When rebel forces took over Syria, they pledged to unite the country’s disparate armed groups into a unified national army.
The biggest challenge for them by far has been in northeastern Syria, an autonomous region run by the country’s Kurdish minority where suspicion of the new leadership runs deep.
In past years, the rebels and the Kurds fought each other. But with the rebels now governing Syria, they are working to form an alliance and merge the powerful Kurdish-led military into the new national force.
Interviews with dozens of people in the northeast in late March revealed that Kurdish distrust of the new government is rooted partly in the fact that the former rebels now in charge were once affiliated with Al Qaeda. Some Kurds are also wary because the new government is backed by Turkey, which has tried for years to undercut Kurdish power in Syria.
“How can we trust this new government in Damascus?” asked Amina Mahmoud, 31, a Kurdish resident of the northeastern town of Kobani.
Her skepticism is shared by other members of Syria’s diverse range of ethnic and religious minorities, who worry that the new government will not protect, include or represent them.