As Syrian government forces rapidly occupy territory long autonomously administered in the country’s northeast, religious freedom experts warn that their presence poses a danger to religious minorities. “It is important to understand: these Kurdish majority areas are rich with religious minorities: Christians, Yazidis, Zoroastrians, Circassians. We have Alawites, and Druze, and a wide range of different ethnicities as well,” explained Nadine Maenza, chair of the international religious freedom roundtable and former chair of the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom (USCIRF), on “Washington Watch.”

Regions of northeastern Syria have been controlled by the U.S-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) since the Syrian Civil War, which began in 2011. In contrast to the brutal Assad regime in Damascus or the Islamist extremist separatists in Idlib (northwestern Syria), the Kurdish-led region tolerated religious diversity and local rule.

However, with Turkish support, the Islamist extremists quickly toppled the Assad regime in December 2024. This group of former terrorists, known as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) is now trying to exert its power over the entire nation.

The northeastern autonomous administration was once Damascus’s greatest rival, but its future prospects look bleak now that American diplomats have chosen to back the government of former jihadis instead. U.S. envoy Tom Barrack arm-twisted the SDF to sign a disadvantageous agreement last March, which called for their full integration into the Syrian government. When that agreement was not fulfilled by the end of the year, the Syrian government launched an all-out offensive.

“What the leaders of northeast Syria are trying to negotiate [is] how to integrate in a way that preserves that religious freedom” they currently enjoy, “that keeps local police and local administrators,” Maenza explained. Under the northeastern administration, localities are led by “somebody from their own community as the mayor or as the co-chair. Right now, [there are] co-chairs, a man and a woman, and then different ethnicities and religions as part of a council. And they want to keep that council.”

Damascus is “saying that their negotiations had failed with the northeast,” Maenza continued. But it would be more accurate to say “they never actually had any conversations about how to integrate the [Damascus] government. And it was always about how to integrate the SDF” underneath Damascus.

“The Syrian forces have decided to claim northeast Syria [by] force,” she added. “As they were entering, CENTCOM, [U.S.] Central Command, the U.S. military told them to stop. And they continued. … They took all the Arab areas” in Syria’s northeast.

Maenza wasn’t surprised that Syrian forces would ignore a warning from the U.S. military. “Turkey is behind all of this, of course,” she declared. “In fact, these attacks have happened with Turkish drones. There have been Turkish planes in the air … dropping bombs.” The Turkish government has long tried to eradicate the Kurds, not only in Turkey but in neighboring Syria as well.

Unsurprisingly, these Turkey-backed forces show little compunction against brutalizing the Kurds. “We saw videos online of all sorts of atrocities against some of the Kurdish forces,” said Maenza. “We’ve seen videos of beheadings that included women. … We saw some executions on video.” The SDF has compiled a dossier that they claim documents dozens of war crimes committed by Syrian government forces this month. The list includes mutilating and burning bodies, besieging a hospital, gassing civilian neighborhoods, field executions, and even throwing the body of a female SDF fighter from a building.

Maenza expressed concern that a government that countenances such open brutality would not shrink from a quieter, systematic oppression of religious minorities.

When Maenza visited Christian villages near Latakia (an area of northwest Syria already under regime control) in August, she “stumbled upon the fact that every single mayor was from Idlib … from HTS,” she revealed. “And then I found out all the municipal buildings were no longer staffed by any of the Christians in the village [who] used to work in the municipal building. They [the municipal employees] were all from Idlib, all from HTS. [I] started checking around further; [in] all of the Arab areas, [they] are from HTS and Idlib.”

Maenza added that the Syrian government was continuing this pattern of replacing low-level government officials in northeastern Syria. “Just a couple of days ago, after they took Raqqa [a provincial capital], they put a new governor in place. And of course, he’s with HTS,” she said. Islamist extremists “should not be in charge of providing security or governance to Yazidi or Christian villages in the northeast, or Kurdish villages,” she urged.

Meanwhile, Kurdish forces have retreated to their final strongholds in the face of the government-backed onslaught. “Right now, they are in negotiations, they’re saying, for a ceasefire,” said Maenza. “But, as that’s happening, as we speak, [Syrian government forces] have still surrounded [the Kurdish city of] Kobani. They’re still fighting [the Kurdish capital] Al-Hasakah. So, instead of having a ceasefire … they just continue to attack these Kurdish areas, putting them at risk.”

By these moves to exert total control over conquered territory, the Syrian government is “not asking for a ceasefire,” Maenza argued. “They’re asking for surrender. And Ambassador Barrack, who’s a part of this negotiation, seems to also be pushing them towards a surrender. … And we have to say that that cannot be possible if we’re going to protect these religious minorities.”

Americans “should be concerned” about the plight of northeastern Syria, argued FRC President Tony Perkins, another former USCIRF chairman, because “it’s one of the few places outside of Israel in the Middle East [where] there’s been a functioning government that has actually respected religious freedom.”

For example, a Christian church officially opened in Kobani in 2018, after decades with no Christian presence. At the time, the city was home to approximately 300 Christians. Some of these fled from other cities (such as Afrin in northwestern Syria) due to Islamist persecution. Others were converts from Islam, who would certainly face persecution.

Today, Kobani faces a siege by government forces, who have cut off water and electricity and are not allowing civilians to flee. “The history of what has happened so far under this government would say, you can’t believe what they’re saying. You have to look at what they’ve done,” cautioned Perkins. “This is really the true test of the new president of Syria, [whether he] will allow this region that has been self-governing, autonomous for quite some time,” to retain its religious freedom.

“We need to be standing up for [these minorities] and asking the president, asking Secretary Rubio to make sure that [Syrian government] forces do not enter these Kurdish, Christian, Yazidi, religious-minority, ethnic-minority areas, but [that] they can integrate in under the Ministry of Interior,” Maenza urged. “It may not be a perfect environment, but [it would] be a way to help keep them safe. And whatever happens here is going to be a precedent also for Sweida,” an autonomous region in southern Syria populated by beleaguered Christians and Druze.

“If they invade and take everything now, well, look, we’re going to keep having war,” Maenza concluded. Allowing space for religious freedom “is the only way Syria can be successful. And this is what we need to be pushing for.”