NARRATION:  After the fall of the regime of Bashar al-Assad, Syria’s people are forming the foundations of a new state.

Through years of war, every person has made sacrifices in this ancient, multiethnic land. But as rebuilding begins, control becomes the next battle.

From the capital, Damascus, Syria is now governed by Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, who toppled the Assad regime in a lightning offensive in December 2024, gaining popular support across much of the country.

The army is made up of men from all over Syria, including hardline Islamist factions.

In the North and East, authority was held by the Syrian Democratic Forces, the SDF, a multiethnic coalition rooted in Kurdish self-defense, including all-female battalions like the Women’s Protection Units, or YPJ.

They governed an autonomous region known as Rojava, where men and women governed together, challenging centuries of patriarchal rule, even in the midst of war.

Over 12,000 of the SDF fighters, both men and women, died in the war against ISIS.

Now, the government in Damascus, led by President Ahmed al-Sharaa, a former al-Qaida member, is demanding the SDF integrates into a new Syrian National Army.

Negotiations have collapsed and fighting has erupted.

As the government forces advance, the SDF is rapidly falling back.

What follows is not just a military confrontation, but a struggle between two competing visions for Syria’s future.

Just weeks before the fighting began, as Rojava was preparing for war, we were granted rare access to a hidden base to speak to a commander from the all-female YPJ.

VIYAN ADAR (YPJ COMMANDER):  The slogan “Woman, Life, Freedom” didn’t come from nowhere. 

We see women as the very meaning of life. Since the dawn of humanity, society has been built around women. From social bonds and community to moral and cultural unity. Unity in decision and unity in implementation.

All of this is built around women, built around the divine mother.

NARRATION:  For the people of Rojava and the women of the YPJ, the current offensive is an existential war fought to preserve the very idea of their revolution.

As the deposed regime of Bashar al-Assad withdrew from Kurdish regions in 2012, communities were left to protect themselves. Kurdish women, politically active through decades of underground organizing, insisted that protection could not be left to men alone.

In its earliest days, the YPJ formed small, locally-organized defense units fighting multiple armed threats without the backing of any foreign state.

As the war against ISIS intensified, the YPJ helped form a broader multiethnic coalition, the Syrian Democratic Forces, which the United States chose to support for its effectiveness on the battlefield.

The women of these groups stood against ISIS, securing the north and east of Syria at the cost of thousands of lives.

They confronted an ideology built on male domination.

VIYAN ADAR:  The male mentality has become the way of life. A mentality of deception, murder, power, and authority. A mentality of one color, one flag, one culture, one language, and one gender.

This mentality has taken over all of life.

NARRATION:  Geopolitics moves at an unrelenting pace.

After fighting ISIS and securing its prisoners, the SDF has been abandoned by America and left exposed to a new threat.

The new government of Syria is now seizing the moment, moving to take control of all SDF territory under the pretext of unifying the country into a single national army.

Rapidly advancing armies of men have once again entered Rojava, attacking the very symbols at the heart of the women’s struggle.

In Aleppo, a video circulated showing a man throwing the body of a female Kurdish fighter from a balcony.

VIYAN ADAR:  Our struggle has been one of great suffering.

It has become extremely important for us as women to free ourselves from the monotonous, centralized mentality of men. And to create a pluralistic, non-centralized state where all genders have their own voices and are partners and collaborators in life.

NARRATION:  Amidst Syria’s chaos, Rojava became a refuge for persecuted minorities, protected by an egalitarian system that rejected hierarchy and relied on collective self-defense.

At the same time, it became a historic chance for Kurds to govern themselves, building an autonomous region where communities made decisions together beyond the control of the nation state.

VIYAN ADAR:  We know that, before being Kurdish, we are human. Before the nation… We are humans — Christians, Armenians, Turkmens… Arabs… and all other groups, as humans. We should all live together as humans. Not as nations. Even with different religions.

NARRATION:  The Kurds are the largest group of stateless people in the world. The land is split by modern borders and spread across Syria, Turkey, Iraq, and Iran.

In Rojava, the revolution never sought to carve out a new state. Its aim was local autonomy and self-governance within Syria.

VIYAN ADAR:  On this basis, the main goal of our revolution is to build a socialist life, a democratic life… A life of justice, morality, and culture. A life for all living beings. Like ecology itself.

Where this tree is also a living being. If you don’t have this understanding, you can kill this tree. You don’t see it as alive.

If you don’t see it as alive, you don’t see a living Christian. You don’t see a living Arab. None of it will be alive.

NARRATION:  The new government of Syria says it’s pursuing national unity. But across the country, minority groups from Druze to Alawites have been targeted by pro-government militias enforcing a new national vision.

Now Rojava faces mounting pressure, its autonomous system cast by critics as a barrier to a unified state.

The divide is ideological, from the meaning of unity to the role of women in public life.

VIYAN ADAR:  A mentality that not everyone sees. A mentality that never sees or greets women. If they treat you like a piece of wood, how would you feel?

The question is: What is the difference between the YPJ and other factions [considered hardline]? Not many. We can’t get the YPJ to cooperate with these factions. We are different.

NARRATION:  Now Rojava stands isolated, forced back to the land where Kurdish women first organized their defense.

VIYAN ADAR:  Without a doubt, no society, revolution, or country is possible without women.

NARRATION:  These women once stood at the center of the fight against ISIS, in a war the world depended on them to win.

But when geopolitical decisions were made far from their front lines, they were left behind.

VIYAN ADAR:  The philosophy of our revolution is to live freely. With all its parts, vibrant and colorful. Centred around women, they are the foundation.

NARRATION:  As territory collapses, thousands of Kurds and others who believe in the revolution are crossing into Rojava, ready to die defending its last remaining land.

Women displaced from lost regions are being pushed into its final ground where the future of this project now lives or dies.

VIYAN ADAR:  It’s not over yet, but it has reached a very important point.

First, a revolution takes place within oneself, something that arises in your heart, that you 

cannot tolerate, is the rise of the revolution.

We want to protect life. We represent it, and we live for it.

God willing, we will live for an hour.