Mustafa Khalil Abdi (born 1967), also known as Mazloum Abdi, is a Syrian politician and former rebel commander who has served as Adviser to the Presidency of the Republic since 2026. He previously served as commander-in-chief of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) until its dissolution in 2026.
Born to Syrian Kurdish parents from the Kurdish village of Halanj, near Kobani, Abdi was raised by a father who worked as a medical doctor. He studied civil engineering at the University of Aleppo before joining the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in Syria in 1990. During this period, Syrian authorities imprisoned him on five occasions. While active in the PKK, Abdi developed a close personal relationship with the group's leader, Abdullah Öcalan.
In 1997, he relocated to Europe and remained involved in Kurdish political activities until 2003, when he traveled to Iraq and was reportedly involved in military operations. He later joined the PKK's high command in 2005 and served on the People's Defense Forces (HPG) special operations board between 2009 and 2011. Around 2011–2012, the PKK sent him back to Syria to help organize the activities of the People's Defense Units (YPG) in predominantly Kurdish areas as the Syrian civil war intensified. In 2015, Abdi was chosen by representatives of the United States Army to lead the SDF, following a recommendation from the Kurdistan Regional Government's intelligence service, Parastin u Zanyari.
In March 2025, Abdi's SDF reached an integration agreement with the Syrian caretaker government, led by President Ahmed al-Sharaa, but the process remained inconclusive throughout 2025. In January 2026, following consultations with Iraqi Kurdish leader Masoud Barzani, Abdi announced that SDF forces would withdraw from Dayr Hafir and nearby areas to positions east of the Euphrates. The withdrawal came amid the Syrian transitional government's offensive against the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria. In August 2026, Abdi announced the dissolution of the SDF and the full incorporation of its forces into the Syrian Army. He was subsequently appointed as Adviser to the Presidency of the Republic.
Early life Mustafa Khalil Abdi was born in 1967 to Syrian Kurdish parents in the Kurdish village of Halanj, near Kobani. His father was a medical doctor. He trained as a civil engineer at the University of Aleppo, but did not complete his studies. Abdi joined the Kurdistan Workers' Party (PKK) in Syria in 1990 and was imprisoned five times by the Syrian authorities.
During his time with the PKK in Syria, he became a personal friend of PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan. He moved to Europe in 1997, where he engaged in Kurdish political activities until 2003. That year, he traveled to Iraq, where he was reportedly involved in military operations. In 2004, Abdi traveled to the Iraqi city of Makhmour, where he became a member of the PKK's Executive Council. He served as a member of the PKK high command in 2005.
From 2009 to 2011, he was a member of the People's Defense Forces (HPG) special operations board. In 2011/12, he was dispatched to Syria by the PKK to organize the activities of the People's Defense Units (YPG) in Kurdish-populated regions of Syria, amid the escalating Syrian civil war. In August 2014, he was in charge of the negotiations the People's Defense Units (YPG) held in Sulaymaniya with Iran and the United States in order to form an effective alliance against the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL), after which an alliance with the US was agreed to.
Abdi defended Kobani during the Siege of Kobani (Oct. 2014–Jan. 2015), refusing to withdraw despite US recommendations to do so. When his family's house was taken a 3rd time by the Islamic State in house-to-house fights, and given the increased collaboration with USAF, he requested a strike on his home.
Name There are different claims about Mazloum Abdi's real name. Some sources in Turkish state media that his name is "Mustafa Abdi bin Halil", and the names he has used over the years include Ferhat Abdi Şahin, Şahin Cilo and Mazlum Abdi. In October 2019, he told The New York Times in an interview that his real name is "Mazlum Abdi". Abdi also uses this name on his official Twitter account. United States President Donald Trump used the phrase "General Mazlum" for him.
Abdi holds Iraqi citizenship from Kirkuk Governorate and possesses an Iraqi passport under the name "Muhammad Khalil Hussein", which he obtained in 2018 without appearing in person in Sulaymaniyah Governorate, Iraqi Kurdistan. In August 2026, in the presidential decree appointing him as Adviser to the Presidency of the Republic, issued by Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa, he was identified as Mustafa Khalil Abdi.
Commander-in-Chief of the Syrian Democratic Forces (2015–2026) In 2015, he was selected by United States Army representatives to assume command of the Syrian Democratic Forces, on the recommendation of the Kurdistan Regional Government's intelligence service Parastin u Zanyari. In this capacity, Abdi commanded 70,000 troops as of 2019.
Abdi stated that he was open to working with the Assad government within a federal system that included the existing de facto autonomous region of the Democratic Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria. On 29 June 2019, Abdi, as a representative of the SDF, signed the United Nations action plan aimed at preventing the recruitment of child soldiers into armed forces.
After the fall of the Assad regime, in an interview with Rudaw Media Network on 15 August 2026, he attributed Syria's past oppression under Assad and the Ba'ath Party to totalitarian and centralized rule. He argued that centralization had failed and that Syria's future system should instead be decentralized.
Relationship with Ba'athist Syria during the civil war (2017–2024) On 25 April 2017, the Turkish Armed Forces conducted an air operation against PKK targets in the Sinjar Mountains in Iraq and the Karachok Mountains in northeastern Syria. Abdi was among the teams that included United States Special Operations Command officers who visited and inspected the area where the targets were bombed by Turkish jets in the Karachok Mountain region. On 5 March 2018, the United States Department of Defense spokesman, Colonel Robert Manning, said in a press conference regarding Abdi, "We will continue to support General Mazloum and the Syrian local security forces in the areas liberated from ISIS." In a statement, Turkish Ministry of Foreign Affairs spokesman Hami Aksoy reacted to the Pentagon spokesman's use of the name Mazloum Abdi, who was on Turkey's "most wanted terrorists list", and to his reference to Abdi as a "YPG general" during the press conference. In July 2019, Mazloum Abdi met with the United Nations Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, Virginia Gamba, and signed a United Nations document on behalf of the SDF.
On 9 October 2019, the day Operation Peace Spring began, US President Donald Trump sent a letter to Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, attaching the letter Mazloum Abdi sent to Trump. The letter included the following statements: "I have worked hard to resolve some of your problems. Do not disappoint the world. You can make a good deal. General Mazloum Abdi is willing to negotiate with you and is willing to make concessions that they would never make in the past. I am sending you a copy of the letter he wrote to me, which I have just received." He served as the commander-in-chief of the Syrian Democratic Forces during the operation. While the operation was ongoing, US President Donald Trump held meetings with Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu to discuss issues including the ceasefire. Following the Sochi agreement signed between Russia and Turkey, Trump directly included Mazloum Abdi's Twitter account in his message, stating that he had spoken to Mazloum Abdi on the phone, that he was very pleased with this, and thanked Mazloum Abdi.
On 26–27 October 2019, the United States conducted a military operation codenamed Operation Kayla Mueller that resulted in the death of Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the then-leader and self-proclaimed caliph of the Islamic State terrorist organization. The operation took place on the outskirts of Barisha, Idlib Governorate, Syria.
Prior to the raid, the SDF, working with the U.S. government, had spent five months gathering intelligence on Baghdadi's location. A senior U.S. State Department official said that the Kurdish-led SDF "played a key role" in the raid on Baghdadi's compound and that the United States was in close communication with SDF commander General Mazloum Abdi about every aspect of their operation, and Abdi's statements about the raid, in reference to the joint intelligence cooperation on the ground, were accurate. Abdi said the operation had been delayed by a month due to Turkey's military build-up at the Syrian border and the Turkish incursion into northeastern Syria that followed.
Mazloum Abdi claimed in an interview with NBC television that the SDF under his command played an active role in the operation in which the leader of the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, was killed. In the same interview, Mazloum Abdi said that a spy affiliated with the SDF managed to infiltrate Baghdadi's close circle and obtained information about the plan of the place where the ISIS leader was hiding, the existence of the tunnel and how many people were there. He then stated that the spy managed to obtain a used underwear and blood sample belonging to Baghdadi, that these samples were delivered to the CIA and that the US decided to launch the operation as a result of DNA tests confirming that the person being followed was Baghdadi. In an article by Lara Seligman published in Foreign Policy, it was stated that Mazloum Abdi worked with the US government for a long time to gather intelligence on Baghdadi's whereabouts, that Mazloum Abdi was the only foreigner with information about the target and that the operation in which Baghdadi was killed was postponed for a month due to Operation Peace Spring.
On 30 October 2019, the Syrian Ministry of Defense announced that "The SDF General Command, which intends to open the doors of dialogue, should be directly addressed, not our members." Mazloum Abdi stated on his personal Twitter account that the call was made on an individual level, not to the SDF institutionally, and that they rejected their members' individual participation in the Syrian army and wanted the status of the SDF to be preserved.
In the wake of the 2019 Turkish offensive into north-eastern Syria, Abdi has stated his willingness to work with the Syrian regime and Russia and to make compromises with them in order to protect the local population of northeastern Syria from potential "genocide" by "Turkey and its jihadi mercenaries. As part of a deal with the SDF, Syrian government troops have been given permission to enter the cities of Manbij and Kobani in the hopes of deterring further Turkish aggression.
In October 2019, a group of US Senators suggested that the US State Department give Abdi a visa so that he would be able to discuss Syria in the United States. In response, the Turkish Minister of Justice Abdulhamit Gül criticized the US government for treating Abdi as a "legitimate political figure" and indicated that an extradition request had been issued so that if Abdi would enter US territory, he should be detained to be extradited to Turkey.
On 9 October 2019, US president Donald Trump wrote a note to Turkey's president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, offering to mediate between Turkey and the YPG, saying Abdi was "willing to make concessions that they would never have made in the past" and enclosing a note from Abdi. During Erdoğan's 14 November state visit to the US, he returned the letter to Trump, and claimed Abdi was the adoptive son of the imprisoned PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan.