US-Backed Kurdish Commander Urges Secular, Decentralized Syria After Assad’s Fall

Mazloum Abdi, commander of the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), recently expressed his vision for Syria following the demise of Bashar Assad's government. In an interview, Abdi underlined that treating all people equally regardless of religion or ethnicity will help the nation be based on secular, civil, and distributed values. He also mentioned that American forces should stay in Syria to stop the Islamic State ( ISIS) from taking advantage of a possible exit.

Abdi's remarks follow the fall of the Assad government in early December when rebel forces—headed by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS)—grabbed Damascus. With the Assad family's 54-year rule now under review, Syria's several factions have begun debating how to reconstruct the nation; HTS leader al-Sharaa is acting as temporary president.

Abdi underlined that even while the SDF supports a distributed state, they are open to communication even though they did not participate in the conference where al-Sharaa was chosen as president. He underlined that the Kurds want local government inside a unified Syria, not autonomy like Iraq's Kurdistan.

Citing their part in fighting ISIS, Abdi also underlined the need to retain U.S. soldiers in Syria. He said that ISIS still seriously jeopardizes regional stability and that the U.S. military's presence is necessary to destroy the organization. Abdi and the SDF are dedicated to a democratic and inclusive future for Syria with equal rights for all religious and ethnic groups, notwithstanding continuous negotiations.

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