Syria's government signs a breakthrough deal with Kurdish-led authorities in the northeast

JABLEH, Syria (AP) — Syria's interim government signed a deal Monday with the Kurdish-led authority that controls the country’s northeast, including a ceasefire and the merging of the main U.S.-backed force there into the Syrian army.

The deal is a major breakthrough that would bring most of Syria under the control of the government, which is led by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham that led the ouster of President Bashar Assad in December.

The deal was signed by interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa and Mazloum Abdi, the commander of the U.S.-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces.

The deal to be implemented by the end of the year would bring all border crossings with Iraq and Turkey, airports and oil fields in the northeast under the central government's control. Prisons where about 9,000 suspected members of the Islamic State group are also expected to come under government control.

Syria's Kurds will gain their "constitutional rights" including using and teaching their language, which were banned for decades under Assad. Hundreds of thousands of Kurds, who were displaced during Syria's nearly 14-year civil war, will return to their homes. Thousands of Kurds living in Syria who have been deprived of nationality for decades under Assad will be given the right of citizenship, according to the agreement.

The deal also says all Syrians will be part of the political process, no matter their religion or ethnicity.

Syria's new rulers are struggling to exert their authority across the country and reach political settlements with other minority communities, notably the Druze in southern Syria.

Earlier on Monday, Syria's government announced the end of the military operation against insurgents loyal to Assad and his family in the worst fighting since the end of the civil war.

The Defense Ministry's announcement came after a surprise attack by gunmen from the Alawite community on a police patrol near the port city of Latakia on Thursday spiraled into widespread clashes across Syria's coastal region. The Assad family are Alawites.

“To the remaining remnants of the defeated regime and its fleeing officers, our message is clear and explicit,” said Defense Ministry spokesperson Col. Hassan Abdel-Ghani. “If you return, we will also return, and you will find before you men who do not know how to retreat and who will not have mercy on those whose hands are stained with the blood of the innocent.”

Abdel-Ghani said security forces will continue searching for sleeper cells and remnants of the insurgency of former government loyalists.

Though the government's counter-offensive was able to largely contain the insurgency, footage surfaced of what appeared to be retaliatory attacks targeting the broader minority Alawite community, an offshoot of Shia Islam whose adherents live mainly in the western coastal region.

Sajid Allah Al-Deek, a security official in the coastal region, told The Associated Press that security forces were deployed in the area from the Latakia governorate to Jableh and that the coastal highway is functioning again after being closed because of the fighting.

“The civilians have begun returning to their homes,” Al-Deek said, adding that authorities have started detaining those blamed for acts of violence.

Imad Baytar said his father, who worked for a taxi company, had gone from Jableh to Damascus and on his way back over the weekend "he was killed in the checkpoint.” Baytar blamed Assad supporters for the killing.

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a Britain-based war monitor, said 1,130 people were killed in the clashes, including 830 civilians. The AP could not independently verify these numbers.

Al-Sharaa said the retaliatory attacks against Alawite civilians and mistreatment of prisoners were isolated incidents, and vowed to crack down on the perpetrators as he formed a committee to investigate.

Still, the events alarmed Western governments, who have been urged to lift economic sanctions on Syria.

U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio in a statement Sunday urged Syrian authorities to “hold the perpetrators of these massacres” accountable. Rubio said the U.S. “stands with Syria’s religious and ethnic minorities, including its Christian, Druze, Alawite, and Kurdish communities.”

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Mroue and Chehayeb reported from Beirut.