Lawfare Daily: The State of Syria, with Charles Lister

[Intro]

Charles Lister: The moment conflict moved into SDF core areas, the Arab tribes flipped in 12 hours and almost overnight, 75 to 80% of the SDF territory had flipped to government control almost without a bullet being fired.

And that was kind of the death nail in terms of the SDF being able to maintain itself as a significant actor on the stage. And it basically forced them into the integration agreement we see today.

Scott R. Anderson: It's the Lawfare Podcast. I'm Scott R. Anderson here with Charles Lister, senior fellow at the Middle East Institute.

Charles Lister: Does it make sense for American military bases to still be in SDF controlled northeastern Syria? Not very much. Does it make sense, however, that the US military and the intelligence community seek to invest in a more government to government relationship through Damascus to explore continuing to pursue, you know, shared interests? Yes. And that's what we are seeing

Scott R. Anderson: Today, we're talking about the end of the U.S. military presence in Syria and what it says about the state of the country.

[Main Episode]

So, Charles, I think it's fair to say Syria has been through what might be the most dramatic 15 months that I can imagine in terms of a country's transformation.

We went from the collapse of the Assad regime. Which had, you know, overseen, instigated, participated in a brutal civil war, brutal campaigns, suppression in the country for over a decade collapsed suddenly and unexpectedly in December of 2024. We see the resistance movement that pushed it aside, set up a government that rapidly, establishes a transitional government in March of 2025 that then gets a fair amount of international legitimacy, spent several months getting degrees of recognition from the international community, establishing itself as transitional government, having normalization, withdrawal of sanctions, re-engagement with the global economy, and working on internal reconciliation with some stops and starts.

Then earlier this year, we saw a big obstacle come up in that front with the other big actor, I would say, in Syria, the Syrian Democratic Forces that has now led to a end, apparently impending end, I should say, to the U.S. security presence in the country that's been there for better part, more than a decade at this point.

So let's start by catching our listeners up to where we were at the beginning of the year before this kind of latest instigating conflict arose in January. Where was the transitional government and the state of Syria at the end of 2025 and what were the big outstanding questions and challenges that were still facing it?

Charles Lister: Yeah, well, I mean in terms of challenges you know, 1,000,001 and the list will continue Syria after, yeah. 14 years of civil conflict, brutal civil conflict, and more than 50 years of rule by the Assad dynasty has, you know, faces I immeasurable challenges, but at the end of 2025, I mean—

The first year of the transition 2025, was I think what I would sort of loosely term the year of Syria's kind of coming out from the cold. Foreign policy was clearly the foremost priority for the very fragile transitional government, getting Syria back onto the international stage, as you say, reacquiring assemblance of international legitimacy, trying to reintegrate into the global economy through, you know, sanctions removal.

And I think, you know, by and large that was, that was mostly accomplished. I mean, in fact, it was accomplished far more so than any of us would've expected, when, you know, Ahmed al-Sharaa, former Al-Qaeda commander, named himself transitional president, I don't think anyone would've imagined that within 12 months, Syria would be where it was on the international stage with Oval Office meetings and addresses to the UN General Assembly and everything else.

So I think having accomplished that. Syria went into the beginning of 2026 knowing that it was gonna need to focus much more inwardly on all of its domestic issues. And that's where this issue of the SDF was a particular challenge. It's also where, frankly, 2026 is gonna be, in my view, the year of the economy.

If Syria cannot prove to its people, that it's gonna get the economy back onto its feet, it's gonna face increasing protests and and instability as a result of the persistent humanitarian crisis. You know, nearly 90% of the population still live under the poverty line in Syria today. So the removal of asset didn't some miraculously resolve any of those underlying issues.

But yes, it did mean that towards the end of the year, once all of those foreign policy accomplishments had been achieved and sort of consolidated and Syria and its un unusual, government felt secure in that new status, it sought to resolve some of those internal issues. One being, yes, the economy, but two being much more sensitive issues like the SDF, which controlled at that point 25% of the country, about 80% of Syria's natural assets and natural resources, significant border crossings with neighboring countries and was very much clearly seen as an issue that needed to be resolved.

And so I'll close out this long answer by saying—In 2025, there was a process of U.S. mediated talks between the Syrian government and the SDF aimed at peacefully resolving this issue by peacefully, and sort of diplomatically integrating the SDF into the state.

Long, long, very complicated story short, those U.S. mediated talks never resulted in an agreement being implemented. And I emphasize that latter part because in October last year, there was an agreement made be around a table with U.S. officials and in fact, French officials on the other side of the table.

But for a number of reasons, the SDF particularly, refused to publicly declare itself as supporting that agreement, mostly due to internal issues. And as a result of that, we ended up seeing, you know, things flare up quite significantly at the beginning of this year.

Scott R. Anderson: So this question of integration and autonomy, I guess kind of two interrelated questions, there have always been so fundamental to the question of the SDF—

Because the SDF for folks who may not remember, while it's an effort to put a kind of non-sectarian framing around what was predominantly a Kurdish military force that became a governing entity over a good part of the region, the Rojava government, regional government that worked closely with the United States in the counter-ISIS campaign and had pretty strong security relationship with the United States up until this past year I think it's fair to say, with some stops and starts during the first Trump administration.

So talk to us about what this integration looks like. What's the pressure points in the negotiation between the central government and the SDF? The SDF has, as I recall, correct me if I'm wrong, even under the, when the side was still in power, they said, we don't wanna separate from the Syrian state, but we want a degree of self-government and autonomy within the Syrian state.

So what have their demands been and what has the transitional government been able to give them and what haven't they been able to give them?

Charles Lister: Yes. I mean that, that's exactly it. So throughout, for many years we've had the SDF as the military entity, and then we've had what they called their autonomous administration of North and East Syria, which was their kind of governing front and the word autonomous being the key one here.

So their objective has always been, at least on paper, not secession, not breakaway, but political autonomy or administrative autonomy as they've often worded it. And I think that the key issue here is, you know, if I rewind in my life in a former life, played a very significant role in a big kind of track, 1.5 process, speaking with Syrians from all sides, including from the regime and everything in between.

And at that time and throughout the entirety of Syria conflict, the only thing you could get every single person to agree on, no matter where they stood on the conflict, was the idea that Syria would never be broken up. So even at the height of military conflict, everyone could only agree on that one point that Syria needed to remain a cohesive state, even if it was divided and, you know, and in the midst of conflict.

And so the definition of autonomy has always been, you know, the definition of the SDF’s seeking autonomy has always been this big crunch point. What do they really mean by that? Do they mean having their own government? Do they mean having, being part of a central government but having more control over how they govern their areas?

You know, where does that interpretation lie? And that really was at the crux of the disagreement amongst the U.S. mediated negotiations in 2025, was where do you draw the line? Ahmed al-Sharaa as the transitional president, came in basically wanting to replicate what Syria has known for decades, which is this strong central leader that seeks to have, you know, total control over matters, you know, left, right, and center.

And of course we had the SDF seeking to have a very different model. Sometimes the word federalism has been thrown out there too, and for many Syrians in other parts of the map, federalism sounds like a slippery slope towards breakaway states. So it it's less been about, you know, strict interpretations of words and much more about perceptions.

You know, again, to rewind and then I'll come to more to the present. You know, right after Assad fell, my first trip into Syria, at the time I was struck by and I traveled all across the country. Everyone said that they suddenly saw the SDF as occupiers. The occupation was the word that people were using in the Alawite coastal you know, region on the Mediterranean, Idlib and Aleppo down in the south, everywhere.

And so suddenly the interpretation or the perception of what the SDF was seeking became much more important than perhaps what they really were seeking. And again, that's probably was the reason why the negotiations ultimately failed, is because there was very little trust that the SDF meant that they didn't want to break away. Everyone feared that it was just another step towards, you know, pushing in that direction.

Where are we now that there is an integration agreement in place? I think, you know, I have to say coming on the heels of the conflict that did develop between these two actors at the beginning of this year, I wasn't particularly optimistic that we would see a sort of smooth integration process. But I have to say, so far, so good.

Both sides, despite their significant differences in their history of hostility, have been extremely patient, very pragmatic, very calm, very understanding when there have been difficulties, for example, around the sort of famed Kurdish town of Kobani, which didn't integrate immediately in the way that it was originally designed to in the agreement.

They thought you know, both actors thought outside of the box about ways to build confidence and then we've seen things move forward. So actually remarkable progress, still a long way to go, but really encouraging early signs. And I think ultimately that still tells us that the vast majority of Syrians, even when they hold diametrically opposite political opinions have had enough with conflict and that they are, when push comes to shove—

And this really did take some pushing and shoving. People are willing to try their very best to put their differences aside for the sake of not returning to hostilities. And I think that's, you know, as lower a bar as that is, that's still what we are gripping onto in the hope that this will continue to be a smooth process.

There are, I should say, tensions, and there are still very significant bumps along the road that are likely coming. And in fact there's been some clashes just this morning before we're recording this. And so, you know, we should all go into this with open eyes, but encouraging early signs nonetheless.

Scott R. Anderson: So, so let's dwell a moment on what exactly the military conflict changed and what precipitated it. Because it happened very quickly, and frankly, for American consumers, which is probably the majority of our audience, it happened at the exact same time as the U.S. intervention and the capture of Maduro, or overlapping in the media kind of envelope after that.

So, fell off the front pages for a lot of people, whereas I think a few years ago, something like this happening in Syria would be very much about bigger news and a much more direct impact at the higher foreign policy priorities for the administration.

So, so we know this outbreak of hostility started in January. What, you know, what exactly was the objective of the two sides? Because the transition primarily, you know, the, this concern about occupation—Was it tied mostly to the SDF fact that the SDF had come into control of areas, non-Kurdish areas like that were strategically important, like their Assur or their natural resources and, you know, other urban centers.

So what was the motivation? What were the objectives of the government going into this military campaign?

Charles Lister: Yeah, so I mean there are two things that I would highlight as important background. One of them to reiterate the fact that we'd had these talks throughout most of 2025, and that ultimately, I mean, there was U.S. imposed deadlines of August 2025. Then it was October 2025, and then it was December, 2025 for these talks to come to an agreement.

Of course, all three of those deadlines passed without a publicly announced agreement. It was fairly well known that around the table, the core framework of the agreement had already been agreed, but nothing had been agreed publicly.

So the first thing to bear in mind is that's, that was the background, an increasingly kind of frustrated failure of a significant investment of Syrian and international resources to make these talks succeed, had failed. By the end of December—

You know, I'll give you this sort of personal anecdote. I had meetings with, let's say, very senior Syrian government officials going right up to the top in early December and separately and unprovoked or unprompted. Both of them said to me, plan B, that means the military option. Plan B is now back on the table. That was early December. So it was very clear that even when we had still technically a few more weeks left to meet the final U.S. deadline, the Syrian government was thinking that they were going to have to turn to a military option.

So that's the first bit of background. The second bit of background was that in the midst of all of these negotiations, as you say, a significant majority of the territory that the SDF-controlled and governed was Arab majority territories. And throughout the period of time where the SDF was controlling these territories and that.

This goes back many years, way prior toad's fall, it was open secret that there was significant and increasing tensions between the Arab communities being ruled by the SDF and the SDF sort of overall leadership, which is predominantly Kurdish. After Assad fell, those tensions spiked significantly. Those Arab communities wanted to be part of the rest of the country, and the SDF’s refusal or perceived refusal to agree to an integration agreement was fueling those tensions very significantly.

So from the summer of ‘25 until the end of ‘25, over 800 Arab men were arrested by the SDF simply for having photographs of Ahmed al-Sharaa on their cell phones. So cell phones would be checked at checkpoints, and if you had any photographs associated with the Syrian government, you were arrested. So real uptick in those tensions.

So those two things, the failure of the talks and the rising internal tensions fed together into a dynamic in which basically as 2026 began, it was only gonna take the tiniest little spark to see significant conflict arise as it happened.

It didn't begin in the core SDF held areas of the country. It held in two, it started in two small districts of Aleppo City which was still controlled by SDF linked militia men and women, technically speaking, not to go too much into the weeds, but earlier in 2025, those two districts had been part of an agreement negotiated by the Americans between the government in Damascus and the SDF, whereby military SDF forces were to withdraw from those city districts.

And the only people left should be what was called the Asayish, which is like local police, local security forces, only with light weapons. After that agreement, the government had consistently been insisting that there were still SDF military forces in those areas and that there were still heavy weapons. So it was a kind of grating continued frustration or allegation by the government that the SDF had violated this agreement.

Long story short, that's where we ended up seeing conflict begin. Very clearly, the SDF did still have heavy weapons in those districts because the conflict there was particularly severe, minimal casualties, but heavy clashes.

And within four or five days, the government took control of those districts. The SDF was forced to withdraw, and I think that was kind of the straw that broke the camel's back. The extent to which we would see conflict then spread to core SDF held areas in the northeast was then just inevitable.

And the only other thing I would say here is as a sort of third part of the background that I should have mentioned is that as a result of those rising tensions between Arab communities ruled by the SDF and the SDF itself, the government in maybe, I think maybe August last year made a decision to appoint what they called a presidential envoy to the tribes.

And basically, this was an individual whose job it was to build relationships with tribes across the country. The original impetus for this was to avoid what we saw happen in the Druze area of Syria in the South, where really the tribes, just tribal militias, took matters into their own hands and were responsible for a significant amount of atrocities that happened in that area in July last year.

But as it happened, this tribal, you know, envoy ended up building a significant amount of leverage with the tribes in Eastern Syria under SDF Control. So the government internally was very confident. That if and when conflict arose with the SDF, they had all the tribes on hand. All the tribes had basically quietly pledged their allegiance to Damascus if and when that happened.

So the government was overconfident, extremely confident that if it took the decision to do this, it would win. And that's, you know, to be blunt, that's exactly what we saw happen. The moment conflict moved into SDF core areas, the Arab tribes flipped in 12 hours and almost overnight, 75 to 80% of the SDF territory had flipped to government control almost without a bullet being fired.

And that was kind of the death nail in terms of the SDF being able to maintain itself as a significant actor on the stage. And it basically forced them into the integration agreement we see today.

Scott R. Anderson: So talk to us about, a little bit more about this integration agreement and where it leaves the SDF, both it and the conflict.

The SDF isn't completely out of business. There are parts of the country, it still controls core Kurdish parts, but obviously has lost the hold it had on a lot of very important strategic areas for so long, having controlled 25%, sometimes more than that of the state as a whole.

We know that we've seen a couple high level appointees recently. We've seen a military commander appointed from somebody who's at least reported being associated with the Kurds political leader in the East, being appointed who's associated with the Kurds. So there is kind of steps being made in this direction.

What does it, this agreement envision in terms of what autonomy or self-government or anything looking like that looks like for the Kurds and how far does it go and what does it mean for that last readout of Kurdish control that's in the country?

Charles Lister: Yeah. Well, I mean, I would say, I mean, I'll come to the agreement and what's being implemented now and what its vision is. But this is where I would start again by saying that this, there is a core difference in interpretation over what this agreement should end up.

Sort of resulting in core difference interpretation between the government and the SDF, or at least parts of the SDF, which I think could still become a big stumbling block going forward. But in the letter of the agreement and per every U.S. official who's had a role in negotiating it, it is basically that the SDF essentially dissolve itself into the state.

So not that SDF personnel or people who were SDF personnel are suddenly gonna become unemployed and have no role, they will all be, remain in their jobs as either soldiers or as police or as civil servants. But they will no longer be under an autonomous administration or SDF umbrella. They will be under a government ministry umbrella. But it in the letter of the agreement, that's what should happen. So people stay in all their roles, but they are fully government actors, not SDF actors. So the idea of autonomy here has kind of gone out the window per the letter of the agreement.

The difference in interpretation is that there are some within the SDF who are continuing to say this agreement has achieved them autonomy. And it hasn't to be blunt, it hasn't, but that's where this difference has emerged. But in terms of actually what's happening on the ground, so the SDF as per the agreement has been granted four military brigades within the Ministry of Defense.

Three of them in Hasakeh in the far northeast of the country. And one in Aleppo around Kobani, which will be integrated into it, preexisting MOD division in Aleppo. And of course those brigades will be fully staffed, fully by SDF, you know, fighters. The SDF’s local security unit, which is basically a kind of militarized police called the Asayish, are being folded into the Ministry of Interior.

So their salaries will be paid by the MOI. They will be commanded officially under an umbrella of the Ministry of Interior, but they will remain in their posts. Both of those processes of integration have already begun. So the whole lists of personnel that the SDF wants to be part of, those brigades are now being vetted by the Ministry of Defense in Damascus.

Those people are already wearing Syrian Ministry of Defense uniforms rather than their SDF uniforms. The commanders of those brigades have already been named and identified. So progress on the military front.

In terms of the Asayish, the kind of local security forces, they are already teaming up. With joint checkpoints with Syrian government, ministry of Interior personnel particularly joint checkpoints in more sensitive areas between Kurdish majority areas and Arab majority areas.

That's been very positive, although I would add that's all those joint checkpoints have also been a source of increasing protest by Arab majority communities, saying that they do not accept the presence of Kurdish personnel at those joint checkpoints. And so that could easily become, if that increases, an increasingly sensitive position that could threaten a return to some level of hostilities.

And then on the civil level, we've already seen a significant integration in terms of health. So the Ministry of Health is now officially in control of all hospitals and medical clinics in Kurdish majority areas of the Northeast, the Ministry of Education has issued a public order for every curriculum or every level of the schooling system in Syria to be translated fully into Kurdish for implementation at the beginning of the next school year, which will, you know, begin in the fall.

That's been a very positive step, but it's also triggered other disagreements. The SDF wants to have more Kurdish language instruction than the government is currently offering, which I think is two hours a week. And the SDF wants more Kurdish language instruction than that, so that, so there's progress, but you know, when it comes to the devil in the details, there's still some level of disagreement.

And as you say, we've had s senior level appointments being made. So the governor of Hasakeh is an SDF official himself now, Noureddin Ahmed. A couple days ago, the Ministry of Defense announced a new level of appointments of commanders of different regions of the country, northeast, south and west and center, and the center of the country, and the east is an SDF guy.

In fact, he's a PKK veteran, so a significant step from the government because this guy, Sipan Hamo, is very controversial widely alleged to have been responsible for a number of suicide bombings in civilian areas of government control during the conflict with Assad and the Turks certainly don't like him very much either, so a significant message by Damascus that it's willing to make some significant concessions.

But again, his appointment has triggered significant protests in those border regions where you have Arab communities bordering Kurdish communities, significant protests, demanding that he be you know, fired or dismissed from his new appointments.

So it's been not without difficulty, but in terms of decisions and implementing steps of integration, it's all been basically positive so far. And that I think tells you that at the leadership level, they're both being very pragmatic, the challenge is with the population who aren't quite as pragmatic about things.

And that's where I think we'll continue to see, you know, people rubbing up against each other and these occasional spikes in intentions and potentially some level of hostilities from now and then.

Scott R. Anderson: So a unique aspect of the Syrian conflict generally, but in particularly the Kurdish element of it in recent years is that it isn't strictly internal.

We've seen at least two major—well, regional and major powers play a pretty intrusive role in the setting aside, you know, Iran and proxies and that sort of question as well. I wanna talk to the United States, ultimately that's a big part of this, particularly for our audience.

Before I do that, let's talk about the Turks, who you just mentioned, who of course, you know, engage in military intervention in Northern Syria, 'cause of concerns about the STF, you know, five or six years ago, more than that now, I guess, had been, I believe still is holding parts of Northern Syria or at least maintaining military presence there as a kind of hangover for that intervention.

What was their posture during the conflict and has their posture been towards both this rapprochement and the controversial aspects of it, and particularly in terms of the degree to which the SDF is gonna be allowed some continued autonomy either within the government structure or alongside it.

Charles Lister: Yeah, so I mean, this has always been the kind of key kind of elephant in the room amongst the negotiations in 2025, the conflict in 2026, and now the integration in 2026. And I think the sort of complicating factor, or the new factor in all three of those phases over the last 14, 15 months is that Turkey's been engaged domestically in its own peace process with the PKK and of course it's long accusation against the SDF is that its Kurdish component was the Syrian wing of the PKK.

And for the record it is. And you know, it was named that by the CIA, by the State Department and everybody else when we made the decision to work with them. So as a sort of matter of fact, it is and it was, and, but that's always been the core of the issue.

But because of Turkey's decision to explore this peace process with the PKK domestically, it's willingness or the strategic rationale for remaining, you know, flat out hostile to the SDF was far reduced by that. If they continued to, you know, persistent hostile action against the SDF, then its own peace process domestically would immediately have been discovered.

So. I guess by chance almost those two dynamics ran in parallel over the last 15 months and have helped a lot. I mean, throughout 2025, Turkey undertook zero hostile actions against the SDF for a first time in a long time, and that helped create the conditions for what could or should have been, you know, a successful negotiation process to secure the SDFS integration into the state. It certainly helped.

Having said that though, by the time 2025 ran out and there had been no successful diplomatic agreement, I think there was no question that when the, we saw the hostilities develop in early January this year. I think there's no question that Turkey did some things to help the Syrian government speed the process along.

So not necessarily that Turkey said right time for military action, but when the Syrian government made that decision, I, they, I think there's no question Turkey provided ISR support to the Syrian government. I think, no question they probably provided intelligence and some kind of strategic guidance on, on, you know, the sequencing of a military campaign.

In part, I think because they didn't want it and it wasn't in Turkey's interest to be a messy conflict. They want it to be short and sharp, make the point and finish it so that domestically, that PKK peace process could continue and that ultimately there would still be a peaceful resolution at the end of all of this, which is at least for now, where we are.

So from Turkey's perspective, it's got most of what it wanted out of all of this, which is a significantly weakened or undermined PKK slash SDF slash you know, YPG, all the acronym presence in the northeast of Syria, which has forced it to integrate into a state with which Turkey has a strong relationship, which means that it is safe enough from Turkey's perspective, it also hasn't damaged the peace process domestically with the PKK.

So again, from Turkey's perspective, so far so good, minimal damage done, and it's getting what it wanted out of Syria all along, which was never a complete expulsion of the SDF or the PKK, but a situation in which they were no longer unilaterally governing a quarter of the country.

Scott R. Anderson: And that brings us, I think, to the United States, to the other country that has played a central role in supporting the SDF as it assumed control over such a big swath of Syria. You know, when it moved into ZO to take it to be clear from control of the Islamic state at the time that was done with air support and the SDF was able to maintain control of the country for so long, even in the face of Assad regime from Russian mercenaries and others in part 'cause of U.S. air support.

We know the United States relationship with the SDF has oscillated, weakened I think in the last few years, certainly compared to the high days of 2015, 2016, and particularly under this administration, which very quickly has had this kind of echelon with the new government at least relatively quickly from my perspective in Damascus has always put a new question saying, how long, how sustainable is this?

So now we're getting these reports about U.S. troops leaving the country again, who've been there more than a decade at this point, or at least I think approaching it, that certainly U.S. troops been operating there more than a decade, leaving the country by April. How is that? How are we envisioning the kind of U.S. security presence or participation in the country?

I believe I've seen reports about other U.S. military components working with the new transitional governments armed forces and having engagement there. Obviously we had the commander of CENTCOM visit and a very high profile visit towards the end of last year. So there is still U.S. military engagement very much so.

But is it shifting from the SDF to the new central government? Is there gonna be some remaining ties there and in particular, what happens to the counter-ISIS mission that was the legal and policy foundation for everything the United States has really been done in Syria for the last 12 years.

Charles Lister: Yeah, I mean, so this is a key question.

I think as soon as Assad fell, I mean, we were at the tail end of the Biden administration and to give them their credit, given the fact that they were very much on their way out, the Biden administration and the State Department, Barbara Leaf at the time as the assistant secretary for Near East, you know, made the swift decision to get to Damascus as fast as possible, meet with, you know, Ahmed al-Sharaa at the time, who, you know, an hour before Barbara Leaf arrived, still had a $10 million bounty on his head.

But as she arrived, that had been removed. But it immediately made the decision that, and this is a wider conversation than perhaps we're having here, but immediately made the decision that the fall of the assets presented a historic opportunity—

That despite how unusual and potentially problematic the nature of some of this transitional government was, if we could make Syria stable, it would unquestionably have positive ripple effects across the rest of the region. And so again, to give the Biden administration credit, they made the decision to move very quickly in, which takes me to the point of the U.S. military, which after the Biden administration left and when the Trump administration came in, we have what we always have in a transition period, which is, you know, not much of a policy on very much as a transition gets settled and figures out what it wants to do on things.

And in that kind of vacuum CENTCOM in particular, U.S. Central Command, whether they would, you know, publicly describe it in this way, I don't know, but basically took U.S. diplomacy on themselves in Syria. It became CENTCOM's job defacto to become the representatives of the U.S. government in exploring this new relationship.

So to give them huge credit, I think they were the ones that filled that gap. They did it very effectively. They earned, and bought, you know, not financially, but like earned and bought early trust in Damascus with again, very unusual, you know, transitional government. And I think that helped a lot.

So by the spring of 2025, as I understand from American sources, not Syrian. In the spring of 2025, we started to give, we being, despite my British accent, I am an American. We started giving intelligence packages to Damascus to test their willingness and their ability to go after shared threats.

And the first one was a network of Iranian linked Syrian clans in Eastern Syria near the Iraqi border. That had been the linchpin of the IRGC'S weapons smuggling network into and through Syria. And as was described to me, within 24 hours, the Syrian Ministry of Interior mopped up every single tunnel, every warehouse, every clan leader was captured alive for interrogation.

And again, as it was described to me, they did as good a job as we could have done, they being the Syrians. And that started to create confidence that, again, despite the unprecedented and unusual nature of some of this transitional government, there was a reason to explore a security relationship with it to pursue these shared interests.

And I say all of that as background to say that gave the U.S. government, including CENTCOM, which had always been the linchpin of the relationship with the SDFs, very different strategic framework with which to view the Syrian lens with, which, in other words. It didn't make strategic sense for us to continue to overwhelmingly prioritize a relationship with a non-state actor.

That was already a complicated one given the Turkey dynamic we discussed earlier, and even despite the controversial nature of Damascus, it did make sense that we pursued a relationship with a sovereign government with which we have many other opportunities suddenly become available than working with a non-state militia. And so that became the primary priority.

So we maintained what's always been called a tactical, transactional, temporary relationship with the SDF, but there was a significant investment in exploring a deepening relationship with Damascus. And so where are we today? In that transition process, and the only way it was ever going to be a transition for the United States was if there was an SDF’s integration into the state, which thankfully now be, it appears to be happening.

So in that scenario, does it make sense for American military bases to still be in SDF controlled northeastern Syria? Not very much. Does it make sense however, that the U.S. military and the intelligence community seek to invest in a more government to government relationship through Damascus to explore, continuing to pursue, you know, shared interest? Yes. And that's what we are seeing.

So there is now, in Iraq—In fact, in the headquarters of Operation Inherent Resolve, which runs the counter ISIS campaign, there is what's called the Damascus Coordination Center, which is a dedicated mechanism for OIR Syria coordination. By the way, there are several Syrian military officers in that coordination center, it was the first kind of outfit of its kind. That's the new framework for the U.S. Syrian security relationship.

There are continuing efforts in cooperation with the Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs in Damascus to find, not necessarily a military base, but a compound from which, you know, JSOC and SOCOM, Special Operations Forces, along with the CIA and others can operate in and out of in Damascus to continue to institutionalize their relationships with Syria's Ministry of Interior, the General Intelligence Director, those are the entities in Syria that go after ISIS. It's not the Ministry of Defense.

And so, yeah it's evolving, but it's evolving in the way that it would always have evolved in any other context. The relationship goes through the government, not with militias. But hopefully that government will have incorporated the SDF as that militia. And then we have maybe even an easier path into those institutional relationships I described.

Scott R. Anderson: Do we have a sense of what we think the operational profile of OIR efforts in Syria is likely to be moving the forward. I mean, we saw, I think it was a hawkeye strike, right? An operation take place in January, I think more or less in the midst of kind of the central Syrian government SDF conflict.

That was kind of a, you know, framed as a retributive strike for a bombing in December that killed some U.S. service members as well as some Syrian partner forces, as I recall. Is that what we should expect moving forward in Syria? We talked about Afghanistan, after U.S. withdrawal there, focus on air power, drones working at a distance, or is there a real possibility we'll still see special forces soldiers or maybe even substantial military forces be deployed to Syria, but this time with the consent of the Syrian government?

Charles Lister: Yeah, I mean, I think if you'd asked me that question two or three months ago, I'd probably have given you a different answer than I do today, in part because yes, that one attack in December that left several U.S. service members dead, did emanate from an individual whose job it was to be part of an arms depot within the Ministry of Defense, Ministry of Interior who was the perpetrator of that attack.

So that, that raised some question marks over the extent to which the Syrian government being so relatively, you know, young and fresh and very ragged around the edges, was ready for that kind of formalized bilateral military relationship.

But then far more significant than that, I would say was the conflict with the SDF. So even though everything I just described about, you know, CENTCOM filling the diplomatic gap and figuring out that the relationship was gonna need to change and should change, that doesn't take away the more—And I don't want to sort of un underplay it here, but that doesn't take away the kind of emotional response that hasn't been made public.

But there is deep frustration and to an extent some anger within the U.S. military about the fact that the SDF was militarily attacked and basically militarily defeated by the Syrian government. So great frustration and I think that's dented the relationship somewhat.

I think it will certainly recover. And I haven't heard anything from OIR itself that would suggest that there is any reduction or change in its engagement with Damascus. But at the senior leadership level, certainly it's damaged the relationship, at least in the interim. But ultimately, yeah, I, we may not see special forces on the ground, but they will be in and out of Syria.

I think unquestionably, I mean, they continue to be in and out of Damascus, coming mostly from Jordan. And certainly the U.S. intelligence community will maintain a constant presence in Damascus as they basically already do working in hand with their sort of Syrian partners. So I think all of that is is to be to, you know, to be assumed as, to be taken for granted.

I think top level, we're looking at more over the horizon, quote unquote activities. More of a focus on capacity building, so building the capacity of Syrian government entities to take over more responsibility for counterterrorism, countering organized crime, you know, keeping an eye on Iran.

That's a long-term effort. And again, sort of to put it into context, the Ministry of Interior, just to reassert, is the primary entity in Syria that is responsible for all of those challenges. The Ministry of Interior six months ago was still buying desktop computers and printers because there was basically none in the building when they took over in December 2024.

This was a, the Ministry of Interior was the most powerful government entity in Syria. It had files on eight and a half million people in the country, wanted, or allegedly wanted for any number of, you know, political crimes, in other words, being against the regime. Every single one of those eight and a half million files was paper.

There was no digital infrastructure. There was no computer system, nothing. So when we're talking about capacity building here, we're not just talking about military training and what have you. We are talking about plastering the walls, providing Wi-Fi, you know, everything from the bottom up is required to get these actors where we would expect them to be.

That's not to say they're incapable of doing some of the jobs we would need them to be doing now, which they seem to be quite capable at tactically, but structurally they need a great deal of help. And I think there is a lot of conversation within OIR and other circles about how we could be helpful in providing some of that more structural assistance.

And then I'll just end by saying, you know, I mentioned over the horizon. In other words, airstrikes launched from outside of Syria. I think that will certainly continue, but the ISIS threat in Syria today isn't a threat that is easily dealt with by airstrikes. In other words, ISIS is no longer hiding out in Syria's deserts.

They're in the towns and the cities. This is now much more of an urban threat. This is the big adaptation ISIS has undertaken over the last six to nine months. That means that yes, the onus will be on Syrian personnel to be collecting the intelligence, to be acting on it, to be launching, you know, raids.

It's much more of an emphasis on law enforcement as well as intelligence. But there is still a role that the U.S. can play in assisting that too with, you know, intelligence personnel on the ground, with special forces on the ground. But it's different than everything we've been doing for the last 10 years.

Scott R. Anderson: So there is one big part of the counter-ISIS effort that the SDF was still playing an integral role in beyond just actually targeting ISIS and stuff that was still ongoing. But they had primary responsibility for operating a number of major detention facilities that have been housing a lot of people detained in relation to supporting the Islamic State during that conflict as a, as some, in some cases, been detained for a very long time at this point. Many people born into and being raised in those facilities.

You also have, of course, you know, refugee camps like al-Hol, the kind of famous slash infamous refugee camp that have become both a little bit of a nest for Islamic state and affiliated sort of sentiments in some quarters, but also was concerned over how it would be treated by various quarters if they took over.

So you had a U.S. military presence there until recently that did eventually hand it over to the central government. In both of these cases, what do we think is gonna happen to these both vulnerable populations, but also populations that carry with them potentially substantial security risk?

We know the Islamic state targets prisons certainly has in Iraq, I believe has in Syria as well as a way to bolster their numbers and bolster support and get people out. And here, you know, in the midst of the transition, it seems like a lot of people have kind of been lost track of, or at least according to media accounts. We don't know where large numbers of 'em are. More the refugee side, I think, than the detaining side, but to some extent both.

So what is actually happening in regards to these populations? How big a problem is it and what's being done to try and mitigate some of those risks and harms?

Charles Lister: Yeah, so you, I mean, you're right to raise it and you are right to differentiate between detainees, in other words, male fighters or previously male fighters of ISIS and, you know, displaced people, primarily women and children. So I'll tackle them separately.

When it comes to the detainees, you know, the SDF managed. Anywhere between 12 and 20 prison facilities in northeastern Syria at different times, housing upwards of 9,000 ISIS male fighters from a plethora of countries around the world.

And the decision was made quite early on this year that it was, we were gonna have to move a significant chunk of those male detainees outside of Syria because there was very little confidence at that time amidst conflict between the SDF and the government, there was little confidence that the ceasefires we were managing to negotiate, every now and then we're gonna hold.

And there was very little confidence that in the midst of major hostilities, those prison facilities were gonna remain a priority for the SDF. The SDF has always said, you know, if our existence comes into question, our priority is not gonna be to guard the prisons or the camps. It's gonna be to protect our own, you know, lines of defense.

So again, long story short, upwards of five and a half thousand of those men were flown mostly and some bust to Iraq. And they are now in one single prison facility in Iraq, where, and again, Iraqi commentary on this from the government varies. Where either they are all going to be prosecuted or investigated and prosecuted and sentenced, or where some of them will be prosecuted and sentenced and others will hopefully be repatriated to their countries of origin.

So a little unclear as to what their ultimate fate will be. But a significant chunk, upwards of two thirds of all of the male detainees are now in Iraq. The rest that are still in Syria are Syrians. And they remain in facilities controlled by the SDF for now, or SDF personnel. Although, as I understand, as part of the integration agreement, those prisons will still ultimately be folded under Syria Ministry of Interior, albeit that the guards and the personnel working there will remain the same people who were working there before who were SDF or Asayish and other Kurdish forces.

So there will still be that latent two and a half thousand or so Syrian ISIS detainees that will need to be held in continued detention. Which, you know, poses continued questions around the fact that most of them are being held arbitrarily. So there's been no kind of due process whether the Syrian government will seek to try to initiate due process investigations and prosecutions, I think remains to be seen.

Right now, they certainly don't have the resources to do that, but I do know for a fact that's their principle position is, you know, many of these men unquestionably are bad guys, but we don't believe that it is sort of just to help hold them arbitrarily. So I think that's clearly them hinting at the idea that there needs to be process at some point.

Then we come to the more displaced populations of almost predominantly women and children. So we had al-Hol, which was a camp that originally held about 75,000 people who had come out of ISIS controlled areas.

Again, almost all of them women and children. And then we had a much smaller camp in the northeast called Al-Roj, where about two and a half thousand women and children currently reside. And almost all of them are third country nationals. So they're not Syrians and they're not Iraqis.

In the context of the fighting that happened earlier this year al-Hol, sorry, the big camp, which by then only held about 20,000 people due to significant returns to Iraq, local releases in Syria, changed hands. Let's just say, 'cause I've done a lot of work on this over the last few week. Let's just say accounts on exactly what happened, conflict, or, you know, there's no unifying agreement on exactly what took place during that change of control. What we definitely know is that there was at least five or six hours in which nobody controlled al-Hol, and then the government forces arrived to take control because the SDF left.

Long story short, though, al-Hol is no longer. There is no one there. The whole camp is empty. Around three or 4,000 of the residents of al-Hol are now in an IDP camp in rural Aleppo called Berhan, a much better equipped IDP camp that just happened to have been empty and ready. It has Wi-Fi, you know, some of the units even have the ability to have air conditioning units, you know, so it's much better organized.

It's much better equipped. And so roughly 3000 former residents are now there. The vast majority of the rest of them are out free somewhere, presumably all in Syria. Now, there appears to have been more of a, I dare to say process because it was chaos, but there, there appears to have been some process amidst some of the either escapes or releases by government forces.

And I say that because the UN, UNHCR in particular has over the last few weeks suddenly started revealing the extent to which its staff in other areas of Syria are working with people who had. Either escaped or being purposefully released from al-Hol—

Providing them with humanitarian assistance in cooperation with Syrian government ministries, particularly the health ministry and the education ministry to ensure that, for example, their children have places in local schools, that their local communities are accepting them back into their communities of origin that they have, you know, access to running water, to electricity. So there appears to have been some process in at least some of the releases.

But I think, no question, the government made the decision very early on, and this is probably the most important point, is that the actors who now represent the Syrian government have a wildly different perspective about these camps than the SDF or frankly, the U.S. government.

The U.S. government had consistently presented al-Hol and Al-Roj as a security threat, one, two, and three, and then perhaps number four, five and six was, it was a humanitarian issue and it was a legal issue and a diplomatic one. The Syrian government says they are basically a humanitarian travesty.

The fact that we had at one point 75,000 women and children, and I should say about 60% of that was children under the age of 12, in prison camps with basically no facilities whatsoever. Cholera, tuberculosis, everything you could, you know, hope not to have in an IDP camp was there. Was a total travesty of, you know, humanitarian and legal justice.

And so the government made it very clear that they did not see these camps as just, and that they wanted to see these camps emptied. And it may very well have been that either formally or informally, they made that decision very early on that these women and children were victims and that they should just be allowed to make their way out.

And I suspect there was a good deal of that towards the end. But now we're gonna have the test. To close out my very long answer. Now we're gonna have the test as to whether or not we were right to consider it or we, the U.S. government was right to consider it a security threat, one, two, and three, or whether others saying that this was more of a humanitarian issue, were right.

We don't know the answer to that yet. What I can say is weeks later, after the breakout or after the closure of the camp, there haven't been any security implications from it. The women and the children have gone very quiet back to their areas of origin or into other camps. There's been no security repercussions yet, but it's early days.

So you know, TBD, to be determined, I think for now.

Scott R. Anderson: So that is definitely, one thing, I think we, and I'm sure U.S. policy makers, global policy makers, will have our eyes on in our last few moments before we're out of time for our conversation, talk to us about what you're looking at.

You mentioned that you think 2026 is the year of the economy. 2025 is the year of foreign policy now we’re in the year of the economy, but you are at the same time still dealing with these very significant internal political and foreign political interwoven, interconnected considerations regarding the SDF. We only briefly got to touch on other sectarian conflicts. We know we've had sectarian violence involving … and parts of Syria and Druze communities.

It's been a point of tension with Israel, including, you know, some hostilities with Israel under the new government. So talk to us. What are the big flashpoints? What are you looking for? You know, where are the red flags and where are you looking for good signs of positive trajectory.

Charles Lister: Yeah, I mean all of the above.

I think I mean I think either way, I think I framed it at the very beginning, 2025 was the year where Syria's government focused outwardly on trying to secure its place in the world. And now 2026 will be the year where it has to focus inwardly on resolving or dealing with a lot of those internal issues, the economy is gonna be the biggest one because it affects everything else, you know, from minority concerns, humanitarian conditions, questions of everything, rely on the economy, being able to recover.

And so I think this is gonna be a big test. We've finally seen, you know, the vast majority of sanctions removed. Now, can Syria benefit from the, that those significant moves, which basically ended at the end of 2025 in terms of sanctions removal. But beyond that, there are still geopolitical challenges.

Yes, Israel is one of them. You know, it should be reiterated that you are right to say there's been hostilities, although the Syrian government has not acted in a hostile fashion towards Israel even once. But we've had over 2000 ground incursions and air and artillery strikes by Israel in 14 months.

So squaring that away, and again, this is something that the Trump administration has sought to mediate and we had a positive round of talks in, in, in Paris, France, and on January, early January this year. But none since. And I don't think that's because there's no confidence in the talks, but obviously Iran and other issues have sort of taken over.

Since that round of talks, I should add that Israel has halved its rate of ground incursions into Syria. So that doesn't happen by accident, that has that rate of ground incursions has consistently been at half the level since January the sixth than it was in the last four or five months of 2025. So that was clearly an Israeli decision to deescalate, which is good.

But there's still no deal, there's still no security agreement, which is what the U.S. government has been trying to negotiate.

Linked to that, there's the issue of the Druze in Suwayda. That's the only now territory of the country that is outside of government control. It's a small corner of the country, relatively insignificant. There's no resources there.

But from Damascus's perspective, it wants to have all of Syria under government control and authority, and that remains very much unanswered. It's a standoff between those two entities. I would describe it though, as an untenable standoff. The government is willing to wait. Its perspective on this is quite cold.

Its perspective is if they don't want to talk, if they refuse to engage in dialogue, so be it. You know, they're not gonna get to benefit from the recovery in the rest of the country. And the only time when they will is when they're willing to talk and be, you know, find some kind of a negotiated solution.

And in the meantime, while Damascus waits, and I should say again, the U.S. and the Trump administration has been trying to mediate on this file too. Tensions within Suwayda, within this region are growing. Tensions within the Druze community are growing. There have been a number of targeted killings, a number of arrests within the Druze community because the current defacto leadership refuse any level of dialogue.

So anyone found to have been secretly communicating with the government is then more or less disappeared. There have been a number of big Druze defections to the government in the last few weeks as a result of all of these tensions. So we may be heading towards some situation where it comes to a crunch point, hopefully not to hostilities, hopefully to diplomacy and to talks. But that's certainly gonna be another potential flashpoint.

And then, you know, just beyond that, I would just say the bigger questions around transitional justice, the extent to which the government can demonstrate an ability and a willingness to see justice served, both for crimes committed during serious conflict, but also crimes committed since Assad’s fall will be something that particularly minority communities will be watching for very closely. Certainly the government hasn't really achieved much on that front until now.

Again, most, I don't think that's really due to a will. It's due to a lack of resources. The only area of the country where salaries have been increased is judges because the government is desperate to try to recruit judges to be able to undertake some of the trials that they need to do publicly in front of the population.

So there's lots and lots of different challenges and, but most of them now are much more domestic than they are outwardly facing.

Scott R. Anderson: Well, that is a lot for us to watch for in the months to come, but we are out of time for today. We'll have to revisit it in a future episode. Until then, Charles Lister, thank you for joining us here today on the Lawfare Podcast.

Charles Lister: Sure thing. Thank you so much for having me.

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