Despite gun battles breaking out in Tel Tamar, a historic Assyrian town in the Khabur River Valley, the ceasefire between Damascus and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces has largely held.
During the calm, some Assyrians seized the chance to leave. One local estimated that roughly a quarter of the community — more than 200 people — has departed in recent days.
Those who remain are leaving their homes only when absolutely necessary, they said, even as humanitarian needs grow.
The town was shelled at least eight times ahead of Syrian army forces entering on Monday. No one could flee at the time, one resident said, there was nowhere to go. Instead, Assyrians huddled in their homes and waited for the fighting to end.
Before Syria’s civil war erupted in 2011, Tel Tamar was home to about 4,000 Assyrians, who made up a majority of the town’s population. Years of violence, fueled by the rise of the Islamic State, emptied the area. Few families have remained. Today, an estimated 300 Assyrian households remain.
Both the Syrian government and the SDF blame the other for violating the truce.
Syrian troops are now positioned on the outskirts of Kurdish-held cities in the northeast, including Hasakah and Qamishli, urban areas with large Assyrian populations. Soldiers there are awaiting orders, and closely watching Damascus’s ceasefire proposal and the SDF’s response.
Handing over SDF-controlled communities to the government forces won’t be easy. The Kurdish-led force has not forgotten its battles against fighters aligned with new Syrian president Ahmed al-Sharaa during the civil war.
The SDF has turned to Washington for support, once its main ally in Syria. But that relationship has changed. After Sharaa, once an Islamist extremist, led a successful offensive last year to overthrow former dictator Bashar al-Assad, he emerged as Syria’s new president and forged closer ties with U.S. President Donald Trump. Washington’s backing has since swayed toward Damascus.
As a result, the SDF is rapidly losing ground. Just months ago, it controlled roughly a quarter of Syria and loosely governed its territory. This week, its holdings have shrunk to a fraction of that.
The United States still maintains a small military presence in Syria’s northeast, tasked among other things to confront Islamic State sleeper cells. But the future of the U.S. presence here is uncertain.
This is a developing story.