In Syria, growing economic distress and frozen reconstruction efforts are threatening the legitimacy of established actors, in turn providing space for extremists to exploit. Fighting in Syria has dramatically declined as the frontlines of the civil war have largely been frozen since 2020. But new fractures have recently begun to emerge behind those established frontlines. Since August, a series of protests and skirmishes have broken out in territory nominally controlled by one of Syria's major factions. In the government-controlled southern city of Swedia, Druze demonstrators have taken to the streets to protest against President Bashar al Assad's economic policies, resulting in violence between protesters and government forces. Meanwhile, in the northwest, a dispute over sharing oil revenues triggered bloody clashes last month between ostensibly allied Arab tribes and the U.S.-aligned Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), leading to the deaths of dozens of fighters. The unrest took place against the backdrop of...
