A crossed-out image of Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa (Abu Mohammad al-Julani) lies on the ground as Kurdish fighters, bused out of the northern city of Aleppo following a ceasefire, arrive in the Kurdish-controlled northeastern city of Qamishli on January 11, 2026.
DELIL SOULEIMAN / AFP
Syria’s Islamist government, led by Ahmed al-Sharaa—also known as Abu Mohammad al-Julani—is currently waging attacks against the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). Since January 6, an estimated 150,000 people, including Kurds, Christians, and Yazidis, have been internally displaced by forces loyal to Julani.
Julani is the head of the terrorist group Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). The SDF is a U.S. ally who fought against the Islamic State (ISIS) for over a decade.
This is the third ethnic cleansing campaign that HTS, backed by Turkey, has conducted since taking over the country’s capital of Damascus in December 2024. The first two campaigns targeted the Alawites and the Druze. Thousands of members of the Alawite and Druze religious minorities in the country were murdered or abducted by Julani’s forces.
HTS, due to its affiliation with al-Qaeda and ISIS, is blacklisted as a terrorist organization by the UN Security Council. The designation has been transposed to European Union law and is followed by all 27 EU member states.
The ongoing attacks conducted by Julani’s armed forces started on January 6 in the Kurdish-majority neighborhoods of Sheikh Maqsoud and Ashrafieh (the northern part of Aleppo).
Videos have since been posted on social media showing Julani’s terrorist forces kidnapping and abusing Kurdish women and beating Kurdish men whom they have abducted. One video shows jihadists throwing a Kurdish woman off a building. Another shows Julani’s terrorists abducting young Kurdish women, describing them as “a gift” [sexual slaves] to someone called “mujahid [jihadist].” Videos also show Kurdish fighters from the SDF, including female fighters, being massacred.
Christians are amongst thousands of people who have fled the affected areas. They are often sheltering with friends, family, or in churches.
In addition, approximately 800 Yazidi families have been forced to return from Aleppo to their areas of origin in the city of Afrin amid the chaos, reported the Free Yezidi Foundation:
However, Afrin remains under the control of the same extremist factions that previously drove them out. This forced return puts them in extreme danger, as Yezidis continue to be systematically persecuted for their religious beliefs. At the time of writing, communication with these 800 families has been severed, leaving their current condition unknown.
In 2013, amid the country’s civil war, Kurds unilaterally declared autonomy (three autonomous cantons) in Syria’s north, becoming the most effective force that fought against ISIS and helped liberate Syria from ISIS occupation. Yet, this era is coming to an end.
On January 18, 2026, the SDF and the Julani-led regime signed a “ceasefire and integration” agreement brokered by the United States government. However, it can also be said that this agreement was imposed on the SDF. The Kurds were forced to withdraw from the cities of Raqqa and Deir ez-Zor to Hasakah.
Who rules Raqqa is immensely important for international counterterrorism efforts. It is the former capital of ISIS and home to prisons that hold ISIS terrorists. The city is now under Julani’s control, a former ISIS and al-Qaeda terrorist himself.
ISIS terrorists began ruling Raqqa in 2013, making it their de facto capital within the year. ISIS concurrently attacked Kobani, a strategically located Syrian Kurdish town that borders Turkey and is controlled by Kurds. As the Kurds defended themselves, the United States supported them with heavy air strikes and airdrops of arms.
In 2015, Kurdish forces and allied Arab rebels capped a months-long offensive against ISIS by capturing Tel Abyad. This Syrian town is located along the border with Turkey and was a transit point for ISIS’ capital, Raqqa. The campaign expanded the territory controlled by the Kurds in northern Syria and consolidated it from three non-contiguous regions to two.
In 2017, U.S. President Donald Trump approved a plan to arm the SDF, directly via the US Defense Department, as the U.S.-led coalition against ISIS prepared to seize Raqqa.
ISIS held Raqqa from 2013 until their defeat by Kurds in the Battle of Raqqa in October 2017. During this four-year period, Raqqa served as the seat of their self-proclaimed caliphate. It was the Kurdish SDF forces who liberated Raqqa, ending ISIS’ rule over the city.
In 2018, after a months-long battle that murdered dozens of civilians, Turkey’s President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced that Turkish forces and allied Syrian rebels have gained “total control” of Afrin, a city in northern Syria previously controlled by Kurds. Tens of thousands of civilians fled their homes, according to the United Nations.
In 2019, the SDF took control of areas around the Syrian town of Baghouz, near the Iraq-Syria border, the last populated area held by ISIS. An SDF spokesperson declared the “total elimination of [the] so-called caliphate,” and U.S. officials said it marked the end of ISIS’ territorial rule. They warned that ISIS terrorists remain a threat.
Six years later, Kurds are forced by Turkey-backed jihadists and the US government to surrender their territories to Julani. In a video released on January 19, 2026, Mazlum Abdi, the General Commander of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), stated:
We have been in a war since January 6. This war was made obligatory for us. We have many martyrs and wounded. We commemorate our martyrs … In order to prevent this war from escalating into a civil war—as it was being prepared—and to prevent a major civil war, we decided to withdraw from Raqqa and Deir ez-Zor to Hasakah. We will protect our [political and territorial] gains to the end. We will do everything in our power; we have the strength to do so. This is resistance, and I believe that just as we succeeded in the past 14 years, we will succeed again.”
The SDF withdrawal from Raqqa and Deir ez-Zor creates a ticking time bomb regarding ISIS prisons in the region, precipitating a critical security crisis regarding the custody of thousands of imprisoned ISIS members. The journalist Kamaran Aziz notes:
According to a new security assessment, the transfer of territorial control has raised urgent questions about the management of detention facilities housing some of the world’s most dangerous terrorists, creating a potential vacuum that experts warn could have global ramifications.
For years, the network of prisons in North and East Syria has served as the cornerstone of the security architecture in the region. The SDF, operating with direct support from the [US-led] International Coalition forces, has managed these high-security facilities against a backdrop of persistent threats.”
Videos posted on social media showed Julani’s forces releasing some of those ISIS terrorists from prisons in northeast Syria. Some reports claim thousands of ISIS prisoners have been released.
HTS is a terrorist group formed in 2017 from a merger of five Islamist militias. Since then, HTS has ruled the city of Idlib in northwest Syria. In 2018, it was designated by the US State Department as a Foreign Terrorist Organization.
In late November 2024, an offensive was launched by jihadist forces who were spearheaded by HTS and supported by the Turkish government. In December, HTS toppled Bashar al-Assad, ending his family’s six-decade Baathist regime in less than two weeks.
HTS founder Julani then became Syria’s self-proclaimed president. Before that, he had served as the head of the Syrian al-Qaeda (also known as the Jabhat Al-Nusra or the Nusrah Front), another designated Foreign Terrorist Organization. A $10 million bounty for his arrest was removed by the Biden administration on December 20, 2024.
ISIS leaders have used HTS-controlled territory in Syria as a safe haven. Two significant US military operations targeted ISIS leaders within HTS-controlled areas: Abu Bakr Al-Baghdadi in 2019 and Abu Ibrahim Al-Hashimi Al-Quraishi in 2022.
Sarah Adams, a prominent counterterrorism expert, has long been warning the West regarding the consequences of the jihadist takeover of Syria. Adams was an intelligence analyst and targeter with the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). She also served as the Senior Advisor to the U.S. House of Representatives Select Committee on Benghazi and is co-author of “The Benghazi Committee Report: Proposed Report of the Select Committee on the Events Surrounding the 2012 Terrorist Attack in Benghazi.”
In an interview with europeanconservative.com, Adams explained how Julani is aiming to turn Syria into an Islamic caliphate:
Julani is testing the outer limits of his authority. Kurdish communities in Aleppo represent an organized and disciplined population that does not submit to HTS control, making them a direct challenge to his consolidation of power. At the same time, these attacks function as a litmus test of his evolving relationship with the United States, measuring whether recent engagement and rebranding efforts have insulated him from accountability. This violence is not reactive or spontaneous. It is a deliberate calculation to determine how much force he can apply without triggering serious international consequences.
He is not. Julani presents a carefully managed public image of pragmatism, but that image does not reflect his private intentions. In conversations within extremist and jihadist circles, he continues to articulate an ambition to transform Syria into an Islamic caliphate governed through intimidation and enforced submission rather than law. That vision is not confined to Syria. He is actively encouraging aligned networks in Iraq, promoting the gradual capture of Iraqi political and security institutions as part of a broader regional project. A leader who privately embraces sectarian expansion while publicly signaling moderation cannot credibly claim to protect minorities or respect state sovereignty. His actions over the past year demonstrate that repression, not pluralism, is the organizing principle of his rule.
Any credible political solution must begin with the exclusion of terrorist actors from state leadership. The international community is currently operating under the false assumption that integrating extremist groups into government produces stability. In practice, this approach rewards ideological violence and places minorities at greater risk. Integration is being paired with disarmament requirements that strip vulnerable communities of their ability to defend themselves, while leaving HTS and ISIS terrorist structures intact under the cover of state authority. Syria needs a decentralized political system that prevents power from being concentrated in the hands of one group and gives local communities real authority over their own security and governance. International engagement should focus on accountability and the removal of extremist leaders from political power, not on rehabilitating them into government roles. Experience has repeatedly shown that legitimizing terrorist actors does not change their behavior; it institutionalizes it.
