Syria’s new government announced an agreement Monday to integrate the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, into Syria’s new state institutions. The U.S.-backed SDF has controlled a semi-autonomous region in Syria’s oil-rich northeast since 2015. This comes as Syria is reeling from the worst outbreak of violence since the ouster of former authoritarian President Bashar al-Assad in December, with nearly 1,000 civilians killed since last Thursday in Latakia and Tartus provinces, most of them in massacres by fighters loyal to the new government. We’ll have more on this story later in the broadcast.