KOBANI, Syria (AP) — Hundreds of oil tanker trucks were stranded in northeastern Syria’s Kurdish region Wednesday after demonstrators blocked a major highway near the town of Tal Tamr in protest over rising fuel prices.

It was the latest evidence of rising discontent in the Kurdish region in the midst of a push to integrate a once-powerful Kurd-led force into Syria’s army and bring formerly autonomous institutions under the control of the central government.

The integration agreement with the Syrian Democratic Forces has been widely regarded as a victory for the government of interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa.

But in recent weeks, a series of issues have sparked discontent among Kurdish communities in formerly SDF-controlled areas, testing al-Sharaa’s ability to consolidate his rule and bring unity to a country emerging from 14 years of conflict.

Snowballing Kurdish discontent

Kurds, who made up about 10% of Syria’s population of 23 million before the country’s civil war began in 2011, were long marginalized under the country’s then-ruling Assad dynasty. During the war, they carved out a de facto autonomous zone in the northeast.

With the new post-war government now reasserting control over the northeast, Kurdish communities are anxious about losing the rights they had under self-rule.

Students in the cities of Qamishli and Hassakeh have staged mass protests in recent weeks over a government decree that makes Kurdish an official language of instruction for the first time in Syrian history, but only provides for three classes a week in the language.

Under the rule of former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, the Kurdish language was banned in schools. But during the war, SDF-affiliated authorities in the northeast set up a school system teaching mostly in Kurdish.

Anger rose further after a Kurdish former SDF fighter who had joined the Syrian army as part of the integration agreement between the SDF leadership and Damascus was abducted and killed by a group of Arab men in Hassakeh earlier this month.

Then prisoners rioted in a jail in the........

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