Tensions quickly escalated into open protests, with Kurds raising their flag and taking to the streets to demand cultural and political rights.

In an echo of the Tunisian revolution, Syrian citizen Hasan Ali Akleh soaked himself in gasoline and set himself on fire in the northern city of Al-Hasakah.

[28] Smaller protests continued, and on 7 March 2011, thirteen political prisoners went on hunger strike, and momentum began to grow against the Assad government.

In August, a coalition of opposition groups formed the Syrian National Council in hopes of creating a democratic, pluralistic alternative to the Assad government.

[46] In Qamishli, government military and police forces remained in their barracks and administration officials in the city allowed the Kurdish flag to be raised.

Since then, residents organized local assemblies, reopened schools, established community centers, and helped push back the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) to gain control of almost all land in Syria east of the Euphrates river.

The extreme laws restricting independent political organizing, women's freedom, religious and cultural expression and the discriminatory policies carried out by the Assad government have been superseded.

The constitution also explicitly states the equal rights and freedom of women and also "mandates public institutions to work towards the elimination of gender discrimination".

This transition faces the major obstacles of ongoing conflict and an embargo from all neighboring countries: Turkey, Iraq, Iran, and the various forces controlling nearby areas of Syria.

There were at first no direct or indirect taxes on people or businesses in the region;[48] Instead the administration funded itself mainly through the sale of oil and other natural resources and tariffs on border commerce (which is clandestine because of the embargo).

[52] The Movement for a Democratic Society Economic Committee has been helping businesses move towards a "community economy" based on worker cooperatives and self-sufficiency.

[52] Other cooperatives involve bottled mineral water, construction, factories, fuel stations, generators, livestock, oil, pistachio and roasted seeds, and public markets.

[53] According to the region's "Ministry of Economics", by 2015, approximately three-quarters of all property had been placed under community ownership and a third of production had been transferred to direct management by workers' councils.

A government source told the AFP that the air strikes were "a message to the Kurds that they should stop this sort of demand that constitutes an affront to national sovereignty".

After the recent territorial defeat of ISIL in Syria and Iraq and improvements in the Turkish–Russian relationship, it is possible that Russia and its allies began to view a strong YPG as increasingly less useful.

[85] By 22 August, Syrian government troops, Hezbollah fighters, and members of the Iranian paramilitary Basij militia had become involved in the fighting against Kurdish forces in al-Hasakah.

[86] In the context of the 2024 opposition offensives in Syria and the downfall of the Assad regime, SDF forces took part in the battle of Aleppo, expanding their control of the Sheikh Maqsood area, as well as taking territory across the Euphrates river, seizing Deir ez-Zor.

[95] On 31 January, Kamal Mustafa Hanan, editor-in-chief of Newroz (a Kurdish-language journal) and a former Yekîtî politician, was fatally shot in the Ashrafiyah district of Aleppo.

Yekîtî organised a funeral procession in the town of Afrin in the Kurdish-held northwest corner of Aleppo Province on 1 February, which members of both the PYD and KNC attended.

[100] On 11 April 2016, PYD supporters attacked the offices of the Kurdish National Council and the Kurdistan Democratic Party of Syria in Derbessiye and Qamishli.

[101] The head of the Kurdish National Council told Turkey's TRT World channel the "PYD's oppressive attitude in Syria is forcing Kurds to leave the region".

In response, the Movement for a Democratic Society led by the PYD stated that they welcome unity and called on the Kurdish National Council to participate in federal project.

The KNC has rejected the federalism project launched by the Syrian Democratic Council and stated that it will participate in the peace talks in Astana, Kazakhstan, with Turkey and Russia.

[107] On 12 April 2017, an official in TEV-DEM met with Gabriel Moushe Gawrieh, head of the Assyrian Democratic Organization, and discussed the closure of the latter's offices since March.

[108] The Rojava–Islamist conflict is a major theater in the Syrian Civil War, starting in 2013 after fighting erupted between the Kurdish People's Protection Units (YPG) and Islamist rebel factions in the city of Ras al-Ayn.

Turkey has long called the PYD as a Syrian extension of the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK), and has therefore taken a hardline stance against the group, the official talking point being that it would not allow a Kurdish state to form along their southern border with Syria.

However, the EU, the US, and others cooperate with the PYD and the YPG militia in the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) and do not designate either a terrorist organisation.

[136][137][138] Secretary Carter replied, "Yes," to a Senate panel when Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) asked whether he believed the Syrian Kurds are "aligned or at least have substantial ties to the PKK".

"[142] In the perception of much of the Turkish public, the Rojava federal project as well as U.S. support for the YPG against ISIL are elements of a wider conspiracy scheme by a "mastermind" with the aim to weaken or even dismember Turkey, in order to prevent its imminent rise as a global power.

[145] In early 2016, following the capture of Tishrin Dam, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) were allowed to cross the Euphrates River, a proclaimed 'red line' by Turkey.