Syrian Defense Force (SDF)

The Syrian Democratic Forces is an alliance in the Syrian Civil War composed primarily of Kurdish, Arab, and Assyrian/Syriac militias, as well as some smaller Armenian, Turkmen and Chechen forces. The SDF is militarily led by the People’s Protection Units (YPG), a Kurdish majority militia. The SDF holds Northern Syria, also known as Syrian Kurdistan or Rojava. They played a leading role in ISIS’s territorial defeat, actively combat Turkish incursions into Northern Syria and fight the SAA (Syrian Arab Army).

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