This Week in Northern Syria [20.2025]

May 14 - 20: al-Shar' meets Trump, tensions along the Euphrates, increased IS-Gov't conflict, and more...

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-A short profile of Afrin’s small Kurdish Alevi community

-Turkey’s network of bases in the ‘Peace Spring’ region of northeastern Syria

-The American military footprint in eastern Syria

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DAANES/SDF

05/14/25: The Asayish announced the arrest of a number of its members on corruption, drug trafficking, and extortion charges, publishing their confessions to YouTube. Three works earlier a local correspondent for Saudi outlet al-Arabiya in al-Qamishli was reportedly arrested for posting on Facebook about what appears to be the same incident.

05/15/25: Numerous events were held across DAANES Syria in honor of Kurdish Language Day, including a celebration of influential Kurdish poet Cigerxwîn (1903-84) in the al-Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood of Aleppo, the opening of a Kurdish language foundation in al-Raqqah, and a symposium at al-Qamishli’s Rojava University. See this recent Syria Direct article for a brief look at the prior, current, and future status of the Kurdish language in Syria.

05/15/25: Al-Monitor’s Amberin Zaman interviewed Foza Yusuf, a leading negotiator for DAANES in talks with Damascus, who divulged that despite earlier reporting an agreement between the two sides over the Tishrin dam has not been reached and that negotiations over northeastern Syria’s oil have not been conducted.