MARY LOUISE KELLY, HOST:
The north of Syria is home to one of the biggest Kurdish communities in the Middle East. They're part of a divided Kurdish population that stretches across four countries. Kurds broke away from Syria's government during Bashar al-Assad's regime and established their own precarious region. A year after Assad was toppled, they are gaining a new country but losing almost everything they fought for. NPR's Jane Arraf reports from northeastern Syria.
(SOUNDBITE OF SHEEP BLEATING)
JANE ARRAF, BYLINE: We're walking through a field of spring wheat, bright green against a clear blue sky. Sheep and goats graze nearby.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #1: (Shouting in non-English language).
ARRAF: The scene couldn't be more idyllic.
AKRAM ABDUL GHANI: (Non-English language spoken).
ARRAF: Oh.
Except for the tail fin of a large rocket sticking out more than 10 feet from the ground.
ABDUL GHANI: Boom.
ARRAF: That's Akram Abdul Ghani. He's 60 and works at the Ministry of Transportation.
ABDUL GHANI: At 7 and 1/2 o'clock in morning, the rocket is fall here.
ARRAF: It's the rocket casing that landed. There were no casualties.
ABDUL GHANI: (Non-English language spoken).
ARRAF: He says they're in a dangerous location.
ABDUL GHANI: (Non-English language spoken).
ARRAF: "The Iranian strikes come from the East, and the Israeli ones come from the West, and we're in the middle," he says.
ABDUL GHANI: (Non-English language spoken).
ARRAF: This region is known as Rojava, considered by many here to be part of a dreamed-of Kurdish state extending from Syria into Iraq, Iran and Turkey. Kurds in 2012 broke away and founded an autonomous region, meant to be a democratic, secular, multiethnic and gender-equal island in the heart of the Middle East. Syrian Kurds fighting alongside the U.S. defeated ISIS. In late 2024, the Assad regime fell, and in January this year, Syrian government forces, with a green light from the U.S., took over Kurdish territory.
ABDUL GHANI: (Through interpreter) Honestly, the international coalition abandoned us to face great danger alone, whether from the tribes or the Syrian government.
ARRAF: "Is this our reward for defeating ISIS with U.S. forces?" Akram Abdul Ghani asks. Kurds here are afraid that in the new Syria, almost all their hard-fought gains will be lost, and they're deeply worried about the war in Iran.
(SOUNDBITE OF VEHICLE JOSTLING)
ARRAF: Near the city of Hasakah we sit down with Nowruz Ahmed, deputy commander of the Syrian Democratic Forces, the group that runs this region.
NOWRUZ AHMED: (Through interpreter) What's matter for us that we will stick to the agreement.
ARRAF: Under a U.S.-brokered ceasefire between the Kurds and Damascus, the Kurds gave up territory and oil fields. In exchange, they have promises of retaining Kurdish rights.
AHMED: (Through interpreter) We don't want a internal fight between the Syrians to take place again. We don't want any fights.
ARRAF: Kurdish forces have agreed to become part of the Syrian army, but the Syrian government has rejected formation of distinct Kurdish brigades and refused to allow female fighters who have fought on the front lines and have also suffered heavy casualties.
AHMED: (Through interpreter) It's about protecting the woman. The danger, it's against the woman. This is why it's important for the female fighters to stay because it will give a sense of protection and self-defense for the new generation.
ARRAF: The Syrian government, headed by Ahmed al-Sharaa, a one-time al-Qaida commander, is backed not just by the U.S. but by Turkey, which for decades waged war with Kurds.
(SOUNDBITE OF MOTORCYCLE)
ARRAF: Traveling through the region, we find other minorities fearful as well.
ISMAEL DALF: (Non-English language spoken).
ARRAF: Hello. Hi.
Yazidis, the ancient religious minority that was the target of genocide by ISIS, are terrified that without the protection of the Kurds, ISIS could return.
DALF: (Non-English language spoken).
ARRAF: Yazidi leader Ismael Dalf also worries about Syrian government forces who were originally Islamist militant fighters.
DALF: (Through interpreter) If they have the base and the mentality, if they have the opportunity to do so, nothing will going to stop them. So this is why the danger, it's not over.
ARRAF: Since the regime fell, there have been mass killings in minority areas, including Alawites, the sect of former leader Bashar al-Assad, and the Druze, another influential religious minority. Christians have begun to leave after the bombing of a church. Sharaa has pledged to punish any government forces responsible.
ZAINAB AHMAD NASRO: (Non-English language spoken).
ARRAF: We meet Zainab Ahmad Nasro, an elderly Yazidi woman, in a garden in the village of Brazan. She keeps her eyes on the ground as she pulls up clumps of chamomile.
NASRO: (Non-English language spoken). Zainab Ahmad Nasro.
ARRAF: Nasro is from the Kurdish city of Afrin, taken over by Turkish-backed fighters in 2018. She and her husband were displaced. Her husband has been missing for four years.
NASRO: (Through interpreter) We escaped again, but they took my husband and he's missing until now. And I think they killed him.
(Non-English language spoken).
ARRAF: But there's no proof, and she doesn't know.
NASRO: (Crying).
ARRAF: She weeps over the not knowing, over the loss of the life they had with a farmhouse and sheep and their own well with sweet water, where she could offer charity and not have to accept it.
NASRO: (Crying).
ARRAF: Nasro believes the Syrian government's Islamic roots are too close to ISIS. She doesn't believe promises by the Syrian president to protect minorities.
NASRO: (Through interpreter) I don't trust them. I don't trust all the agreements that they are making. They have agreements, but they fighting each other. We are Yazidis. They are our enemies. They want to kill us. I don't trust them.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON #2: (Shouting in non-English language).
ARRAF: In the city of Qamishli, there's a lot of worry about the future of this region, but also some comfort that threats against Syria's Kurds have rallied support from Kurdish leaders in other countries.
MOHAMMAD SALIH: (Through interpreter) Because of these attacks recently, the Kurd been unified.
ARRAF: That's Mohammad Salih, who's selling flags. He's 45, old enough to remember how selling or waving Kurdish flags under the Assad regime would get you arrested. This year, he's selling not just the flag used by Syria's Kurdish region but the traditional white, yellow and green flag with a yellow sun that's a symbol of Kurdish unity across borders. It's just a few days before celebrations for the end of the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan and the Kurdish New Year, and the streets are filled with shoppers.
(SOUNDBITE OF STREET MUSIC)
ARRAF: This unique region has always faced internal and external threats. Isolated, threatened and besieged for more than a decade by Syrian government and international sanctions, it didn't fully achieve the lofty goals that it set. But it did instill in a generation of Syrian Kurds a sense of Kurdishness.
(LAUGHTER)
ARRAF: We meet Eve Shekmos (ph), who's 18 and studying to be a Kurdish language teacher. She's having a dress made.
So what kind of dress are you going to buy?
EVE SHEKMOS: (Through interpreter) This is the second layer of the dress. Now I'm still looking for the first layer.
ARRAF: Can we see?
UNIDENTIFIED INTERPRETER: (Non-English language spoken).
ARRAF: She wears a confident smile and a pendant in the shape of a Kurdish flag around her neck.
SHEKMOS: (Through interpreter) This is the white base, and then I will have the other colors' fabrics that will going to reflect to the Kurdish flag.
ARRAF: Had she gone to school before the Kurds broke away, she would have been educated almost entirely in Arabic.
SHEKMOS: (Non-English language spoken).
ARRAF: "I think that the Rojava future is bright," she says, using the Kurdish name for Syria's Kurdish region. "Before, as Kurds, we were not unified. Now we are." Jane Arraf, NPR News, Qamishli, northeastern Syria.
(SOUNDBITE OF BADBADNOTGOOD AND GHOSTFACE KILLAH SONG, "STREET KNOWLEDGE") Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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