Mazloum Abdi named Syria's presidential adviser

DAMASCUS,— Syria’s interim president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, has named the former top commander of Kurdish-led SDF forces as an adviser to his office, state media reported Thursday.

A decree, numbered 164, appointed General Mazloum Abdi “as an advisor to the Presidency of the Republic,” the state-run Sana news agency said. Al-Sharaa is also known as Abu Mohammed al-Golani.

The appointment came three days after Abdi said the Syrian Democratic Forces, the group he led, had been dissolved and folded into the Syrian military.

The SDF had served as the de facto army of the autonomous Kurdish administration in Syrian Kurdistan.

Abdi is the highest-ranking Kurdish official to receive a state post. Earlier this year, another SDF commander was named assistant defense minister for the country’s eastern region.

The new advisory job carries less weight than an offer made in January, when al-Sharaa proposed making Abdi deputy defense minister and governor of Hasaka province.

That plan was meant to bring the SDF-held provincial capital back under state authority.

Al-Sharaa and Abdi first agreed in March 2025 to merge the SDF into Syria’s central government.

The agreement stalled ahead of its year-end deadline, and government Islamist militia forces moved into the northeast in January 2026, seizing Raqqa and Deir al-Zor after SDF withdrew from these areas.

Al-Sharaa, an extremist Islamist, who once fought with al-Qaida and later with the Islamic State group, founded the al-Nusra Front, an al-Qaida affiliate that later became Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.

He has led Syria’s interim government since former President Bashar Assad was ousted in December 2024.

A ceasefire that halted the January fighting placed Raqqa, Deir al-Zor and Hasaka under government control and required the SDF to join the defense and interior ministries under a 14-point agreement.

One Kurdish-led unit remains outside that framework. The Women’s Protection Units, known as the YPJ, asked to join the defense ministry but were told the army has no positions for women.

Separately, al-Sharaa signed a decree in January recognizing Kurdish as a national language and restoring citizenship to Syrian Kurds, the first such recognition since Syria gained independence in 1946.

The SDF’s dissolution gives Damascus control over nearly all Syrian territory, a goal al-Sharaa has pursued since Assad’s fall.

Most Kurds of Syria live in Syrian Kurdistan (Rojava Kurdistan), one part of the greatest Kurdistan, which includes Iraqi Kurdistan, Turkey Kurdistan and Iranian Kurdistan.

(With files from Agencies)