But as the months passed after the fall of Baghdad, excitement boiled into impatience. The riots that erupted in March 2004 left at least 24 people dead and were the bloodiest unrest this rigidly controlled land had seen in decades.
Even amid hundreds of arrests, there were signs of conciliation from a rattled regime after the riots. Diplomats, analysts and even some Syrian officials say that the government understands that it can't afford the dissent and dissatisfaction roiling the Kurdish hinterlands.
But after a year of promises, the hopes of the Kurds have hardened into skepticism.
"After 30 years, their promises have no credibility," said Mishal Tammo, a leader of the outlawed Future Party. "We can't believe in anything unless we see it. Their talk is just to win time."
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Amid rising tensions over the last year, an ever-more-outspoken Khaznawi tried to use his popularity to win some ground for his people.
"The real problem [for] the government," said his son Murad, was "that he demanded rights for the Kurds and he demanded equality for the Kurds."
Khaznawi vanished on a clear morning in May. He got a telephone call, an invitation for breakfast. "I'll be back in two hours," he told his colleagues at the Islamic Studies Center. That was the last time they saw him alive.
In late May, Khaznawi's sons staged a demonstration in Damascus to demand news of their father.
A man drew near, identified himself as a senior government official with the rank of general, and spoke of the forthcoming "happy news."
A few days later, they were taken to see their father's body.
Security officials arrested a band of men they called "the criminals" and aired a tape of the leader's confession on state television. The confession did nothing to convince Khaznawi's followers, thousands of whom surged into the dust-caked streets of Qamishli shouting slogans in Kurdish and demanding an investigation of the cleric's death.
Khaznawi's slaying has driven another wedge between the Kurds and the Syrian regime, renewing the anger of generations and deepening the sense of despair.
"We now have a recipe for disaster in Qamishli," said Abdel Hamid, director of the minority rights program. "Emotions are being radicalized. They see this [Syrian] Baath as a continuation of Saddam Hussein, and they see this as a continuation of the struggle for independence."
