Syria's Kurdish autonomy ends, leaving Druze-led Sweida as sole holdout against central government

This week, Syria's Kurdish minority agreed to dissolve what had been their almost 14-year-long experiment in independent rule.

During the Syrian civil war, which began in 2011, the Kurds consolidated their authority over a large part of northeastern Syria, and wanted to maintain that after the civil war ended. But as Kurdish leader Mazloum Abdi said this week, "circumstances have changed."

Kurdish fighting forces, which go by the name of the Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, will now be integrated into the general Syrian military, and the oil-rich area they ruled will come under the authority of the central government.

All this means that Sweida province, home to much of Syria's Druze minority, is now the only area not to have accepted the authority of the central government.

End of idea of 'decentralized Syria'

There is no doubt that the change in the situation with Syria's Kurdish community will affect what is happening in Sweida, experts say.

When Omer Ozkizilcik, a nonresident senior fellow at US think tank, the Atlantic Council's Syria Project, met with Sheikh Hikmat al-Hijri in early 2025, the Druze leader said he was in daily phone contact with Abdi.

"He said that they were coordinating all their efforts and that they had a similar political vision for Syria — that is, decentralized with autonomous regions," said Ozkizilcik. "He basically repeated the Israeli approach, where they believe Syria should be divided, with an autonomous zone on the coast for the Alawite [minority], for the SDF in the northeast, and then in the south for the Druze. That shows that al-Hijiri's political vision was highly dependent on his alliance with the SDF."

That idea is no longer feasible. "Basically it puts an end to this vision of a fragmented, weak and decentralized Syria," the Ankara-based analyst argued.

That is also probably the reason why, earlier this week, al-Hijri again emphasized the Druze ties to Israel, Ozkizilcik suggested.

On Monday in Sweida, al-Hijiri declared the Druze an "inseparable part of the state of Israel."

"Even in terms of our beliefs, we share common ground," he said.

​​​​​​But it's clear that having Israel annex Sweida would be very difficult for a number of reasons, including geography and demographics. Sweida is also still dependent on the central Syrian government. Despite it being impossible for government forces to enter the area, Sweida still receives public services, salaries, pensions, power and water from Damascus.

What caused the rift?

The exclusion of government forces began after intercommunal violence in Sweida in July 2025. Fighting started between Druze and Bedouin locals. Government forces arrived, ostensibly to quell the violence, but they too were then accused of attacking Druze communities.

A report by the United Nations found over 1,700 people died as a result of the clashes.

The event resulted in deep Druze mistrust of the new Syrian government. Even locals who had been in favor of a united Syria began to question whether it might not be better to have a semi-autonomous Druze state.

"There has been a complete erosion of trust," Lubna al-Basit, a Sweida activist, told DW. "Before discussing solutions, the reality today is that the government must be held accountable for the massacres committed in Sweida."

Another Druze, now based in the US but who wished to remain anonymous for security reasons, believes the new Syrian government is more radical than it looks.

"They're trying to behave in way that appeases the West," he told DW. "But you know, we have this joke. They're indicating to go left when they're turning right. For the Druze, the priority would be security, dignity and a chance for prosperity. I don't think many people see that as attainable under the current Syrian government."

In September, a road map to repair relations was formulated with Jordanian and American negotiators. But Druze allied with al-Hijiri rejected the plan, and the central government hasn't done much to bring July 2025 perpetrators to justice. In June, the UN's special envoy to Syria said no progress had been made on the road map.

Since last year, Syria's central government "has dealt with the [Sweida] issue on the premise that a large-scale military confrontation would not resolve the crisis," researchers at the Syrian Center for Security and Defense Studies, or MISDAD, wrote in a paper this month.

Any such confrontation "would have deepened the rift with the local community and given external actors greater room to intervene or exploit the tension. Therefore, the Syrian government opted for a more cautious approach, based on calming the situation on one hand, and utilizing the state's security, administrative, and economic tools on the other."

Basically, the researchers at MISDAD continued, the Syrian government is waiting it out, hoping that increasing prosperity elsewhere in the country and the problems al-Hijiri's factions already have running the province's public services, will bring Sweida back to the fold.

A 'small authoritarian regime in Sweida'

What isn't likely to happen is any kind of revolution, Ozkizilcik explained.

"The issue here is that al-Hijiri has the guns, Israeli financial support and Israeli military advisers from the Israeli-Druze community," he continued. "There is basically a small authoritarian regime in Sweida that's controlled by al-Hijiri, so it would be very difficult for the Druze community to rise up against him."

Opponents of al-Hijiri have been forced out of the province, abducted or killed, there's been fighting between different Druze militias, and there have even been some small civilian protests. Reports say al-Hijiri loyalists have also stopped Druze civil servants from working with ministries in Damascus.

Ozkizilcik and other observers believe a resolution to the situation in Sweida won't come down to what al-Hijiri wants anyway.

Just as American military support — or rather, its withdrawal — for Kurdish forces was integral to the new resolution between the central government and Syrian Kurdish forces, what happens with the Druze community next is also likely to come down to external forces.

Some have argued that the situation in Sweida was a way for Israel to pressure Syria as the two governments tried to negotiate a new security agreement. Throughout 2025, senior Syrian and Israeli politicians were involved in talks, with mediation from the US, to potentially reactivate a 1974 disengagement agreement. However, these fell apart late last year.

Since the overthrow of the dictatorial Assad regime in Syria in late December 2024, the US has said it is in favor of a unified Syria. Israel appears to want the opposite, arguing that a divided Syria won't pose a threat.

"The real decision maker [on Sweida] will be Israel, not al-Hijiri," said Ozkizilcik. "Once — or if — there is a potential security deal between Syria and Israel, then I believe we will also see a political solution to Sweida and the Druze."