After a long period of preparation, the militia Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), under the command of its leader Abu Mohammad al-Jolani / Ahmed al-Sharaa, launched its offensive on Aleppo on November 27, 2024. Just 12 days later, on December 8, 2024, they marched into Damascus, the former president Bashar al-Assad fled the country and handed power to Jolani.
Since then, the situation in Syria has fundamentally changed. Essentially, two blocs with two different programs now confront each other within the country: On one side, the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (DAANES), and on the other, the Syrian transitional government (STG) has emerged from HTS, which aims to be the government for all of Syria.
On March 10 of last year, these two forces concluded an agreement for the joint shaping of Syria’s future. This agreement expired at the turn of the year and the STG launched an offensive against Kurdish and DAANES areas. A war is now raging though some agreements and ceasefires have been broken—and violated quickly by the STG side. A common future for Syria remains out of sight. Currently, it is unclear how things will proceed in the country, but for a meaningful analysis of this process, it is essential to engage with the programs of both parties.
Both programs are opposed to each other
The vision of the Autonomous Administration for Syria’s future differs from the program of the transitional government not merely in minor details. This is not about small matters, but about fundamentally different—and in many points even directly opposing—approaches.
Over more than 13 years of its existence, the revolution in North and East Syria has demonstrated in practice what it stands for: a system built on base democracy, federalism, unity of peoples and women’s liberation. A system in which people govern and defend themselves, where power lies in the hands of the peoples.
HTS, too, has proven in practice how it envisions a Syria under its rule: as a centralized, authoritarian unitary state under strong influence of political Islam. In the crudest terms, these are the programs of the two sides in this process.
These contradictions are best illustrated by the treatment of national minorities in the country. Since seizing power, the STG has done everything to suppress these minorities with the most brutal violence. Examples include the massacres of the Alawite population in Latakia and Tartus. In March of last year, thousands of militiamen invaded Alawite areas and carried out a bloodbath. Countless civilians were murdered, some executed on the open street. Desecration of corpses and sexual violence were commonplace. The Alawite self-defense organizations were too weak to offer meaningful resistance, leaving the Alawites defenseless against the Islamists. These exactions continued all along the year, with many Alawites reported abducted, missing or even killed.
Something similar happened in July in the Druze areas around Suwayda. Here, too, units of the self-proclaimed transitional government attacked without mercy and carried out numerous massacres. The tragic peak of cruelty during the assault was the attack on Suwayda National Hospital, where dozens of Druze doctors, nurses, and patients were murdered by the militias. Only thanks to the highly advanced military organization of the Druze population could the worst be prevented, and the attack ultimately repelled.
The most recent example of this kind of massacre is the occupation of the Kurdish neighborhoods of Aleppo, Sheikh Maqsoud (Şêxmeqsûd) and Ashrafieh (Eşrefiyê), where government-loyal fighters resorted to their familiar repertoire of executions, corpse desecration, and massive violence against civilians.
This is the STG policy towards national and religious minorities—massacres and campaigns of annihilation, that could amount to war crimes and even crimes against humanity. This is what it concretely means when even Western politicians demand that Syria must become a centralized unitary state.
The Autonomous Administration, by contrast, stands for the opposite. It stands for a system in which all peoples can take their own fate into their own hands. To see that this is not empty words, a glance at the Armenian or Assyrian political and military structures in the territory of the Autonomous Administration suffices. In North and East Syria, every ethnic group has the opportunity to live out its culture and religion freely, to organize politically independently, and to defend its achievements armed. That is the federalism that the revolutionary forces demand for all of Syria.
It is therefore no wonder that the call for federalism is growing louder in other parts of Syria as well. “We do not want civil war—we want political federalism. We do not want your terrorism (addressed to the STG government). We want the right to self-administration,” said Ghazal Ghazal, the highest Alawite representative in Syria, at the end of last year during a demonstration against renewed attacks on the Alawite population. The Druze political forces are now also openly demanding self-administration and federalism, positively referencing the experiences of the Autonomous Region. During the attacks on Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafieh, numerous Druze representatives declared their solidarity with the resistance of the Kurdish people.
Women’s rights and combat against gender-based violence
As it became known worldwide, the greatest achievement of the DAANES project lies in the establishment of a political system based on gender equality and women’s participation in all areas of life. Women’s rights are guaranteed in the Social Contract and detailed in the Women’s Laws published in 2014 (and updated under the title “Family Law” in 2024). This set of articles prohibits a number of patriarchal practices inherited from the Baath regime and a feudal society, such as multiple marriages, forced marriages, and child marriages. Women are considered equal to men before the law, and gender-based violence, such as physical, sexual, or psychological violence, is strongly condemned. Civil marriage is recognized and women have equal rights to divorce, while being assured of retaining custody of their children.
Beyond the legal provisions, it is the entire political, judicial, and social system that enables the effective application of these measures and the ability to fight for their liberation. From women’s shelters to protection centers, from women’s justice assemblies to the systematic presence of women when filing complaints or female judges in the courts, women can expect to receive justice that recognizes them as victims and protects their interests. Even when patriarchal social norms still stand in the way of anti-patriarchal responses, numerous civil society organizations can defend women, such as the Sara Organization for Combating Gender Violence. This legal and activist framework also flourishes in a territory where women have a minimum 40% quota in all assemblies of the autonomous administration, occupy every position of power alongside a male co-president and are encouraged to become economically independent through production units and cooperatives for women or parenting support institutions such as nurseries, developed by Kongreya Star. All-women’s fighter units such as YPJ (military force), Asayîşa Jin (police forces) or HPC-Jin (civilian forces), the anti-sexist education provided in schools and universities or the all-women TVs and news outlets also participate in establishing a model in which the goal of women’s liberation is reflected throughout society.
On the other hand, the Syrian transitional (STG) government policies remain rooted in the patriarchal legal and judicial system that has dominated Syria since 1953 and the publication of the Personal Status Code. This code applies to all Muslim citizens (regardless of their specific religious branch) and severely restricts women’s rights. While men have an immediate right to divorce, women must present tangible evidence of violence or misconduct in an obstacle course and before courts that are almost entirely male. In March, the new government adopted a provisional constitution that establishes gender equality but also reaffirms the role of women within the family and the centrality of the family in society. Furthermore, the Constitution stipulates that Muslim jurisprudence will be the main source of legislation, effectively preventing future progressive reforms regarding women’s rights, especially since the presidential and authoritarian system enshrined in the Constitution allows President Ahmed al-Sharaa to veto laws and grants him the power to appoint the seven judges of the Supreme Court.
But beyond the legal framework, it is important to observe the practice and results of one year of governance with regard to women’s liberation. Al-Sharaa’s term began with the appointment of a Minister of Justice accused (with video evidence) of supervising the executions of women for adultery in Idlib (he was subsequently replaced in the face of public outcry) and commanders of the former SNA (Syrian National Army) responsible for documented abuses against civilian women or female combatants in command positions within the army. The same practices that governed HTS’s Idlib are being imposed on all Syrian women with the publication in July of a “dress code” that requires women to wear loose-fitting clothing covering their shoulders, to avoid “too tight clothing,” and imposes the burkini on beaches. This control over women’s right to their own bodies is unacceptable, but above all, it opens the door to numerous arbitrary arrests, given that most of the army and police forces are made up of hardline Islamist fighters. The appointment of a handful of women to positions of responsibility is in no way sufficient to mask the cruel absence of women’s participation in the parliamentary assembly and, more generally, in the political and media spheres.
There are also significant disparities between social classes, and while restrictions are less severe in Damascus and in certain areas reserved for the bourgeois elite, women from the proletariat (90% of the population lives below the poverty line) are left to fend for themselves in a system that does not represent them and is careful not to educate them about the few rights they have or even about the oppression they suffer.
During the violence that targeted the Alawite community in March, many women were murdered and raped, and many are still regularly kidnapped, sometimes forcibly married, without any reaction or action on the part of the authorities, as has been the case for several years against Kurdish civilians in areas occupied by Turkey. Several women’s rights activists and journalists have also been threatened or abducted by government-linked militias.
Understanding the process as one involving three sides
Even though the dialogue on paper is conducted only between the STG and the Autonomous Administration, it cannot be understood without addressing the constant imperialist interference.
HTS was trained, armed, and prepared for power seizure by external powers, above all Turkey and the USA. Without its foreign partners, it is only very limited in its ability to act. It is also no coincidence that the attacks on Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafieh began the day after a meeting between the USA, Syria, and Israel. HTS was installed from abroad, whitewashed image-wise from abroad, and is obediently committed to the Western power bloc.
Even if the STG itself wanted a just peace with the Autonomous Administration—which it does not—it could not decide this without getting the green light for it. Overestimating the STG’s independence here would be a mistake.
This reality is clearly recognized and articulated by the Autonomous Administration as well. Thus, Sozdar Hacî, a member of the negotiating team, speaks of the STG as an “expression of external power interests.” The PYD politician Aldar Xelil says: “Jolani did not reach this point through resistance or democratic legitimacy, but through international deals.”
In contrast, the Autonomous Administration presents itself as an explicitly Syrian force that pursues the interests of all Syrians, not those of the Western power bloc.
“The fate of Syria must lie in the hands of the Syrians,” summarizes Sema Begdaş, spokesperson of the PYD, this position.
One of the reasons for this imperialist choice is based on the STG’s alignment with the capitalist interests of the imperialists. While the latter wish to align Syria with the Western bloc and seize its resources and markets, as well as turn it into a transit point for trade routes, the DAANES has always been seen as an obstacle. Although a socialist economic system was not chosen in the northeast, the Administration has so far not allowed foreign investment, has encouraged the creation of workers’ and farmers’ unions, and has socialized certain segments of the production sector.
On the other hand, Ahmed al-Sharaa’s domestic policy has hit the population hard: a sharp rise in the price of bread and transport, accelerated privatization of vital sectors such as the port of Latakia, while trade unions and associations were placed under direct government control. All these measures are distancing Syria from the ideals of justice and dignity of the 2011 Revolution and plunging the vast majority of Syrians into greater poverty, to the benefit of a small local bourgeoisie and international and regional bourgeoisie, which has already positioned itself in the reconstruction markets or will take over exploitation of the oil wells seized from the DAANES.
The contradictions are irreconcilable
When one considers these contradictions, it quickly becomes clear that they are antagonistic—in other words, irreconcilable—contradictions. No compromise can be found between a pluralistic, women’s-liberating grassroots democracy on one side and a centralized, dictatorial state on the other.
Moreover, the STG proves day after day that it is not in the least interested in compromise, by insisting exclusively on integrating the Autonomous Administration into the Syrian state without taking even a single step toward fulfilling the other points, such as the right of return for the displaced or the democratization of Syria. What the STG / HTS and its patrons demand is nothing less than the complete and unconditional capitulation of the Autonomous Administration and its military forces. The Autonomous Administration, in turn, regularly emphasizes that such a capitulation will not happen.
One of the two sides must emerge victorious from this process. The unstable balance of the last months is not a permanent state and will sooner or later tip in favor of one of the forces. The only reason this agreement was entered into by the STG / HTS at all is the military power of the Syrian Democratic Forces—a power they simply could not defeat. Without this power, the Kurds would have been forced into submission with the help of the most brutal violence, just like the Alawites and Druze.
The agreement of March 10 bought the Autonomous Administration time to organize itself and build up its strength. Among other things, it used this time extremely successfully to bring the other minorities of the country to its side.
How long this purchased time of relative peace will last remains unclear. The violent attacks on Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafieh and the DAANES territory as well as Dayr Hafir and other areas indicate that it is close to its final end.
The tasks of the solidarity movement
These times demand the utmost attention and swift action from us as a solidarity movement. We must continuously expand and raise to a new level our solidarity not only with the revolution but also with the Druze and Alawites, the other minorities of Syria, the workers and the women.
It is our task to present the Autonomous Administration as what it objectively is—a model for democracy and freedom throughout Syria. It is not just a system for the liberation of the Kurds, but for the liberation of all of Syria. Let us conclude this article with the words of Aldar Xelil:
“A model like ours, based on participation and diversity—or an authoritarian system that only wears a new face?” As he clearly answers himself: His answer is clear: “Whoever wants to save Syria must break away from Baath, HTS, and ISIS alike. There is only one project that can do that—ours.”
