March was a pivotal moment in Syria’s ongoing political transition for all the wrong reasons. In just a few days, pro-government militias massacred hundreds of Alawite civilians. There is a recurrent theme to witness testimonies: Much of the violence and looting was conducted by individuals whose dress, language, and accents indicated that they were not Syrian.
This makes U.S. President Donald Trump’s recent about-face on Syria’s foreign fighters even more surprising. Trump, and President Joe Biden before him, had conditioned engagement with Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa’s transitional government on the latter taking action to detain or expel the thousands of foreign fighters that remained in Syria. But Trump’s new envoy to the country, Tom Barrack, recently declared that the United States would drop its demand that Sharaa deport foreign fighters and tentatively endorse their integration into the Syrian army.
Critics have argued that these foreign fighters are violent jihadists who are not just endangering Syria’s recovery but could also threaten U.S. national security. As the massacres in March show, they may have a point. Nonetheless, their argument oversimplifies a complex policy problem. The term “foreign fighters” is a broad brush that includes Turkish jihadists freed from prison to fight in Syria, radicalized European volunteers, and transnational militia members from the Caucasus, China, and Central Asia.
Some of these foreign fighters can and should be integrated into the Syrian army, while others should not. Getting this balance right is the only way to ensure a viable Syrian state and advance Washington’s long-term counterterrorism goals.
Today, Syria’s government is badly overstretched. It cannot disarm every militant group operating within its territory. Instead, it needs to bring the least problematic militias under state control, thereby allowing it to confront the more dangerous and extreme groups. This is the only way to prevent events like the March massacres from reoccurring.
At the heart of Trump’s recent policy shift are approximately 3,500 foreign fighters from the Turkistan Islamic Party (TIP), who will now be allowed to integrate into Syria’s armed forces. This organization, the Syrian branch of a transnational jihadist group made up primarily of Uyghur Muslims, has long been an integral fighting force attached to Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which is the post-jihadist group that now leads Syria’s government.
Many TIP fighters went to Syria as jihadists, and the TIP, like HTS, conducted war crimes during the country’s civil war. But, mimicking HTS, it has now moved away from global jihad.
This is why it’s misleading to claim that Syria’s TIP is an “al Qaeda linked terror group.” The TIP’s leadership outside of Syria retains formal ties to al Qaeda, but Syria’s branch does not. It stopped taking orders from the group’s international leaders and instead pledged its loyalty to the Syrian government. TIP members fought alongside HTS against both al Qaeda and the Islamic State. There is no evidence that the TIP took part in the outbreaks of sectarian violence earlier this year.
Even beyond the TIP, the case for integrating foreign fighters remains strong.
The first reason is logistical: Syria’s foreign fighters have nowhere to go. Their home countries refuse to take them back. Many of Syria’s 5,000 foreign fighters have been in the country for a decade or more. They have married Syrian women and fathered Syrian children. Washington’s demand to deport them was always a nonstarter.
The second reason is the Syrian government’s limited capacity. Sharaa may be talking about inclusivity, but his administration has concentrated power in the hands of HTS loyalists. This is true not just for Syria’s top ministers; throughout the country, skeleton crews of HTS loyalists man government buildings. HTS is projecting disproportionate influence given that its forces number only up to 30,000 combatants. By comparison, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army (SNA) are far larger.
This may be a problem of the new government’s own making, but it is still a problem. Even if it wanted to, Sharaa’s administration is simply unable to take aggressive action to disarm and detain the thousands of battle-hardened foreign fighters in Syria today. There is also the related and ever-present possibility that doing so could push them into the hands of spoiler groups that remain active, such as al Qaeda or the Islamic State.
Third, the government sees some foreign fighters as key assets. Aside from the TIP, Sharaa appointed a Jordanian, Abdul Rahman Hussein al-Khatib, as head of his Republican Guard and a Turkish citizen, Omar Mohammed Jaftashi, to lead the Syrian army’s Damascus division. These appointments raised eyebrows, but there is a strategic logic to them. As foreigners, these loyalists lack an indigenous support base, which means that they are unlikely to launch a coup. It is therefore no coincidence that Sharaa put them in charge of the armed forces in Syria’s capital.
Integration will require patience and pragmatism, rather than a one-size-fits-all approach. The TIP has worked closely with HTS for a long time, making its integration a relatively easy win. In southern Syria, Sharaa had to balance carrots and sticks to integrate the more indigenous 8th Brigade, an independent-minded militia that flipped between fighting for and against the Assad regime several times. And what worked for the TIP and the 8th Brigade will not work for the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). In addition to fielding an army that, at least on paper, outnumbers HTS, the SDF and its Kurdish-dominated predecessor organizations have ruled a quasi-state in eastern Syria since 2012 and received over a decade of U.S. political and military support.
All this means that, for Sharaa, the biggest challenges are yet to come. There are more than 130 armed groups in Syria—foreign and home-grown alike—that have held integration talks with the new regime. Many of them remain suspicious of Sharaa’s new government. Others may seek to “re-flag”—proclaiming their fealty to the Syrian army while retaining their existing loyalties and organizational structures. The result is that the Syrian government will pay these groups’ salaries without exercising effective control over them.
The fact that the Assad regime allowed rebel militias to re-flag, only for those same groups to throw their lot back in with the rebels, should give Sharaa pause for thought. The United States, in turn, should demand that TIP fighters be dispersed throughout the army to serve as an example for integrating other groups.
Then there are the militias that should not be integrated at all. These include global jihadists, pro-Iran fighters, and Assad regime remnants, along with drug smugglers and criminal networks. Disarming these groups requires a functioning Syrian state with a cohesive and disciplined army. The only way to achieve this is for the state to bolster its meager assets by incorporating the least problematic of Syria’s armed groups.
The toughest will be the pro-government militias that remain outside of Damascus’s control, some of which were implicated in the March massacre. This is where the United States needs to be the most active: first, by demanding that Sharaa not integrate those with blood on their hands, and second, by ensuring that they face justice for their crimes. This will require careful but firm diplomacy with Turkey, which sponsors and protects many of these groups.
Allowing Sharaa to integrate some foreign fighters into Syria’s army is just one part of reforming the country’s military and exerting state sovereignty. It will remain controversial and must be done with caution. But by taking a more realistic approach on this, as well as sanctions relief, Washington will advance both U.S. and Syrian security.
The Trump administration is belatedly working to better the Syria that exists, instead of waiting for the ideal one that it won’t get. By accepting the TIP’s integration into the Syrian army, Trump has chosen the least bad option.
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