The rise of the Kurds in the Syrian conflict

The Kurds form the largest non-Arab and predominantly Sunni ethnic minority in Syria.At more than 2 million people they make up 10 to 12 percent of the Syrian population.The Kurds have their own distinct language and history dating back thousands of years.The Kurds in Syria and other neighboring counties have been highly oppressed and marginalized since the formation of the nation states in the Middle East after World War I.With the consolidation of Arab nationalist states, the Kurds had very little space to organize for their cultural, political and economic rights.Arab nationalism aimed at consolidating the state by unifying Arabic-speaking Sunni and Shi'a but excluding non-Arab minorities.Syria's Arab nationalism also assumed the Arabization of minorities such as the Kurds.The Kurds were seen as a threat to "Arab unity."Fearing the regime's repression, Kurdish political parties, which dated back to 1957, operated in secrecy. 1 Moreover, the discovery of major in fields in Kurdish areas in 1957 heightened the Syrian regime's fear of Kurdish separatism.Thousands of Syrian Kurds were classified as non-citizen foreigners and as a result they could not own property or obtain government jobs while tens of thousands were not recognized officially and had no identity cards. 2 Inspired by the autonomy enjoyed by Iraqi Kurds, the Kurdish populated areas in eastern Syria experienced major unrest in in 2004.Massive demonstrations took place in Kurdish cities but they confronted the army and other security forces who killed