Syria’s Defence Ministry says a ceasefire with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) has been extended for 15 more days, after an earlier four-day truce was due to end on Saturday night. The government said the extension is meant to support a US operation to transfer Islamic State detainees from Syria to detention centres in Iraq.
The Defence Ministry said the new ceasefire took effect at 11pm local time. The SDF also confirmed the extension and said the agreement was reached through international mediation while talks with Damascus continue.
What the extension changes now
The ceasefire announcement offers a pause after weeks of fighting in northern and eastern Syria, where government forces and the SDF have been battling and the SDF has lost large areas it once controlled. In separate statements cited across reports, both sides have presented the extension as a step that could help lower tensions and create space for continued dialogue.
According to one report, the Syrian government had earlier given the SDF until Saturday night to lay down arms and present a plan to integrate with Syria’s army, or else face a return to fighting. As the deadline approached, Kurdish security sources said SDF forces reinforced defensive positions in Qamishli, Hasakeh and Kobane in case fighting restarted.
Conflicting signals before the deadline
Hours before the later ceasefire-extension announcement, reports described uncertainty and competing claims about whether the truce would continue. One account said the four-day ceasefire expired at 8 p.m. (1700 GMT) on Saturday, with Syrian troops and Kurdish forces positioned on opposite sides of front lines around the remaining cluster of Kurdish-held cities.
In that same account, Syria’s Information Minister Hamza al-Mustafa said the government’s deadline for the SDF had expired and that the government was considering its “next options,” in a post on X. It also reported that Syria’s Foreign Ministry denied reports that an agreement to extend the ceasefire had been reached, describing them as baseless, and said there had been no “positive response” to the government proposal while accusing the SDF of repeated violations.
Other reports described both sides trading accusations on Saturday, with a Syrian official saying the SDF had not responded to outreach attempts, while the SDF accused government forces of moving toward escalation through military build-ups. The SDF also said it had observed “military build-ups and logistical movements” that it said pointed to an intent to escalate toward a new confrontation, even as it said it would continue to abide by the truce.
Territory shifts and stalled integration talks
Reports say government troops have seized swathes of northern and eastern territory in the past two weeks from the SDF in a rapid shift on the ground. One account said those gains have consolidated President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s rule.
Multiple reports also said Syrian forces had been closing in on the last SDF strongholds earlier in the week before the initial ceasefire was abruptly announced. They further said the broader standoff follows rising tensions over the past year, as al-Sharaa has vowed to bring all of Syria under state control, including SDF-held areas in the northeast.
According to reports, al-Sharaa’s forces toppled longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad in late 2024. They also said Kurdish authorities have run autonomous civilian and military institutions in the northeast for the past decade and have resisted joining al-Sharaa’s Islamist-led government.
Separately, one report said Syria’s interim government signed an agreement last March with the SDF for it to hand over territory and eventually merge its fighters with government forces. It said a new round of talks in early January failed to make progress on the merger, leading to renewed fighting, followed by a new version of the accord signed last weekend and a four-day ceasefire declared Tuesday. The same report said part of the new deal requires SDF members to merge into the army and police as individuals.
Islamic State detainees and prison handovers
The government has tied the ceasefire extension to the transfer of Islamic State detainees from Syria to Iraq, describing it as support for a US-led operation. Reports also say the US military has been moving detained Islamic State fighters from Syrian prisons that had been run by the SDF across the border into Iraq.
One report said US officials stated that about 7,000 Islamic State detainees would be transferred to detention centres in neighbouring Iraq, and that 150 prisoners had been taken to Iraq by Wednesday. The same report said the Islamic State detainees total about 9,000 held in northeastern Syria, with most still in jails run by the SDF.
As government forces moved into areas previously held by the SDF, one report said authorities released 126 teenage boys held at the Al-Aqtan prison near Raqqa and handed them to their families. That report also said government forces had taken control of two prisons, while the rest remained run by the SDF.
International pressure and civilian fears
Reports say the US has been engaged in shuttle diplomacy aimed at establishing a lasting ceasefire and facilitating the integration of the SDF—described as Washington’s main partner in Syria for years—into the state now led by al-Sharaa. They also said senior US and French officials urged al-Sharaa not to send troops into remaining Kurdish-held areas, citing fears that renewed fighting could lead to mass abuses against Kurdish civilians.
Those concerns come amid lingering fallout from violence last year, when government-affiliated forces killed nearly 1,500 people from the Alawite minority and hundreds of Druze people, including in execution-style killings, according to reports citing diplomatic sources.
