach.

In the Aleppo school where she now sleeps on a classroom floor, Hanan said she no longer believes outside powers will protect her community.

“Every time they say they will help us, and every time we end up here, with nothing,” she said. “They told us this deal would bring peace. Maybe for them. For us, it feels like the end of everything we built.”