The autonomous area commonly known as Rojava, sitting in Northeastern Syrian Kurdistan, is facing an existential struggle. The Syrian administration in Damascus has initiated a military assault on the region in an effort to undermine its autonomy and bring it under central control. The assault has been led by state forces and allied factions of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the religious fundamentalist armed group whose leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, now heads the Syrian transitional government. The year 2026 began with attacks from those groups on Kurdish neighborhoods of Aleppo such as Ashrafieh and Sheikh Maqsoud, then expanded beyond the city. Multiple human rights groups have alleged that Syrian Arab Army units have systematically massacred civilians in the areas surrounding the city of Kobani in northern Syria while the U.S. and the international community sit idly by.
On January 30, the Syrian Democratic Forces, of which the Kurdish People’s Protection Units and Women’s Protection Units are a key part, and the Syrian Arab Republic, which is headquartered in Damascus, agreed to a ceasefire. This ceasefire, which may be temporary, is composed of a bundle of overlapping arrangements rather than a single signed agreement. These include an end to direct hostilities between the parties, de-escalation measures, and ongoing negotiations, while the Syrian Democratic Forces continue to operate across the territory of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES), including its confederal council system, though that control has been contested in the recent deal.
The arrangement is widely understood to involve a phased process of political and military integration, though what this integration would entail remains unclear, particularly regarding whether it would undermine the autonomy of the AANES and the revolutionary experiment underway in northeastern Syria. The AANES has operated autonomously from the Syrian government and offers a grassroots democratic alternative to centralized state structures. If Rojava were to be forcibly brought under the control of a re-centralized Syrian state, it could spell the end of the libertarian communalist project that has inspired the world.
With the region’s future uncertain, activists around the world are organizing in solidarity with Rojava, seeking to preserve the lives of vulnerable communities and defend the right of the people there to build a society free from authoritarian rule.
“Even though there is currently a ceasefire, it remains to be seen how stable it is, and whether the agreement between the Syrian Democratic Forces and the transitional government in Damascus would be implemented,” Zagros Hiwa, spokesperson from the Kurdistan Democratic Communities Union in Rojava, told Truthout. “The danger remains, as the attacks are structural attacks on the only democratic system in the region and target in particular the achievements of Kurdish society, especially women, which is why the attacks must be understood as genocidal attacks that are not only a threat to the Kurds in Rojava.”
Rojava came to the world’s attention when the area became autonomous amid Syria’s years-long war and began an experiment in communal self-governance known as “democratic confederalism.”
The governance model is heavily based in the ideas of Abdullah Öcalan, the leader of the Kurdish Workers’ Party.
Öcalan adapted the ideas of U.S. theorist Murray Bookchin, who argued for a society based on face-to-face democratic institutions, such as councils and delegates who would be directly accountable to the people, and in which women are not just represented in the revolution but are its beating heart.
For a region made up of a multitude of ethnic and religious communities, this horizontal form of organizing was designed to break down communal barriers and build an experiment in self-rule, egalitarianism, and environmental sustainability.
“Revolution is not a paradise on earth. It is a constant process of change, with obstacles and shortcomings,” Felix Weber, a member of the Internationalist Commune in Rojava, told me. “The difference is that people here don’t pull back from the obstacles but try to overcome them.”
The Internationalist Commune has been a critical piece of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria since its formation in 2017, bringing in international supporters and volunteers, sharing information with the media, and attempting to bring the politics of Rojava to the world.
For most of its existence, Rojava’s democratic confederalist project has been under near constant threat from both Turkey and from armed militants, particularly from ISIS, which the Rojava military forces were integral in defeating. There was concern about who would have control of the al-Hol camp, which housed tens of thousands of relatives of Islamic State fighters and had been administered by Syrian Democratic Forces. Many of those housed there remain supporters of ISIS, and there were worries that a security vacuum and escapes could lead to a renewed ISIS presence in the region. The camp was captured by Syrian state forces on January 21, and the UN eventually resumed providing services at the camp, which is more or less stable at the moment.
The Emergency Committee for Rojava was formed by supporters of the revolutionary democratic confederalist project in 2018 after a sequence of volatile wars and assaults from ISIS and Turkey. Later that year, the U.S. announced it would withdraw troops from Syria, a move that heightened instability and was widely seen as creating opportunities for further Turkish military operations. Turkey has a long history of repressing its Kurdish population, a pattern of state repression that contributed to the emergence of revolutionary Kurdish movements in the region.
Solidarity organizers wanted to fill this empty space with grassroots support. While the emergency committee is small, it has created a network of partnerships to pull people into a rapid response system, involving public statements and public education, lobbying government officials, and mobilizing emergency actions at critical junctures. While there was a great deal of hope in late 2024 as the Assad regime officially fell — and Rojavan organizations invited more activists and journalists to visit their region — as of early 2026 the situation has collapsed.
The committee and its allies are demanding that the U.S. back the continued existence of the Syrian Democratic Forces — the Kurdish-led army of which the Kurdish People’s Protection Units and Women’s Protection Units compose a significant part — and oppose Turkish aggression. They are also raising concerns about the potential transfer of Kurdish-run prison camps containing ISIS fighters and their families to the current Syrian national leadership.
During Rojava’s fight with ISIS, the U.S. largely focused on launching airstrikes in both Syria and Iraq, which were widely criticized for killing thousands of civilians, turning Syrian cities into what Amnesty International called a “death trap.” The U.S. then did little to support the region as they had to rebuild and deal with the aftermath of ISIS’s assault, including the tens of thousands of refugees, families of ISIS fighters, and ISIS prisoners.
For Nyma Ardalan, president of the Kurdish Community of Southern California, the question is why so few Democratic lawmakers have spoken out. “Why aren’t they talking about the Kurds?” he said, adding that the Kurdish struggle for freedom isn’t unrelated to other popular liberation issues. “Kurds didn’t just appear 11 years ago to fight ISIS. This has been done to us time and time again in Turkey, Iran, Iraq, multiple times,” he said. “The way the Europeans and the Americans dealt with Rojava and the SDF [Syrian Democratic Forces], it just tells me that there is no understanding and everything is based on immediate profitability and no vision of the future.”
People engaged in solidarity work are trying to strengthen the organizing in the U.S. so it can meet the conflict’s scale. But there is also direct aid that people in the region depend on, coordinated by organizations like the Kurdish Red Crescent; 13 Kurdish humanitarian organizations in the U.S. have launched a fundraising campaign to benefit the aid group.
What is “at stake for local people is everything they have gained over the course of the revolution, from women’s autonomy and minority rights, to self-defense and grassroots democracy,” said Arthur Pye, a Seattle-based organizer with the Emergency Committee. Pye says the U.S. still has the power to stop the assault on Rojava and allow its autonomy to remain, but Trump has signaled that he will no longer support the Syrian Democratic Forces and instead wants to ally with Syria’s new government, now headed by former al-Qaeda leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa. Part of the Emergency Committee’s strategy is to put pressure on Congress as a pathway to influence Trump, while also demanding that the United Nations act to stop assaults on the region.
Protest movements are also taking to the streets in the northern Kurdish cities of Van and Mardin, located within Turkey’s borders, where tens of thousands are demanding freedom for Rojava and chanting in favor of “Apo,” the common Kurdish name for Öcalan and his political vision.
“Organize on your campuses, in your unions, and in your communities,” said a public statement signed by universities and students in Rojava. “Use your positions, however limited they may feel, to push for action, to demand accountability, and to refuse silence. Strengthen the networks of solidarity that make resistance possible.” Solidarity in Kurdish regions has been huge, and now it needs to extend to the global sphere.
Kurdish activists and allies called for an international week of action over the last week of January in solidarity with Rojava, with organizers doing banner drops, posting videos, and launching demonstrations around the world in countries like Germany, Kenya, and Chile, as well as in Catalonia, the semi-autonomous region of Spain that has formally recognized the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria as an official region rather than just a Kurdish canton of Syria.
A series of demonstrations took place on January 31, after a mass call from Kurdish and solidarity organizations. “We call upon all feminist movements and democratic forces worldwide to transform public places into places of resistance,” said Kongra Star, the Rojavan women’s movement, in a statement supporting the January 31 day of action. “Defending Rojava today is defending women’s right to exist, and it is the impassable barrier preventing the spread of fascist terrorism into your homes and cities.”
No matter the terms of the ceasefire, activists are calling for people across the world to keep their gaze pointed toward Rojava. Even without the escalating violence, the ceasefire agreement calls for the Syrian Democratic Forces to have a phased withdrawal as the region is brought back into Syrian control and away from their regional autonomy and the protection offered by the Kurdish People’s Protection Units and Women’s Protection Units, all of which could threaten the experiment in progressive social organization.
“With the ceasefire there is always the danger that the solidarity stops. People think the war is over, but it is not,” said Weber, emphasizing that visibility and media coverage will continue to be central, as will be bringing in international observers and people with medical and other critical skills.
“What we really need are long-term structures of solidarity, not only actions when it is already burning,” Weber added.
Many organizers in Rojava have drawn a comparison to Palestine, where the ceasefire with Israel did not mean an end to the bloodshed or a solution to the problem of Palestinian dispossession. They need a long-term investment in solidarity, connecting other social movements with Rojava’s fight for a future.
“Whether it’s supporting these efforts or finding your own creative ways to keep this story alive, we encourage everyone to do whatever they can to raise hell at this moment,” said Pye. “As people in Northeast Syria fight for their lives and strive to find a political settlement, it’s up to the rest of us to make the situation impossible to ignore, until the international community puts enough pressure on the Syrian government to halt its aggression and respect Rojava’s autonomy as part of a new Syria.”
“The most important form of solidarity is to raise awareness,” Hiwa said. “Because the struggle being waged there is by no means one that only affects the region, but inevitably has global implications,” said Hiwa.
Editor’s note: This piece has been updated to provide more clarity on the timeline of the creation of the Emergency Committee for Rojava.
Shane Burley is the author of Why We Fight: Essays on Fascism, Resistance, and Surviving the Apocalypse (AK Press, 2021) and Fascism Today: What It Is and How to End It (AK Press, 2017). His work has appeared in places such as NBC News, Jacobin, Al Jazeera, The Baffler, The Daily Beast, Truthout, In These Times and Protean. He is currently working on an anthology of anti-fascist writing called ¡No pasarán! and writing a book on antisemitism. Follow him on Twitter: @shane_burley1.
This article was originally published by Truthout and is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0).