Al Shara's feud with Kurds dims Syria's hopes of stability

Regime criticises Kurdish demands for decentralisation amid outbreak of violence

Fighters from the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces have withdrawn from parts of the country under an agreement with the new regime. EPA

A feud between Syria's President Ahmad Al Shara and the country's Kurds over the shape of the new order in Damascus has shattered a two-month respite in tensions between two groups who control the country's most deadly military forces.

The tensions have also widened the fault line between the regime and the country's minorities as sectarian killings mount, undermining Mr Al Shara's quest for international legitimacy after a 14-year civil war. In the past 24 hours gunmen reportedly killed four members of the Alawite sect in Homs, the latest in a wave of attacks in the city.

Adding to the unrest, ISIS said on Monday it had killed five Kurdish fighters in an attack in eastern Deir Ezzor. The US-backed, mostly Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) confirmed five of its members were dead.

In a statement on Sunday, Mr Al Shara had accused the SDF of undermining a March 10 deal to join the new state, by convening a Kurdish conference on Saturday in Qamishli that demanded decentralisation.

He also accused the SDF of separatism, although a final declaration from the conference called only for an equitable sharing of resources and the recognition of Kurdish as an official language. Most of Syria's commodities and all its oil are produced in the east of the country, which is ethnically mixed between Arabs and Kurds.

An SDF official said joint committees set up with the regime under the March 10 deal would continue their work. He said Mr Shara had condemned the Kurds to satisfy his own hardline supporters, as well as Turkey, an avowed enemy of the SDF.

Demands made at a Kurdish conference in Syria proved too much for President Ahmad Al Shara. EPA

The March deal was vague but the two sides had set up committees to seek agreement on the main issues of oil, how to integrate the SDF in new military structures, and the fate of the current SDF-controlled administration in part of Syria.

The official said the Kurdish issue "will not be decided by either Al Shara, nor us", pointing out the presence of French and US officials at the Kurdish conference. The two countries, he said, have made clear their preference for decentralisation, while Turkey does not want the Kurds to hold sway.

Mr Al Shara leads Hayat Tahrir Al Sham, a former Al Qaeda affiliate that led the removal of the regime of Bashar Al Assad last year. Although western governments have engaged with the new regime, especially those in Europe eager for the return of Syrian refugees, they have stressed the need to take counter-terrorism measures and preserve minority rights. Mr Al Shara and HTS remain designated as terrorists in the US and Europe.

"Syria's Kurdish streets have united," Kurdish writer Hosheng Ossi said. "The Kurds have agreed between themselves on a package of demands that do not contradict internationally recognised human rights principles. This terrifies Al Shara, because the Kurds are also well-organised militarily, and have an administration."

Power balance

Majority-Sunni Syria shed more than five decades of Alawite-centric Assad family rule after forces led by HTS swept from the north into Damascus last year. The ensuing Sunni political ascendancy has changed Middle Eastern power dynamics to the disadvantage of Shiite Iran, and Russia, the main backers of the former regime.

However, clashes broke out between the country's new rulers and the Kurds, who had carved out large areas of territory in the east with US backing during the civil war, and set up a secular administration.

Mr Al Shara has assumed control of a country subjected to decades of social engineering by the Assads, who built new support bases for the regime by distributing land and other assets. These changes, accentuated by the dynamics of the civil war, caused and deepened many schisms.

Syria's President Ahmad Al Shara assumed power after the fall of the Assad regime late last year. Reuters

They include the Arab-Kurdish divide and resentment from many Sunnis of the privileges granted to the Alawite sect, whose members provided the core strike force for the regime in the civil war.

Faced with a powerful player in the east, Mr Al Shara has focused his power-consolidation drive on Alawite areas in the centre and west of the country, as well as southern areas near Jordan separately run by Sunni and Druze forces.

Over the last four months, he has sent forces to subdue Alawite heartland regions and arrest former regime loyalists there. The campaign culminated in the killing of 1,300 Alawites, mostly civilians, on March 7 and 8, after the incursions by government forces and allied paramilitaries were met by ambushes.

Clashes also occurred between HTS-led forces and members of the Druze sect, whose spiritual leader, Sheikh Hikmat Al Hijri, had opened channels with Israel, in a quest for protection.

Over the last month, the government has recruited hundreds of Druze in their ancestral region of Suweida, near the border with Jordan, to its new security forces. Druze militias loyal to Sheikh Al Hijri have responded by raising their presence in the streets of Suweida, and activating patrols on the border of the province, residents say.

In Homs, there was a return to identity-based killings of Alawites over the weekend. Mutaz Shalqab, a Sunni figure in the city, said that one Alawite woman was killed with her two children, while another victim was a mentally impaired Alawite man. That was in addition to the bodies of 14 Alawites abducted and killed.

Mr Shalqab said that Mr Al Shara and the his deputies should apprehend the killers "even if they are their brothers".

"If this chaos continues the ship of the new state will sink," Mr Shalqab said. "We will end up like Rwanda".