Kurdish-led SDF has dissolved, but has Syria really unified its military?

Tuesday’s announcement that the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces had dissolved, with its forces merging with the Syrian military, represents a boost for a government seeking to demonstrate that it has sole authority over the country.

And yet, analysts have told Al Jazeera, the finer details of military integration remain, indicating that the divisions that have beset Syria over almost ۱۴ years of war, and then in the ۲۰ months since the fall of the al-Assad regime, have not been totally eradicated.

The SDF, which emerged in ۲۰۱۵, has been based in the country’s northeast, where much of Syria’s historically marginalised Kurdish population lives.

Despite months of talks, the SDF had been unwilling to give up on the autonomy it had gained during Syria’s war, but on Tuesday the group’s leader Mazloum Abdi (also known as Mazloum Kobani) said that an “important page” had been turned in the country’s history.

“We want this day to be the beginning of a true transition from the battlefields to the fields of construction, and from the era of weapons to the era of peace,” Abdi said from the presidential palace in Damascus.

Initially, the SDF had held strong reservations over giving up its arms and coming under the command of Syria’s Ministry of Defence. But a government-led offensive into the northeast in January, in addition to good relations between the Syrian government and the United States – the SDF’s main backer – has shifted the balance of power.

Rob Geist Pinfold, a lecturer on security studies at King’s College London, told Al Jazeera that the SDF’s dissolution “is part of an ongoing trend of the SDF losing its leverage in Syria, simply because the US has signalled that [the SDF] no longer has protected status from the US”.

The SDF’s dissolution means that “the largest organised military force outside Damascus’s authority has ended its independent existence, allowing the state to begin the process of restoring a single military command and unified control over the border, airports, and strategic resources”, said Navvar Saban, a researcher in security and military affairs at the Arab Center for Contemporary Syrian Studies.

But, Saban added, the process of integration will take more than an announcement in Damascus.

“The agreement may end Syria’s military division, but inclusive institutions and a single national chain of command are what will make the unity sustainable and effective,” Saban said.

Obstacles remaining

Saban said that SDF military fighters are being incorporated into the Syrian army under the command of the Defence Ministry, while the Asayish – the SDF’s affiliated security forces – and other local security bodies are being integrated into the Ministry of Interior. Civilian institutions and employees are also being transferred to relevant ministries.

“The formal merge has been completed, but creating a unified military culture and chain of command will take much longer,” he said.

There is also likely to be some apprehension from Syrian Kurds, with a deadly war still recent in their memories, and some mistrust towards Syria’s government. The government is led by figures formerly associated with now-disbanded rebel groups, including Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, whose predecessor, al-Nusra Front, was once affiliated with al-Qaeda. Many of the former rebel groups had also fought the SDF, which was accused of cooperating with the al-Assad regime at times.

“Many Arab communities may welcome the return of the central institution [government], while Kurdish communities are likely to be more cautious,” Saban said. “They want peace. But they also need guarantees concerning the Kurdish language, education, political representation, and local security.”

Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa has made efforts since assuming power in the wake of al-Assad’s fall to assuage Kurdish concerns, repeatedly pledging constitutional protection for Kurdish language and political rights, but insisting on integration into the wider Syrian state.

“This is an agreement that comes on the government’s terms, but it’s likely that US pressure behind the scenes meant that the [Syrian government] capitulated to at least some of the remaining demands from the SDF,” Geist Pinfold said.

There have been particular disagreements over the SDF’s Women Protection Units, also known as the YPJ. Earlier this month, SDF senior official Abdulkarim Omar told Al Jazeera that the YPJ wanted to join the Defence Ministry, but had instead been told by the Syrian government that the army’s existing structure did not include units for women.

The government had instead suggested the YPJ be integrated into the Interior Ministry. Omar said that the YPJ had countered that it could join the Interior Ministry as a specialised counterterrorism unit.

No final decision has been announced, but Alexander McKeever, author of the newsletter This Week in Northern Syria, said that this represented “a significant compromise for the government”, which had previously rejected women in combat or heavy security roles.

However, McKeever, speaking from Qamishli in northeast Syria, said that there were still general disagreements over the larger integration process, including which fighters would join government forces, where they would be deployed, and what their roles would be.

McKeever said the question of chain of command – whether fighters will directly report to Damascus or to more local command – is still unanswered.