Rojava: An Experiment In Radical Democracy Under Attack

By Tiernan Cannon | January 22, 2025 | 11:38am

Photo by Leonhard Lenz, CC0, via Wikimedia Commons

International Affairs Syria

Rojava: An Experiment In Radical Democracy Under Attack

This is an interview with Samantha Teal, a researcher at the Rojava Information Center, about Turkey’s ongoing attacks on the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria.

The future of Syria, following the sudden collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, remains uncertain, as the Islamist group Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) constructs a new national government. It is a delicate situation, and, despite the widespread relief throughout the country following Assad’s defeat, people are worried about what comes next. Things are especially tense in the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (DAANES), the multi-ethnic, Kurdish-led region also known as Rojava, where Turkey, and its proxy forces, are engaged in a brutal military operation. Civilians have been killed, and the very existence of Rojava as a political entity is under threat.

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DAANES is an experiment in radical democracy, which, in principle, seeks to promote decentralization, religious freedom, ethnic diversity, gender equality, and ecological sustainability, though, in reality, many of its admirable aspirations have been restricted by the hard realities of war. A glaring example: despite its ideological commitments to ecological sustainability, Rojava is home to oil fields, which the administration exploits and sells. There can be a tendency among those of us on the left to romanticize the Rojava revolution to the extent that we overlook uncomfortable truths, but, still, for all its faults, it remains one of the most important illustrations of what a radically left-wing society can look like, where women’s leadership and participation in society is explicitly guaranteed within a decentralized system of governance.

DAANES traces its very existence to the early days of the Syrian Civil War, when Kurdish-led forces, taking advantage of an overstretched Assad regime, seized control of Kurdish-majority areas in the north of Syria, along its border with Turkey. They declared autonomy in early 2014, but were soon engaged in conflict with the Islamic State, which, around that time, was conquering large swaths of territory in northwestern Iraq and eastern Syria. The Kurdish-led forces proved a formidable foe to ISIS, capturing the attention of the United States, which was looking for an ally in the region in its own war against the jihadi group. The U.S. began backing the Kurdish-led militias, which, in October 2015, began to operate under the banner of the Syrian Democratic Army (SDF). The U.S.-backed SDF defeated ISIS in 2019, but the union of the SDF and the United States did not sit well with one of America’s NATO allies.

When Turkey emerged as an independent nation in 1923, after defeating Allied forces who’d carved up and occupied what had been the Ottoman empire after World War I, the new Turkish government immediately began persecuting the country’s Kurdish minority, denying their very existence as a distinct ethnicity. Armed Kurdish resistance broke out, which, by the 1980s, had come to be led by a left-wing organization called Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which continues to fight a bloody insurgency today while demanding Kurdish rights and autonomy. Both Turkey and the United States have labeled the PKK as a terrorist organization, but Turkey, too, believes the Syrian Democratic Army—the Kurdish-led forces allied to the United States in the fight against ISIS—is an extension of the PKK, and therefore seeks to destroy it.

Turkey has, for years, been militarily active in Syria, occupying areas in the north, supporting a regional proxy force known, confusingly, as the Syrian National Army (SNA), which has been accused of human rights abuses, and unleashing several airstrike campaigns upon DAANES. But since the HTS-led rebellion defeated the Assad regime in December 2024, Turkey has ratcheted up its attacks on DAANES, sensing an opportunity to critically weaken the project of Kurdish autonomy across its southern border.

In addition to the immediate threat of Turkish aggressors, the SDF is facing the prospect of a resurgence of ISIS and the possibility that the United States, under a Trump presidency, may abandon them to their fate, as he has indicated he will. The SDF, to this day, operates prisons housing thousands of ISIS members and their families in appalling conditions, where both disease and radicalization spread freely. Should these people escape, the return of ISIS as a significant player in the region is an uncomfortable but serious possibility.

There is a lot happening in North and East Syria, and it can be difficult to keep track of everything. But, to help clarify things a bit, we spoke with Samantha Teal, a researcher at the Rojava Information Center (RIC), which is based in the region. Teal updated us about what’s happening on the ground, what Turkey’s objectives are, how the relationship between DAANES and the new HTS government is progressing, and how big a threat ISIS poses.

The interview has been edited for length and clarity, with Splinter‘s questions in bold and Teal’s responses below them.

Can you tell us about Turkey’s progress into the DAANES region?

When the HTS-led forces began their attack targeting the Syrian government on November 27, we saw after a few days, on December 1, the SNA, the Syrian National Army, which is effectively Turkey’s proxy force in Syria, started their own offensive, codenamed Dawn of Freedom.

The first place that fell to the SNA was Shahba, which was a kind of exclave territory controlled by the SDF, but geographically disconnected from the rest of North and East Syria. The SDF basically pulled out and said, we can’t defend this territory, so we will try to get civilians out. Around 100,000 people—basically the entire population of Shahba—fled, and around two thirds of these people were already displaced people from Afrin.

When Turkey invaded Afrin in 2018, a good chunk of Afrin’s residents stayed in Shahba, which is adjacent to Afrin. So, many of the people just displaced from the SNA’s invasion of Shahba had already been displaced before in 2018. This was their second displacement. About 30,000 went to Aleppo, and around 70,000 went to the Autonomous Administration regions of North and East Syria. This was all in the first few days of December.

Why did all the people leave? Because the SNA, this Turkish proxy force, are known for their criminal and abusive behavior in the areas they control, marked by crimes against civilians, particularly targeting Kurdish populations, and also Yazidi and Christian minorities. So when they came to Shahba, basically the whole population left.

About a week and a bit later, the SNA turned to Manbij, also SDF-controlled. In Manbij, the SDF, it seems, did not defend it so conventionally. They chose more to rely on the tunnel system they had built over the years underneath Manbij and the surrounding areas. Because Turkey was backing up this ground offensive with air strikes—drone strikes and warplane strikes—it was difficult for the SDF to fight above ground. So they were basically letting the SNA come in and trying to ambush them in various attacks. But, in the end, the SDF also had to pull out of Manbij and Manbij was taken by the SNA.

Now the fighting has basically moved to two points along the Euphrates River, which separates the Kobani countryside from the Manbij countryside. This is where the fighting is now centered, with the SNA seeking to advance across the river into Kobani and the SDF seeking to stop this. You have, every day, fighting in the eastern Manbij countryside. Turkey is every day conducting drone strikes and warplane strikes, not just in the areas of the active fighting, but also in the whole Kobani countryside and also more broadly in North and East Syria.

The civilian casualty toll from these Turkish strikes has been quite significant. The front line has not really moved in some weeks now. It’s just every day these clashes, with the SNA trying to cross the river. If they can breach any of these two crossing points, Kobani is open for them.

Can you tell us about the attacks on water and energy infrastructure?

The way Turkey has attacked the North and East Syria region in recent years, water has been a massive part of it. The water levels in the Euphrates river have been falling, especially after January 2021. There was this dramatic drop in the flow entering the Euphrates, both for drinking water, agriculture, and water to power the hydroelectric dams that give energy to a lot of areas of northeast Syria. It was really impactful. The officials in the Administration have accused Turkey of deliberately limiting the water flow into North and East Syria. Turkey denies this. The facts are that there’s a lot of dam building in Turkey that allows Turkey to effectively control the water flow into here.

The last two years have seen Turkey conduct air strike campaigns, targeting electricity, oil, gas infrastructure. The oil facilities in North and East Syria have been extremely damaged, but they have been, to some extent, repaired, and they’re still functioning. The U.S. is very keen these do not fall into the hands of ISIS or other extremist Islamist groups.

What does Turkey hope to achieve in North and East Syria?

When the civil war in Syria began, millions of refugees were going to Turkey, and Turkey faced domestic backlash for this. A big thing in Turkish policy is moving Syrian refugees back into Syria and stopping more coming in. But also Turkey has an issue with there being any kind of political Kurdish project on its border.

The Autonomous Administration is not just a Kurdish project. The North and East Syria region actually has more Arabs than Kurds living in it. But you can say the origins of this project came from the Kurdish political movement. Turkey definitely sees it as a project linked to Kurdish politics, which it’s heavily suppressing within Turkey.

Turkey does not accept the existence of the Autonomous Administration on its border and wants to crush this. So it’s these two aims in parallel, both of which are connected to Turkey’s domestic politics.

Has the United States, an ally of the SDF, intervened in Turkey’s attacks?

They’ve made some statements, calling for calm in Syria—the cessation of hostilities and stuff. Actually, the Rojava Information Center did an interview with the YPJ [the Women’s Protection Units, an all-female militia within the SDF] commander-in-chief the other day, and she was saying the U.S. in its diplomatic stances, is trying to stop Turkey, because Turkey is openly threatening to invade Kobani itself, from Turkey’s side. But America has not really materially helped, and they don’t expect material help either.

What might we expect from Trump?

It’s obviously a big wild card. We saw in 2018 and 2019, when he pulled American troops out. It was meant to be a complete withdrawal from Syria, but then it was half-aborted in the end and some troops were kept in Syria. It’s hard to know what Trump will do, but it seems like the American forces who are based in the region are quite keen on America staying to fight ISIS, especially right now with the threat of a resurgence. ISIS could exploit security gaps in Syria right now.

How is DAANES’ relationship with HTS progressing?

It seems like their communication, in the beginning, was on this basis of not accidentally falling into conflict with one another. The Autonomous Administration here has made statements saying we want to talk, we are open for dialogue, we are open for negotiations to figure out a future settlement for Syria. As far as I understand, some meetings have been made so far. The SDF confirmed a delegation went to Damascus to meet with the HTS delegation. But no side published a statement. It was not clear what came of this meeting, but it was said this was the starter meeting. There will be more.

It seems there will be a kind of national dialogue conference—some big conference in the future, where they will try to bring together different sides. But it’s unclear who will be included in this, how it will actually run. This is all just talk so far.

HTS is saying the SDF—and not just the SDF, but all forces in Syria, all armed militias—must integrate into a national army. The SDF also was saying, we are willing to be part of a national army. They’ve said this in quite a few statements.

How trustworthy is HTS’s stated commitment to dialogue with DAANES?

The eyes of the world are on Syria right now. HTS is very aware that if it’s employing language that is divisive, that is exclusionary, that seems like it’s just seizing power for HTS, it will not get favorable media coverage. It will create diplomatic difficulties. So [HTS leader, Abu Mohammad al-Jolani’s] talk right now is very open, very welcoming, very inclusive.

What does this mean in practice? There’s some practical things that, you look at them and you think, how could it work? For example, in the SDF, you have the YPJ, the all-women’s force. How could this all-female force be integrated into a national army? Is it possible? From statements made so far by various figures in the new HTS-led administration, it seems that the role for women is not going to be as it is in North and East Syria. So, how could the YPJ be part of this national army? HTS is saying one thing, but how could this actually work in practice, given they are saying other statements about what kind of role women might have in this society?

Are the SDF-operated prison camps, which house ISIS members and their families, close to the zones of conflict? Is there a possibility of jailbreaks?

Geographically, they’re not so close to the front lines. You have Al-Hol camp and Al-Roj camp. Al-Hol camp has around 50,000 people. There are Syrians, Iraqis, and then there are these foreigners. The foreigners are mostly women and children: people who came here to be part of the [Islamic State] caliphate and then had children. Al-Roj camp has around 2,500 people. Again, that’s mostly foreigners. Very few Syrians and Iraqis there.

It’s the foreigners in the camps that really present the threat, as they are more ideologically committed to ISIS. They came here to join the caliphate. They’re still inside the camps, attempting to organize, to uphold some kind of ISIS rule within the camp.

ISIS sleeper cells still in North and East Syria have long had the camps as an aim to attack, to break out their people. This is always an issue, but when Turkey ups its attacks on North and East Syria, the SDF, already spread thin, has to think about how to divide resources. It has to divert resources to the areas under attack and the camps are left more vulnerable.

There are about 10,000 ISIS fighters still held in prisons across North and East Syria, about 2,000 of whom are foreign. In 2023, the Autonomous Administration said, we want a trial for these foreign fighters, because they have been doing trials for the Syrian fighters. They were asking for their countries to repatriate them. Repatriation has taken place both of male fighters and of women and children, but very slowly.

The aim is to repatriate the foreign fighters. But because this hasn’t happened yet, the Administration has said, okay, we will try to make our own trial. We will call for international participation to try these foreign fighters. But they had no positive response from the international community—even a negative response—and basically were unable to do it. So the issue still remains.

Administration officials, also American officials, are describing these camps as ticking time bombs. There could be an attack and a breakout that could be catastrophic at any point.