The leader of the Kurdish-led militia in Syria said the group would disband and be integrated into the Syrian Army, ending its tenure as a once‑powerful U.S. ally and granting President Ahmed al‑Sharaa greater sway over the country.
Mazloum Abdi, the Kurdish commander of the Syrian Democratic Forces, said the step is part of a wider push to restore security and stability as Syria rebuilds from decades of authoritarian rule and civil war. Yet it also reflects the group’s weakened stance, after government forces seized much of its administered territory early this year and President Trump threw his support behind Mr. al‑Sharaa.
“We want this day to signal a real shift from battlefields to construction sites, and from the age of weapons to the age of peace,” Mr. Abdi said Tuesday at the presidential palace after his meeting with Mr. al‑Sharaa, according to Syria’s national news agency.
For years, the S.D.F. held sway over large swaths of northeastern Syria, including areas that host some of the nation’s biggest oil fields. The group became the United States’ main local partner in the battle against the Islamic State, receiving U.S. military aid as it consolidated control across much of the region.
The move further strengthens Mr. al‑Sharaa’s grip on Syria, more than a year and a half after his rebel forces toppled the Bashar al‑Assad regime that had ruled for nearly 14 years of civil war. Mr. al‑Sharaa aims to unite Syria’s ethnic and religious communities under a single central government in Damascus while promising to safeguard minority rights. In January he issued a decree recognizing Kurdish rights, including measures to restore Syrian citizenship to Kurds who were stripped of it following the 1962 census.
The southern province of Sweida, held by the Druze minority, remains the only Syrian province not yet under Mr. al‑Sharaa’s authority.
Mr. Abdi said that disbanding his group and merging it into the Syrian state is a step toward forging a unified country where all communities answer to one national authority.
Tom Barrack, President Trump’s special envoy for Syria and Iraq, welcomed the announcement, saying it gives Syrians a chance to shape a shared future.
“This is what genuine integration looks like—not winners and losers, but former rivals with different viewpoints working together diplomatically to strengthen sovereign Syria,” Mr. Barrack said in a Tuesday social‑media statement. “One army, one government, one state.”
The decision to dissolve comes after a string of setbacks for the group in recent months. “The relatively smooth handover of political and security institutions to centralized government control stems largely from the S.D.F.’s own marked weakness,” noted a report by the research group Etana Syria.
Raja Abdulrahim contributed reporting.
