Category World News

Deir Az Zor, Syria – On the broad, windswept plains through which the Euphrates River snakes, the land remembers every war that has passed across it. The oil-rich soil of al-Omar, the turbines of the Tabqa Dam and the cautious return of families to towns long abandoned tell a story as old as Syria itself: one of power, survival and the struggle to unify a fractured country.

Over the weekend, Syrian government forces seized the al-Omar oilfield, the Conoco gas complex – both in Deir Az Zor governorate – and the Tabqa Dam, in Raqqa governorate. The operation was heralded as a military achievement, but its significance reaches far beyond maps and military lines. It touches the very structure of Syria’s political economy, the social contract between state and citizen and the fragile architecture of agreements meant to reconcile formerly hostile actors.

And the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which previously controlled the areas as well as all of northeastern Syria, soon realised the situation they faced. By Sunday evening, Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa announced that a deal had been reached with the SDF.

“State institutions will enter the three eastern and northeastern governorates – Hasakah, Deir Az Zor and Raqqa,” al-Sharaa said.

Heartland scarred by war

In eastern Syria, hydrocarbons have long been both a lifeblood and a driver of economic leverage.

Before the beginning of the conflict in 2011, oil and gas accounted for nearly 20 percent of Syria’s gross domestic product (GDP). During the war, these fields became the backbone of the fragmented war economy, exploited by armed groups and redirected to support local militias. Reclaiming these fields is therefore more than symbolic – it is a prerequisite for fiscal recovery.

Labib al-Nahhas, director of the Syrian Association for Citizens’ Dignity, said the rapid territorial losses suffered by the SDF echo the fall of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime in December 2024.

“SDF are collapsing in a similar way to [the] regime in Damascus,” he said, arguing that al-Omar, Tabqa and Tishreen are pivotal for economic recovery, not only in terms of recovering resources such as oil and gas, but “because they will have a huge impact on prices and living conditions”.

Radwan Ziadeh, senior fellow at the Arab Center Washington DC (ACW), said controlling natural resources alone was not enough to help Syria move forward, but that it was a step in the right direction.

“It is still very early to say that there are tangible benefits from this advance,” he said.

“Oil- and gasfields require significant international investment to unlock their full potential. On their own, they cannot deliver recovery. [But] more importantly, this is a significant step towards unifying Syria. This is the first time the country has been unified under one government since 2013. Before that, Syria was divided between Free Syrian Army factions, the al-Assad government, and later ISIL [ISIS], which fragmented the country even further.”

March agreement

In March 2025, Mazloum Abdi, the commander of the SDF who is also known as Mazloum Kobani, and al-Sharaa signed a framework agreement aimed at integrating the group into state structures while protecting local governance and Kurdish rights.

At the time, Abdi called it “a real opportunity to build a new Syria that embraces all its components”. He emphasised that “there will be no armies outside the state”, reflecting both acceptance of a unified military structure and persistent concern for Kurdish autonomy.

Al-Sharaa, meanwhile, presented the pact as an affirmation of state sovereignty first, rights second – a point that would prove decisive in the months ahead.

In November, al-Sharaa met United States President Donald Trump at the White House, and Syria became a partner in the war against ISIL. That essentially took the air from the SDF’s argument that it was the only US ally fighting against the armed group. The agreement also provided al-Sharaa’s forces with the opportunity to consolidate their deals with Arab fighters who wanted to switch sides – from the SDF to Damascus. And the Syrian president offered an olive branch to war-weary Kurdish civilians, many of whom also want an end to hostilities.

However, by late 2025, implementation of the government-SDF agreement lagged. Territorial and administrative disagreements grew, and the Syrian army advanced into SDF-controlled territory.

Tribes’ decisive role

While foreign policy set the backdrop, local tribal dynamics have proved decisive in reshaping control. Over the past year, Damascus has invested heavily in courting Arab clans in Deir Az Zor and Raqqa who had grown disaffected with the SDF’s Kurdish-led administration. The tribes were also growing increasingly frustrated with the lack of implementation of the March agreement.

Participants at a January 17 meeting of tribal elders from Syria’s east reviewed the consequences of failing to implement the agreement’s provisions on time, including the potential political and security impacts on the region.

Several tribal sheikhs at the meeting emphasised the importance of preventing escalation, the necessity of adhering to agreements to achieve stability, and called on the SDF to implement the March deal. The tribes had made clear their dissatisfaction with the SDF, and once the opportunity presented itself, they moved to push the SDF out of their communities.

A source from the Syrian Tribal Forces, a coalition of Syrian Arab tribes, told Al Jazeera on Sunday: “Areas south of Hasakah, from Sur to al-Shaddadi, are free of SDF forces.”

The outside influence

The unravelling of the March deal was also accelerated by changing regional dynamics. The US – a longstanding, primary military partner – narrowed its role to counter-ISIL operations, leaving the Kurdish-led forces without the external military help they had relied on. Without US enforcement, Damascus has had room to assert authority east of the Euphrates River, the backbone of the SDF’s territory.

Turkiye, for its part, has always remained wary of any SDF autonomy. Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been quick to back al-Sharaa’s moves against the SDF and welcomed the news of Sunday’s deal.

The territory was taken from the SDF not just by force, but with the tacit consent of international and regional allies and communities weary of war, who felt disenfranchised as a result of Arab-Kurdish divisions.

Energy, water as levers of state authority

Control of the al-Omar oilfield, the Conoco gas complex and the Tabqa Dam is not just symbolic.

Tabqa Dam, the country’s largest hydroelectric facility, now governs power and irrigation across much of northern and eastern Syria. Electricity in this region is literally life-sustaining, powering hospitals, schools and industrial activity.

Yet the full potential of these assets remains unrealised. Reconstruction and international investment are necessary to convert regained infrastructure into long-term state capacity.

Meanwhile, the SDF’s loss of control over resource-rich areas reduces their financial independence and constrains governance in formerly autonomous zones. As ACW’s Ziadeh noted, this moment is less about immediate economic gain than the consolidation of state authority and territorial unification.

The SDF, it seems, will have to retreat from most Arab majority areas towards Hasakah governorate. That is where the historic roots of Syria’s Kurdish minority remain and provide the force with manpower, political backing and economic viability.

Human and social changes

The Syrian government’s advance eastwards is reshaping communities. Thousands have been displaced from Aleppo, Raqqa and Tabqa.
Kurdish populations face the tension between guaranteed citizenship as promised by al-Sharaa in a presidential decree issued on January 16, and the erosion of the SDF’s political autonomy.

Arab tribes, meanwhile, are recalibrating alliances, balancing local interests with new state authority.

Main tribes, including al-Ukaidat, al-Bakara, al-Jabour, Anza, Shammar, Bani Khalid, al-Bu Shaaban, al-Buhamad and al-Baggara, essentially run the governorates of Deir Az Zor, Raqqa and Hasakah in northeastern Syria. Their loyalties are often transactional, depending on who runs that region. Al-Sharaa’s forces seem to have the upper hand now.

The social contract – fragile before the war – is being renegotiated in real time, amid both material deprivation and political promises.

To keep new allies happy and prevent defections, Damascus will have to care – and be seen to care, as well. The likelihood of more people tilting to the government’s side will depend on what kind of improvements they see in terms of security, inclusion and the economy.

Al-Nahhas expects the impact on living conditions would be “massive” but not immediate, stressing that expectation management is essential because recovery will take time. Central control and stability, he added, could incentivise foreign investment in oil, gas and electricity, provided corruption is minimised and governance improves.

He said after regaining vital energy sites, electricity costs and availability could also improve, but warned that outcomes depend on management – how quickly authorities can make facilities operational, given that infrastructure is not optimal, how effectively control is asserted, and how transparently assets are managed.

No oil windfalls soon

Mohamad Ahmad, economist and energy specialist at Karam Shaar Advisory Limited, said while the al-Omar field was “technically feasible for investment”, production had collapsed to about 14,200 barrels per day and reservoirs were stressed.

“The government’s recent takeover in late 2025 reclaims a critically impaired asset; its rehabilitation faces immense technical and financial hurdles, underscoring the long-term economic cost of the war,” he said.

Ahmad added that the capture of the oilfield highlights the depth of damage inflicted over the years of conflict.

“As Syria’s flagship oilfield, al-Omar’s trajectory from a high-potential asset to a war-torn symbol is both tragic and indicative of the conflict’s devastation,” he said.

“We’re looking at a field that once produced nearly 90,000 barrels per day, with original reserves of 760 million barrels of high-quality light crude. However, over a decade of conflict, which included its use as a financial engine for ISIS and subsequent targeted air strikes, has inflicted catastrophic damage – well over $800m – to its core infrastructure.”

Unification still fragile

In Deir Az Zor, Raqqa and Aleppo, energy infrastructure hums unevenly. Across the northeast, Syrians live between the promise of a unified government and the caution of decades of uncertainty – their future tethered to the intersection of energy, politics, and human resilience.

Yet economic realities, lingering distrust and complex foreign involvement mean that unification is precarious.

But for the first time since 2013, Syria is largely unified under a single government. Ziadeh added that the inclusion of Kurdish rights and social freedoms elevates this beyond a military or territorial achievement, “with the announcement to include Kurdish rights and social freedoms within the Syrian state framework, this is the first time we are seeing a unifying government in Syria. That is the most important takeaway from this rapid advance.”

The Syrian government’s battlefield advances demonstrate the return of central authority, the partial reintegration of Kurdish and Arab actors, and the resumption of control over key economic lifelines. Tribal councils have praised inclusive decrees; Abdi continues to navigate a shifting political landscape; and al-Sharaa asserts sovereignty with inclusion.

But the recovery of Syria’s northeast is not merely about military gains or legal decrees. It is about rebuilding trust, maintaining local support, and carefully managing the delicate balance between unity and autonomy. The oil, the dam, the gas, and the laws are all symbols of what is possible – but also reminders of how tenuous state power remains in a land long fractured by war.

German men over the age of 18 were required to fill out a questionnaire to prove their readiness for military service at the start of the year thanks to a law passed last month.

The government can now elect to join the army on voluntary basis in order to achieve its goal of creating what it claims will be Europe’s first and strongest army since World War II. However, the law allows for mandatory service under the law.

Active duty personnel in November reached 184, 000 soldiers, a 2,500 increase from the army’s May 1st speech to the parliament, where the Bundeswehr, or “the strongest conventional army in Europe,” were needed.

According to Timo Graf, a senior researcher at the Bundeswehr Centre for Military History and Social Sciences in Potsdam, “It’s already the strongest force they’ve had since 2021.”

With generous salaries and benefits, the government is tempting those who choose to serve in voluntary service for 23-month contracts. The terms of those contracts may then be extended to professional indefinite service.

They will end up with something like 2, 300 euros ($2, 700) after taxes and deductions because housing is free and medical insurance is free. There is a lot of money available, according to Graf.

Germany has pledged to double its reservists to 200 000 and increase its active duty members to 260 000 by 2035. At the conclusion of the Cold War, it would have a half-million-strong army.

Moscow has been dissatisfied by the news.

Sergey Nechayev, the country’s ambassador to Germany, stated in an interview last month that “Germany’s new government is speeding up preparations for a full-scale military confrontation with Russia.”

However, from the German perspective, Russia’s refusal to leave Ukraine has fueled the political will to spend 108 billion euros ($125bn) this year, which is equivalent to 2.5 percent of GDP, and more than twice the budget for 2021, which is 48 billion euros ($56bn) for reconstruction.

We now support an increase in defense spending from 58 percent to 65 percent in a year, according to Graf.

Germany will invest 3.5% of its GDP in defense by 2030.

Eight out of ten Germans now believe Russian President Vladimir Putin isn’t serious about reaching a peace deal with Ukraine, according to a poll conducted by Politbarometer, a German election platform and television program in December. Many also believe intelligence officials’ warnings that Russia plans to eventually expand its war to NATO nations.

According to Graf, “2029 has been portrayed as a potential target for Russia’s attack on NATO,” and that has become the point of reference. Over the past four years of this conflict, we have been “sleepwalking,” he said. Here, the future of Europe is in question.

Germans reject Trump’s US administration.

Russia’s perception of a threat is just one side of the equation. Over the past year, German society has found that German society’s loss of faith in the United States has been equally transformative.

Germans were surveyed on June 2025 by the state channel ZDF. “Will the USA continue to support Europe’s security as a member of NATO?” 73 percent of respondents said no. This majority was up 84 percent by December.

Germans now fear the obvious support of far-right, Russia-friendly parties, as it did in Germany’s federal election in February of last year, and nine out of ten of them view US political influence in Europe as perverse.

According to the far-right in Europe, the US president’s National Security Strategy, published last November, warned that the continent was facing “civilisational erasure” as a result of Brussels’s over-regulation and “migration policies that are changing the continent and creating strife, censorship of free speech and the suppression of political opposition, cratering birthrates, and loss of national identities and self-confidence.

General Ben Hodges, who once commanded US forces in Europe, said, “They’ve realized Trump has no interest in helping Germany at all.” He claimed for Al Jazeera, “The National Security Strategy was terrible… it was a gigantic middle finger from Trump to Europe.”

Germans have such a low level of trust in Washington that three out of ten would prefer to see it replaced with an Anglo-French deterrent.

The idea of a European NATO is shared by those who value NATO and those who support it, according to Graf. Germans still believe in NATO as a military force, but they also believe that they do not trust Americans to participate in NATO and that they do so in favor of a European NATO.

Graf reported that Bundeswehr polls showed a rise in support for a European army, which was always unsure in Germany and for which NATO was expressly built in 1949, by 10 points to 57% in the last year.

Will Germany perform as promised?

Merz’s commitment is not recent.

In 2022, the same year that Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, his predecessor, Social Democratic candidate Olaf Scholz, had also promised to build Europe’s strongest army.

However, Scholz only started trickling down once more, in 2024, after parliament approved a one-time, $ 120 billion boost to defense spending.

Some people believe there were also cultural obstacles during Scholz’s government at the time, but others attribute this to bureaucratic practices.

Nobody in their right mind would choose the Bundeswehr as a career because it was not widely perceived, so why. Therefore, it would be more of a niche activity, perhaps more for those on the right side of the political spectrum, said Minna Alander, a researcher at the Center for European Policy Analysis with a focus on security and defense.

General Hodges, who now resides in Germany, said, “Well-educated Germans and older Germans grew up hearing about how terrible Nazi Germany was.” The absolute worst nightmare for older Germans who were children during the war would be a conflict with Russia or the United States, according to the author.

Since 2022, however, perceptions have rapidly changed.

Merz rose to power, demanding “independence” from the US, and condemning both Moscow and Washington.

Parliament had already approved a suspension of the constitutional deficit’s limits, giving him an enormous, permanent increase in defense spending by the time he took office. Parliament last month approved roughly $60 billion worth of defense procurements.

We never rely on European procedures, he says.

Analysts predict that pro-Kremlin narratives will continue to try to exploit any pre-existing latent skepticism.

Russians are incorporating sensibility over conscription into their propaganda narratives for many different European societies, according to Victoria Vdovychenko, a hybrid warfare expert at Cambridge University’s Center for Geopolitics.

You’re going to see a spike in news about how bad it is that the Germans are sending the kids to be killed, she said, according to Al Jazeera.

She is also concerned about how long it will take for political will and investment to become industrialized and forceful.

Although Scholz vowed to form a brigade to defend the Suwalki gap, a vulnerable piece of Lithuanian land sandwiched between Belarus and Kaliningrad, a Russian-held territory in the Baltic Sea, it is still undergoing recruitment, training, and training.