A torn posters shows the late Syrian President Hafez Assad and his son the ousted Syrian president Bashar Assad, that were set at the entrance of the notorious security detention centre called Palestine Branch, in Damascus, Syria, on December 14, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AP

The story so far:Bashar al-Assad, President of Syria for 24 years, has fallen. He and his family have taken refuge in Russia. Syria now has a transitional government, headed by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), an Islamist militant group that was controlling the northwestern province of Idlib. Many Syrians are celebrating the collapse of Mr. Assad’s dictatorial regime, but remain anxious about what is to come. Turkey, as the main backer of the HTS, sees an opportunity to expand its influence in West Asia, while Iran and Russia, the main backers of the Assad regime, have taken a setback. Israel, in the meantime, is exploiting the vacuum in Syria to grab more territories.

Why did the Assad regime fall?

Mr. Assad held on to power for 13 years after the civil war broke out in 2011, only for his regime to collapse in 12 days. By 2017, the Assad regime had taken over most of its lost territories, with help from Russia, Iran and Hezbollah. But he hadn’t defeated the militants. The strongest of them was the HTS, which was formerly called Jabhat al-Nusra, the al-Qaeda arm in Syria. Abu Muhammed al-Jolani, today the ‘emir’ of the HTS, was an al-Qaeda leader. The HTS-controlled Idlib emerged as a rebel stronghold. Jolani established a mini-administration in Idlib — the Syrian Salvation Government. He had been planning a large-scale offensive against the regime forces for months, if not years.

Also read | Twelve days that shook Syria 

On the other side, a host of domestic, regional and international factors weakened Mr. Assad’s position. Syria’s economy is in a very bad shape. Its GDP shrank by 87% in the past 13 years, from $68 billion in 2011 to just $9 billion in 2023. Western sanctions stifled an already deteriorated economy further. The poorly paid soldiers of the Assad regime lacked motivation to preserve it. Syrian armed forces were also weakened by repeated Israeli air strikes, which picked up pace over the past year, after Hamas’s October 7, 2023 attack. Mr. Assad was heavily reliant on his external allies for security. However, their priorities also changed in recent years. Russia’s focus is now on the Ukraine war. Iran is involved in a hot and cold war with Israel. Hezbollah lost most of its leaders and thousands of fighters in its year-long war with Israel. The militants knew Mr. Assad was weak.

They launched an offensive on November 27 in the western outskirts of Aleppo, probably aimed at cutting the underbelly of his decaying regime. What happened next was a rapid collapse of the regime itself.

Who is in charge now?

Syria today has roughly four militant coalitions. The first one is the HTS, led by Jolani. The HTS says it has broken its ties with al-Qaeda, and promises to respect Syria’s ethnic and religious diversity. But its rank and file comprise transnational jihadists, who travelled to Syria from across the world, to fight “jihad” against the Assad regime. The HTS’s main ally is the Syrian National Army (SNA), another northern militia. The core of the SNA is the Free Syrian Army, a Turkish proxy that was formed with defected Syrian soldiers and officers. The HTS and the SNA launched the November 27 offensive together.

The second group is the Southern Front, a loose coalition of dozens of militias in Syria’s south (Daara and Quneitra). Some of them were backed by Jordan, which shares a border with southern Syria. When the HTS-SNA combine advanced towards regime-held cities from the north, the southern militias started an offensive from the south. And they reached Damascus first, on December 8. The third main group is the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). The core of the SDF is the People’s Protection Units (YPG), the armed wing of Syrian Kurdistan. The SDF enjoys relative autonomy in the Syrian Kurdish region. The SDF was armed by the U.S. in the past in its fight against the Islamic State. The fourth group is the Alawite militias in the coastal region. Alawites are Mr. Assad’s sect, who enjoyed power for over five decades in the country. The HTS, a Sunni Islamist group, had in the past targeted Alawites, who make up roughly 15% of Syria’s population. The HTS has asked the Alawite community to cut ties with the fallen regime. Of these four, the HTS is the most powerful force now. The transition government in Damascus is a replica of the HTS Salvation government in Idlib.

Why does geopolitics matter?

Syria has immense geopolitical significance. It hosts Russia’s Mediterranean naval base in Tartus, its only naval base outside the former Soviet territory. Russia also has built an air base in Syria. For Russia to project force, from the Black Sea to the Mediterranean and then to the Atlantic, it is essential to retain access to the Tartus base. It could also be one of the reasons Russia made a military intervention in Syria in 2015, to protect the Assad regime. Now that the regime has collapsed, Russia’s focus would be on protecting its bases. For Iran, a sworn enemy of America and Israel, Syria was its only state ally in West Asia. Syria was also a key conduit between Iran and Hezbollah, the Lebanese militia. The fall of the Assad regime could disrupt Iran’s supply networks in the region, which could invariably weaken the country’s deterrence.

Turkey, on the other side, appears to be stronger. For years, it had tried to pull down the Assad regime. When the Russian intervention made it immediately impossible, Turkey shifted its focus towards playing a long game with its proxies. Now that Mr. Assad is gone and the HTS-SNA coalition is in Damascus, Recep Tayyip Erdogan seems to have outwitted Vladimir Putin, and extended his influence from Ankara to the borders of Iraq, Jordan and Israel.

Will the militants build a new Syria?

Many think the fall of a dictatorial regime would lead to a new dawn. For now, Syria’s militants have made the right noises — about respecting the country’s diversity and rebuilding its dilapidated institutions and welcoming back refugees. But Syria still remains a complex case — with or without Mr. Assad. Before Hafez al-Assad, Bashar’s father, captured power in 1971, Syria had seen multiple coups and counter-coups. It was Hafez and his Ba’ath party that stabilised the country and built its modern institutions. Today, the challenge the militants face is to rebuild the country once again, by demobilising the militias. But the HTS neither has ideological clarity for an inclusive Syria nor the resources to demobilise other militias. The HTS is a Salafi-jihadist outfit, which wants to remake secular Syria and retain its tight grip over state institutions. If the HTS’s rule in Idlib is an example, the group is not any less dictatorial than Mr. Assad. The southern militias, backed by Jordan, would want to get their due share of power. And in the east, the SDF, the Kurdish militia, wants to keep their hard-earned autonomy. But Turkey sees the SDF as a terrorist outfit, and Turkish-backed militias have already started attacking the SDF.

In Afghanistan, throughout the 1980s, the U.S. and Pakistan-backed Mujahideen fought together against the communist regime as well as the Soviet troops. But after the Soviet withdrawal and the collapse of the communist rule, Afghanistan fell into deeper chaos. In Libya, NATO made a military intervention in 2011 to “liberate” the country from Mohammed Gaddafi. After Gaddafi’s regime, one of the most stable governments in Africa, was toppled and he was killed, the country fell into a bloody civil war — which is still going on. Iraq never recovered from the scars of America’s regime change war of 2003. None of these examples are encouraging for Syria.

Watch: Syria regime change | What are India’s stakes in West Asia?

This week, a dramatic turn of events in Syria, as the 53 year regime of the Assad family collapses, rebels take over Damascus and establish a new government.

Clearly, what has happened in Syria is not just about the Syrians alone. We take a look at all the other players in Syria, what it means for West Asia and India’s stakes in the region.

Presentation: Suhasini Haidar

Editing: Shibu Narayan and Sabika Syed

Syria’s Islamist militant leader on Tuesday (December 10, 2024) vowed to pursue former senior government officials responsible for torture and war crimes, a day after he began talks on the transfer of power following President Bashar al-Assad’s ouster.

Mr. Assad fled Syria as the Islamist-led opposition alliance swept into the capital Damascus, bringing a spectacular end on Sunday to five decades of brutal rule by his clan.

Also read | After Assad’s ouster, India calls for peaceful, inclusive political process in Syria

He oversaw a crackdown on a democracy movement that erupted in 2011, sparking a war that killed 5,00,000 people and forced half the country to flee their homes, millions of them finding refuge abroad.

“We will not hesitate to hold accountable the criminals, murderers, security and army officers involved in torturing the Syrian people,” militant leader Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, now using his real name Ahmed al-Sharaa, said on Tuesday in a statement on Telegram.

“We will offer rewards to anyone who provides information about senior army and security officers involved in war crimes,” he said, adding the incoming authorities would seek the return of officials who have fled abroad.

Sharaa held talks on Monday with outgoing Prime Minister Mohammed al-Jalali “to coordinate a transfer of power that guarantees the provision of services” to Syria’s people, according to an earlier statement on Telegram.

While Syria had been at war for over 13 years, the government’s collapse came in a matter of days in a lightning offensive led by Sharaa’s Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).

Even as some Syrians rejoiced and others rushed to search for loved ones in Mr. Assad’s notorious jails, Israel continued to carry out air strikes aimed at destroying the former government’s military capabilities, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

Early on Tuesday, AFP journalists heard more loud explosions in Damascus.

Israeli strikes

The Syrian Observatory said on Tuesday that Israel had “destroyed the most important military sites in Syria” with a flurry of air strikes since the fall of Mr. Assad.

It said Israel has carried out “about 250 air strikes on Syrian territory” over the last 48 hours.

They targeted weapons depots, boats from the Assad government’s navy, and a research centre that Western countries suspected of having links to chemical weapons production, it said.

Near the port city of Latakia, Israel targeted an air defence facility and damaged Syrian naval ships as well as military warehouses.

In and around the capital Damascus, strikes targeted military installations, research centres, and the electronic warfare administration.

Israel, which borders Syria, also sent troops into a buffer zone east of the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights after Assad’s fall, in what Foreign Minister Gideon Saar described as a “limited and temporary step” for “security reasons”.

Lebanon’s Hezbollah, which had been allied to Mr. Assad, condemned the strikes late Monday and lambasted Israel for “occupying more land in the Golan Heights”.

Prison nightmare

At the core of the system of rule that Mr. Assad inherited from his father Hafez was a brutal complex of prisons and detention centres used to eliminate dissent by those suspected of stepping out of the ruling Baath party’s line.

Thousands of Syrians gathered on Monday outside a jail synonymous with the worst atrocities of Mr. Assad’s rule to search for relatives, many of whom had spent years in the Saydnaya facility outside Damascus.

Rescuers from the Syrian White Helmets group had earlier said they were looking for potential secret doors or basements in Saydnaya.

“I ran like crazy” to get to the prison, said Aida Taha, 65, searching for her brother who was arrested in 2012.

“But I found out that some of the prisoners were still in the basements. There are three or four floors underground.”

Crowds of freed prisoners wandered the streets of Damascus distinguishable by the marks of their ordeal: maimed by torture, weakened by illness and emaciated by hunger.

‘We are reborn’

In central Damascus on Monday, despite all the uncertainty over the future, the joy was palpable.

“It’s indescribable. We never thought this nightmare would end. We are reborn,” Rim Ramadan, 49, a civil servant at the finance ministry, told AFP.

“We were afraid for 55 years of speaking, even at home. We used to say the walls had ears,” Ramadan said, as people honked car horns and rebels fired their guns into the air.

Syria’s parliament, formerly pro-Assad like the Prime Minister, said it supports “the will of the people to build a new Syria towards a better future governed by law and justice”.

The Baath party said it will support “a transitional phase in Syria aimed at defending the unity of the country.”

Syrian state television’s logo on the Telegram messaging app now displays the rebel flag.

During the offensive launched on November 27, rebels met little resistance as they wrested city after city from Assad’s control, opening the gates of prisons along the way and freeing thousands, many of them held on political charges.

Some, like Fadwa Mahmoud, whose husband and son are missing, posted calls for help on social media.

“Where are you, Maher and Abdel Aziz? It’s time for me to hear your news. Oh God, please come back,” wrote Mahmoud, herself a former detainee.

Rooted in Syria’s branch of Al-Qaeda, HTS is proscribed by Western governments as a terrorist group but has sought to soften its image in recent years.

Germany and France said in a statement they were ready to cooperate with Syria’s new leadership “on the basis of fundamental human rights and the protection of ethnic and religious minorities.”

British Prime Minister Keir Starmer, in Saudi Arabia on Monday, said HTS must reject “terrorism and violence” before Britain can engage with the group designated “terrorist” by London.

Washington’s top diplomat, Antony Blinken, said the United States — with hundreds of troops in Syria as part of a coalition against Islamic State group jihadists — is determined to prevent IS from re-establishing safe havens.

“We have a clear interest in doing what we can to avoid the fragmentation of Syria, mass migrations from Syria and, of course, the export of terrorism and extremism,” Mr. Blinken said.

Assad in Moscow?

The United Nations said that whoever ends up in power in Syria must hold the Assad regime to account. But how the ousted leader might face justice remains unclear, especially after the Kremlin refused on Monday to confirm reports by Russian news agencies that he had fled to Moscow.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, however, said that if Russia granted asylum to Assad and his family, it would be a decision taken by President Vladimir Putin.

The Syrian embassy in Moscow raised the opposition’s flag, and the Kremlin said it would discuss the status of its bases in Syria with the new authorities.

Russia played an instrumental role in keeping Assad in power, directly intervening in the war starting in 2015 and providing air cover to the army during the rebellion.

Tehran:

The fall of Syrian leader Bashar al-Assad shattered the key link in Iran’s “axis of resistance”, but Tehran will look for ways to adapt to the new reality, analysts say.

After nearly 14 years of war in Syria, a lightning offensive launched by an Islamist-led rebel alliance brought Assad down.

The offensive began on November 27, just as a ceasefire took effect in the war between Iran’s powerful proxy Hezbollah and Israel.

Hezbollah had long used Syria as its key conduit for weapons and supplies from Iran.

With Assad gone, it is to be seen how Hezbollah will adapt, particularly after the staggering losses it suffered in its own recent war.

‘Frontline of resistance’

In the past, Iranian supreme leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, who has the final say in his country’s affairs, has said that “Syria is on the frontline of the resistance against Israel”.

The axis of resistance, to use Tehran’s term, comprises Iran itself and a smattering of proxy forces united by their opposition to Israel, including Lebanon’s Hezbollah, Palestinian operator group Hamas and Yemen’s Huthi rebels, as well as smaller groups in Iraq.

Until Sunday, Assad’s government was a key component of the axis, and he would likely not have survived for as long as he did had it not been for Hezbollah and Iran’s military backing.

But the fall of Assad on Sunday was a major blow to the loose alliance, and the latest in a string of setbacks for Iran in its fight against Israel.

In recent months Israel has killed Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar in Gaza and Hezbollah’s secretary general Hassan Nasrallah in Lebanon, and decimated both groups’ mid-level leadership.

Iran also blames Israel for the killing of former Hamas political chief Ismail Haniyeh in an attack in Tehran in July.

Meanwhile, the Islamic republic has lost hundreds of its Revolutionary Guards in Syria over more than a decade of the country’s civil war, including in Israeli air strikes.

‘Destabilise’

Within Iran, some believe the Syrian rebels’ goal was to sever the link between Tehran and its allies.

With its influence now threatened in Syria, Iran “will no longer be able to support Hezbollah as it did before”, Mehdi Zakerian, an expert on international relations in Tehran, told AFP.

In Tehran’s official narrative, the revolt against Assad’s rule was an American-Israeli plot to “destabilise” the Middle East and redraw its political map.

Syria’s civil war was sparked by a crackdown on democracy protests inspired by the Arab Spring.

Iran sent to Syria what it presented as “military advisers” to support Assad’s army, at his request.

Shiite Muslim militias close to Iran also deployed, allowing Tehran to gain influence in Syria, which borders not only Lebanon but also Israel.

After the fall of Damascus on Sunday, the Iranian embassy was ransacked, an act that would have been previously unimaginable.

‘He did not pay attention’ 

And while Iran was a key backer of Assad, some official critiques of the former leader were emerging after his downfall.

“Bashar was an opportunity for Iran, but he did not pay enough attention to the recommendations of the Islamic Republic,” Iranian news agency Fars said.

Following the rebels’ declaration of victory, Iran’s foreign ministry said its policy towards any new Syrian government would depend on “developments in Syria and the region, as well as the behaviour of the actors”.

But the statement also said Iran expected to continue “friendly” relations with the country.

On Saturday, as rebels were swiftly advancing towards Damascus, Tehran had called on all sides in the conflict to engage in negotiations.

That statement by Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi was significant, not least because of its timing, and appeared to mark a change in tone.

Iran had long branded any form of opposition in Syria as “terrorism”.

On Sunday, with that opposition now seemingly in charge, Araghchi said: “Syria played an important role in supporting the resistance, but it is not the case that the resistance will stop without Syria.”

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Moscow:

The five decades of Baath rule in Syria ended on Sunday as Islamist-led rebels declared that they had taken Damascus, sending President Bashar al-Assad fleeing. The lightning offensive left global stakeholders to reckon with the geopolitical impact of Syria’s fall on ongoing conflicts including the Russia-Ukraine war.

After President Assad’s alleged departure, Ukraine said the collapse of Russia’s ally Syria in the face of an assault from rebel groups shows Moscow cannot fight on two fronts. “We can see that Russia cannot fight on two fronts — this is clear from the events in Syria,” Ukraine’s foreign ministry spokesperson Heorhii Tykhyi told reporters while reiterating denials that Kyiv was involved in the fighting there.

Tykhyi was responding to a question about accusations from Iran, another ally of Assad, that Ukraine was supporting what Tehran called terrorist groups. “Ukraine categorically and decisively rejects any accusations … about our supposed involvement in the deteriorating security situation in Syria,” the spokesperson said.

“Russia’s significant losses in Ukraine have led Moscow to withdraw the majority of its troops and equipment from Syria, leaving its ally … without the necessary support,” Tykhyi said.

Fall Of Syria

At the peak of the conflict in Syria nearly a decade ago, Aleppo was at the frontlines of the war between government-controlled and rebel forces. However, with the help of Russian airpower and the Lebanon-based militant group Hezbollah, President Bashar al-Assad was able to regain control over the entire Aleppo by the end of 2016. Since then, conflict in Syria has been majorly static with the rebels largely confined to the Idlib governate, adjacent to the Aleppo governate.

However, after years locked behind frozen frontlines, Syrian rebels have burst forth to mount the swiftest battlefield advance by either side since a rebellion against President Assad descended into civil war 13 years ago.

Mr Assad, who had crushed all forms of dissent, flew out of Damascus for an unknown destination earlier on Sunday, two senior army officers told Reuters, as rebels said they had entered the capital with no sign of army deployments.

“After 50 years of oppression under Baath rule, and 13 years of crimes and tyranny and (forced) displacement… we announce today the end of this dark period and the start of a new era for Syria,” the rebel factions said on Telegram.

But the Syrian army later said it was continuing operations against “terrorist groups” in the key cities of Hama and Homs and in Deraa countryside.

The pace of events in Syria has stunned Arab capitals and raised fears of a new wave of regional instability. Clearly, the armed opposition forces took advantage of the change in the power balance caused by nearby wars– in Ukraine and in Lebanon and the Middle East.

Israel’s war in Gaza and Lebanon has done significant damage to Mr Asaad’s ally Iran’s so-called axis of resistance, especially Hezbollah. At the same time, Russia, another stakeholder in Syria, is distracted by its fight in Ukraine making it harder to defend the Assad regime. 

Russia’s Stake In Syria

The lightning advance of rebels in Syria is threatening one of Russian President Vladimir Putin’s proudest achievements, his 2015 military intervention to save Bashar al-Assad’s regime. The end of Mr Asaad’s control in Syria risks not just Russia’s prestige, but its coveted military foothold in the eastern Mediterranean region– the naval base of Tartus and, further north, the Hmeimim Air Base, both with 49-year-leases received after Russia’s regime-saving intervention, according to a report by The Washington Post. 

In addition to using these bases to protect Mr Assad’s fragile regime, Moscow has used them to challenge American supremacy by projecting its military power in the eastern Mediterranean and claiming the role of a world power with vital regional interests. 

Russia, however, currently has its hands full with its war on Ukraine. As per an estimate by Britain’s Ministry of Defense, November was the costliest month of the war so far for Moscow’s forces, with an average of more than 1,500 killed or wounded a day. Russia has been facing a Ukrainian incursion on its own soil since August that it is struggling to expel, now with the help of North Korean soldiers.

Now, amid the reports of the fall of Syria, Russia is at risk of losing control over the Hmeimim and Tartus bases. 

How Could Fall Of Syria Impact Russia’s War In Ukraine?

According to a report by The Kyiv Independent, Charles Lister, a Syria expert at the Middle East Institute said even during the war on Ukraine, Moscow never scaled its military presence back down. However, the quality of Russia’s officer corps in Syria had declined. 

“Russia retains exactly the same troop levels. They’ve conducted the same number of air sorties over Syria with the same geographical breadth that they did prior to the war in Ukraine,” he said, speaking on the Lawfare podcast.

What has changed, however, is that Russia can no longer count on the Wagner Group, which has played a significant role in safeguarding the Kremlin’s interests in Syria in the past. Bogged down in Ukraine, Russia cannot send serious reinforcements to its military contingent in the Middle Eastern country either, according to a report by The Interpreter. 

Following its invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin has lost several allies from the Collective Security Treaty Organisation (CSTO). The end of Mr Asaad’s regime could mean Russia loses Syria as well, forcing the Kremlin to eventually shut down its Khmeimim Air Base in the Latakia area, and the naval facility in Tartus.

In the last two years of war, Moscow has redeployed weaponry from Syria to Ukraine, including Pantsir missile systems. Exposing its military and political weakness in Syria could undermine Russia’s leverage in any potential negotiations surrounding Ukraine.

The fall of Aleppo has exposed the Kremlin to the risk of military overreach and has put its alliance with Iran under stress because of its competing military objectives in the country, according to a report by Euro News. 

Russia is thus keen on encouraging dialogue between Ankara and Damascus and has deployed diplomatic efforts to open trilateral negotiations.