U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) commanders are growing anxious as Washington deepens ties with Syria’s new government following the ouster of Bashar al‑Assad, fearing their influence in the country’s northeast could be sharply reduced. Those concerns have intensified ahead of an expected White House summit between Syrian President Ahmad al‑Sharaa and U.S. President Donald Trump, where Syria is due to formalize its entry into the U.S.-led coalition against terrorism.
According to reporting by the opposition network Syria TV, the Kurdish‑led SDF have begun openly criticizing the United States, accusing it of “abandoning the Kurds” after nearly a decade of partnership and recalling previous episodes in Syria and Iraq when Washington was widely perceived to have deserted Kurdish allies.
Memories of Trump’s 2019 decision to pull U.S. troops from Syria — defended at the time by tweets that the Kurds “were paid massive amounts of money and equipment” — still loom large within SDF ranks. One SDF source told Al‑Monitor the group had “hoped at least to be included in al‑Sharaa’s delegation” to Washington, while the continued limbo surrounding a long‑standing U.S. visa request by Ilham Ahmed, the Autonomous Administration’s foreign‑relations chief, has reinforced the sense of exclusion.
In parallel, Damascus and Washington are advancing a plan that could fundamentally recast the SDF. Syria’s Foreign Ministry said on 10 November that recent talks had produced agreement to begin incorporating SDF units into the Syrian Arab Army as part of a drive to unify state institutions. Researcher Wael Alwan told Syria TV that, under current regional conditions, the most likely outcome is phased integration in which the SDF keeps some collective weight inside the state, rather than being broken up and absorbed individually as Damascus once preferred.
Damascus is simultaneously trying to show it can be a credible counter‑terrorism partner. The Interior Ministry has announced security operations across several provinces targeting Islamic State (ISIS) cells, reporting arrests and weapons seizures after what it described as extensive surveillance. Analyst Mohammad Suleiman told Syria TV the raids, launched just as al‑Sharaa arrived in Washington ahead of his meeting with Trump, were a calculated signal that post‑Assad Syria is serious about preventing an ISIS resurgence and open to deeper military and intelligence cooperation.
Former Iraqi lawmaker and analyst Omar Abdul‑Sattar sees these moves as part of a U.S. drive to reassert a unipolar order across what he calls the “Sykes‑Picot region,” curbing rivals and ending the era of militia proxies such as those linked to the PKK. Over roughly the next decade, he argues, power will shift toward “sovereign states” aligned directly with Washington, forcing actors like the SDF either to fold into Syrian state structures or accept a reduced role inside new U.S.-brokered local alliances.
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