The jihadi rebels who toppled Syrian President Bashar Assad say they want to build a unified, inclusive country. But after 14 years of civil war, putting that ideal into practice will not be easy. For Syria’s Kurdish minority, America’s closest ally in the country, the struggle for a new order is entering a potentially even more challenging phase. Over the course of Syria’s civil war, Kurdish fighters have fended off an array of armed factions, partnered with the U.S. to rout the Islamic State group and carved out a largely autonomous region in the country’s oil-rich east. But the gains of the non-Arab Kurds are now at risk. The ascendance of the Sunni Arab rebels who overthrew Assad — with vital help from Turkey, a longtime foe of the Kurds — will make it hard for the Kurds to find a place in the new Syria and could prolong the conflict. The jihadi rebels who rode into Damascus over the weekend have made peaceful overtures to the Kurds. But the rebels violently drove Kurdish fighters out of the eastern city of Deir al-Zour days after government forces abandoned it. To the north, a separate opposition faction backed by Turkey that has been battling the Kurds for years seized the town of Manbij. And Turkey carried out airstrikes on a Kurdish convoy it said was carrying heavy weapons looted from government arsenals. The Kurds have long counted on U.S. aid in the face of such challenges. Around 900 American troops are in eastern Syria, where they partner with Kurdish forces to prevent an Islamic State resurgence. But the future of that mission will be thrown into doubt under president-elect Donald Trump, who has long been skeptical about U.S. involvement in Syria. Here’s a closer look at the predicament the Kurds find themselves in. Who are the U.S.-allied Kurdish fighters in Syria? The Kurds are among the largest stateless ethnic groups in the world, with some 30 million concentrated in a territory straddling Turkey, Iran, Iraq and Syria. They are a minority in each country and have often suffered persecution, which has fueled armed Kurdish uprisings. In Syria, they carved out an autonomous enclave early in the civil war, never fully siding with the Assad government or the rebels seeking to topple him. When the Islamic State group seized a third of the country in 2014, Kurdish fighters — who are secular and include women in their ranks — proved their mettle in early battles against the extremists, earning support from the U.S.-led coalition. They formed a group known as the Syrian Democratic Forces, which also includes Arab fighters, and drove the Islamic State group out of large areas of Syria with help from U.S.-led airstrikes and American special forces. In 2017, these Kurdish-led forces captured Raqqa, the capital of the extremists’ self-styled caliphate. Why is Turkey fighting the Kurds? Turkey has long viewed the SDF as an extension of the decades-old Kurdish insurgency within its own borders. It considers the main Kurdish faction a terrorist group on par with the Islamic State and has said it should have no presence in the new Syria. In recent years, Turkey has trained and funded fighters known as the Syrian National Army, helping them wrest control of territory from the Kurds in northern Syria […]