page_title: Belligerents in the Syrian Civil War
section_title: Syrian Democratic Forces
hierarchical_section_title: Belligerents in the Syrian Civil War / Rojava / Syrian Democratic Forces
caption_attribution_description: English: Kurds showing their support for the PYD in Afrin (Governorate of Aleppo) during the conflict.
context_page_description: A number of states and armed groups have involved themselves in the ongoing Syrian Civil War.
context_section_description: The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) are an alliance of mainly Kurdish but also Arab, Syriac-Assyrian, and Turkmen militias with mainly left-wing and democratic confederalist political leanings. They are opposed to the Assad government, but have directed most of their efforts against Al-Nusra Front and ISIL.
  The group formed in December 2015, led primarily by the predominantly Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG). Estimates of its size range from 55,000 to 80,000 fighters. While largely Kurdish, it is estimated that about 40% of the fighters are non-Kurdish. Kurds – mostly Sunni Muslims, with a small minority of Yezidis – represented 10% of Syria's population at the start of the uprising in 2011. They had suffered from decades of discrimination and neglect, being deprived of basic civil, cultural, economic, and social rights. When protests began, Assad's government finally granted citizenship to an estimated 200,000 stateless Kurds, in an effort to try and neutralize potential Kurdish opposition. Despite this concession, most Kurds remain opposed to the government, hoping instead for a more decentralized Syria based on federalism. The Syriac Military Council, like many Syriac-Assyrian militias (such as Khabour Guards, Nattoreh, and Sutoro), originally formed to defend Assyrian villages, but joined the Kurdish forces to retake Hasakah from ISIS in late 2015 The Female Protection Forces of the Land Between the Two Rivers is an all-female force of Assyrian fighters in north east Syria fighting ISIS alongside other Assyrian and Kurdish units. Before the formation of the SDF, the YPG was the primary fighting force in the DFNS, and first entered this Syrian civil war as belligerent in July 2012 by capturing a town, Kobanî, that until then was under control of the Syrian Assad-government (see Syrian Kurdistan campaign).
  On 17 March 2016 the Syrian Democratic Council, the political wing of the SDF, declared the creation of an autonomous federation in northern Syria.
caption: Kurds showing their support for the PYD in Afrin during the conflict
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