Syria’s Kurdish-led SDF dissolves as part of integration with Damascus

DAMASCUS, Aug 25 (Reuters) – The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces has been dissolved, the armed militant group’s leader said on Tuesday, a major step in the integration plan agreed on earlier this year with the Islamist-led government in Damascus.

“We announce today the end of the mission of the Syrian Democratic Forces and announce with full responsibility its dissolution as an independent military force,” SDF commander Mazloum Abdi said in a televised speech.

The government and the group, which helped defeat the Islamic State with U.S. backing and held parts of northern and eastern Syria, agreed in January to a phased integration of Kurdish fighters into the state, a plan Washington called a “historic milestone”.

The deal came shortly after government forces under President Ahmed al-Sharaa launched a lightning offensive in January, taking swathes of the areas the SDF held.

Abdi said that the announcement followed an agreement with Sharaa after the integration of the group’s forces into the army.

The Kurdish People’s Protection Units, which formed the core of the SDF, had already been integrated within state forces with its commander, Sipan Hamo, appointed in March deputy defence minister for the country’s eastern territories.

The SDF dissolution comes as the new leaders in Damascus seek to resolve internal strife and rebuild Syria, with support from Washington, after nearly 14 years of civil war and decades of isolation under former President Bashar al-Assad’s rule.

(Reporting by Orhan Qereman and Nayera Abdallah, Writing by Nayera Abdallah; Editing by Alistair Bell)