2004 Qamishli riots
On 12 March 2004, Qamishli, a city in northeast Syria, was hit by deadly clashes between Arab and Kurdish residents. The tensions dated back to decades of Arab settlement near Kurdish areas under the Ba'ath Party’s Arab Belt policy, and to longstanding citizenship and rights issues that left many Kurds stateless.
The violence began during a football match between a Kurdish team and an Arab team from Deir ez-Zor. Arab fans insulted Kurdish leaders Masoud Barzani and Jalal Talabani, while Kurdish fans shouted support for Bush, and the confrontations spilled into the streets. Kurdish demonstrators burned the local Ba'ath Party office and toppled a statue of Hafez al-Assad.
The Syrian government responded with a heavy crackdown, deploying troops, tanks, and helicopters to retake the city. The violence left at least 30 Kurds dead and more than 160 wounded. More than 2,000 people were arrested, and thousands of Kurds fled across the border to Iraqi Kurdistan.
In the aftermath, President Bashar al-Assad visited the region, and thousands of Kurds faced arrests, while some were pardoned. The events intensified Kurdish grievances against the Syrian government and led to ongoing protests and political tension in the years that followed. Qamishli remained a focal point of Kurdish rights struggles, and in the years ahead the area would become heavily involved in the broader Kurdish movement in northern Syria.
This page was last edited on 2 February 2026, at 02:16 (CET).