As Turkish troops amass on the border, preparing to invade northeast Syria, Sens. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) are threatening sanctions unless they agree to a “sustained ceasefire.” This comes after Secretary of State Antony Blinken’s failed diplomatic efforts during a recent trip to Turkey. Even during the operation to overthrow the Assad regime, Turkey’s intent was also to destroy the multiethnic, multireligious democracy in northeast Syria.
After the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army joined Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham in capturing Aleppo, they split, with HTS continuing to depose former President Bashar Assad while most SNA forces turned their focus northward to capture the Shehba region, part of the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria under Syrian Democratic Forces protection. SNA also captured Manbij before the United States negotiated a ceasefire. HTS, meanwhile, assured Christians, Kurds, and other minorities of their safety during operations. In contrast, reports indicate the SNA targeted ethnic and religious minorities, particularly Syrians displaced from Afrin by Turkey’s 2018 invasion.
Since Dec. 1, attacks in Shehba have forced over 100,000 people to flee, creating a severe humanitarian crisis. Most sought refuge in northeast Syrian cities such as Tabqa and Raqqa, while others escaped to SDF-controlled neighborhoods in Aleppo. Testimonies from these internally displaced persons reveal harrowing accounts of atrocities, including killings, beheadings, kidnappings, and forced disappearances.
“Even now, armed groups are restricting movement, not allowing people to leave their homes,” an internally displaced Yezidi shared. “They report that the situation has worsened, with killings, beatings, slaughtering, and widespread arrests.”
A Kurdish internally displaced person recalled: “They sent those people to us — they are killing, slaughtering, and torturing us. They slaughtered children and captured a woman, killing her in front of me. A man told me they slaughtered his wife in front of him.”
Other testimonies described a woman beheaded in front of her husband and children and Serdem camp as a site of mass killings.
Another Kurdish internally displaced person added: “We were terrified before reaching the last checkpoint. A man with a long beard threatened us, saying he would kill us. They took a young girl — she was 14 — and we don’t know where she is now.”
A Kurdish Christian convert from Islam shared: “There was a group of them who were beating citizens and threatening to slaughter them because they were Kurds and Shiites. If it weren’t for the intervention of HTS forces, there would have been massacres.”
These crimes mirror those committed in other areas Turkey has invaded and occupied, such as Afrin in 2018 and the areas between Sere Kanye and Tell Abyad in 2019. Should Turkey and the SNA claim more territory from the SDF, minorities such as Kurds, Yezidis, and Christians will face renewed threats of violence.
The 2024 annual report of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom highlights grave abuses in Turkish-occupied territories. According to the report, Turkish-backed SNA forces “target religious minorities, especially Yezidis, for rape, assassination, kidnapping for ransom, confiscation of property, and desecration of cemeteries and places of worship.” Similarly, a February Human Rights Watch report said Turkey “bears responsibility for the serious abuses and potential war crimes committed by members of its own forces and local armed groups it supports in Turkish-occupied territories of northern Syria.”
Under HTS, Idlib also has a record of religious freedom violations. USCIRF reported, “Despite HTS’s robust campaign to distance itself from its past massacres … the group’s governance in the northwest advanced a Salafi-Jihadist ideology disenfranchising Christians and Druze. HTS continued to expropriate property, restrict religious rituals, arrest and detain religious minorities and nonconforming Sunni Muslims, and impose religiously justified dress codes on women.”
While HTS has not targeted minorities during this operation, its history is troubling.
By contrast, the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria stands as a beacon of hope for religious and ethnic minorities. It is the only part of Syria praised by USCIRF and others for its positive religious freedom conditions. It overrepresents minorities as government officials, with half its leaders being women. AANES’s Social Contract guarantees freedom of belief, conscience, thought, and opinion. It has never sought independence but instead aspires to be part of a future democratic Syria where minorities and women are full, equal citizens.
The U.S. and international community should take the following steps to further religious freedom and stability in Syria.
First, pressure Turkey: Use all levers, including threatening sanctions, to stop Turkey from continuing attacks on northeast Syria and urge dialogue to settle its own Kurdish conflict, used as an excuse to attack the Syrian Kurds.
Second, provide humanitarian aid: The influx of over 100,000 internally displaced persons to northeast Syria has created a dire need for food, shelter, and medical supplies.
Third, monitor: The status of Christians, Yezidis, Alawites, Kurds, and other religious and ethnic minorities throughout the country needs international monitoring.
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Fourth, include AANES: Representatives from AANES should be included in discussions around the creation of a new government and constitution in accordance with U.N. Resolution 2254 “as the basis for a Syrian-led and Syrian-owned political transition.”
The AANES inclusion can help further moderate concerning extremist tendencies in some factions of the new government and ensure that religious freedom, minority rights, and women’s rights are protected. This is the way forward for a new, peaceful, and stable Syria.
Nadine Maenza is president of IRF Secretariat, global fellow at the Wilson Center, and former chairwoman of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom. She is chairwoman of the Institute for Global Engagement.