BEIRUT, Lebanon — Street names in Syria’s far northeastern corner have been changed from Arabic to Kurdish, schools openly teach the Kurdish language, and the country’s most powerful Kurdish militia flies its flag from checkpoints on main roads.
Across northeastern Syria, the Kurds, the country’s largest ethnic minority, have taken advantage of the vacuum left by the civil war to push for the autonomy long denied them by the government of President Bashar al-Assad.
Their struggle does not fit neatly into the war between Mr. Assad’s government and the rebels seeking his ouster, and different parts of the scattered Kurdish population have allied at times with forces on either side.