Arabs in Syrian Kurdish-controlled region on edge following assassinations
Al-Monitor conducted a rare reporting trip to Syria’s eastern Deir ez-Zor region to discuss the situation with the chief of the part of the Arab-majority governorate under Kurdish-led SDF control in the oil-rich and insurgent-prone area.
ABU KHASHAB, Syria — As assassinations of local officials continued in parts of Syria’s eastern Deir ez-Zor under the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), the civil council chief of the Arab-majority governorate called for greater unity among the Arab population and urged that imbalances between the region and its mixed and Kurdish counterparts further north be addressed.
On Dec. 22, one local official was killed by a bomb in his car; another was shot and killed in his home in the governorate less than a week later on Dec. 28. Both major and minor tribal figures have also been targeted.
