Burnt cars remain in an open garage following the recent wave of violence between Syrian security forces and gunmen loyal to former President Bashar Assad, in the town of Jableh, Syria’s coastal region, on Monday. (Photo: AP)
Mar 12, 2025 11:09 IST First published on: Mar 12, 2025 at 11:09 IST
In December last year, the world was caught by surprise as the once Al Qaeda-aligned Hay’at Tahrir Al Sham (HTS, previously known as Jabhat al-Nusra) launched an offensive against Damascus and the near three-decade-long rule of the now ousted President Bashar al-Assad. Then led by Abu Mohammed Al Jolani (who is now known as Syria’s President Ahmed al-Sharaa), the fall of the Syrian capital was swift, and Assad fled to Russia in a matter of days. Now three months in, the country faces sectarian violence and the potential of further instability. The entire episode holds strong parallels to the events that took place in Afghanistan in 2021 as the Taliban walked into Kabul unchallenged.
Syria has been on the precipice of political collapse for years. The post-Arab Spring era pushed the country to move against Assad’s rule, which was increasingly seen as untenable. Not long after public protests began against Damascus in 2011, the rise of the so-called Islamic State (also known as ISIS or Daesh in Arabic) across Syria and Iraq escalated the Arab republic’s situation to a global security crisis forcing Western powers to launch Operation Inherent Resolve in 2014.
Story continues below this ad
Al Sharaa himself is a product of ecosystems that were incubated around the 2003 US invasion of Iraq and the subsequent turmoil of the Arab Spring, which brought with it significant political vacuums and questionable alternatives filling them. This included a gamut of non-state militant actors and extremist groups that marketed security to local populations in exchange for their ideological subservience. At least some international support for Assad during this phase came from the family’s dogged support for secularism, driven by the fact that the Assads belonged to the minority Alawite sect (an offshoot of Shia Islam) in a Sunni majority country.
The HTS had been in control of Syria’s Idlib region for a long time, running it as a state within a state, building institutions and delivering a brand of governance, if their supremacy was not challenged. In a population which has not seen anything but violence for over a decade, an acceptance of this status-quo is not surprising. However, the challenges that accompany Al Sharaa as Syria’s new leader can be divided into two core areas: internal and external.
A nurse points to bullet holes in a window following the recent wave of violence between Syrian security forces and gunmen loyal to former President Bashar Assad. (Photo: AP)
Al Sharaa’s main concern and aim is both political and military reconciliation. The HTS, even today, does not control the entire geography of Syria completely. Over the past week, more than 1,000 Alawite minorities were reportedly killed in clashes between remnants of pro-Assad forces in the country’s coastal regions and the Syrian military (now staffed by HTS loyalists, which includes non-Syrians from Central Asia and even Uyghurs). Managing the grievances of factions, specifically from fallouts on the battlefield over the years, will remain a delicate and ongoing process. The recent reaffirmation by the Kurdish-led and US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to integrate with Al-Sharaa’s military is seen as one vital step forward. The Kurds make up between eight to 10 per cent of Syria’s population and were at the forefront of defeating ISIS on the ground. Along with internal factions, Al Sharaa will also have to navigate regional states and their interests, ranging from ideological demands from the likes of Saudi Arabia to strategic challenges posed by Israel’s unease of having an Islamist-led government next door as it battles the likes of Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.
Story continues below this ad
The question of international legitimacy is also significant. Regional and European powers wasted no time in orchestrating an outreach to Al Sharaa. European foreign ministers arrived in abundance, as did officials from the US, and the new Syrian president travelled to Riyadh (where he was born into a family belonging to the disputed Golan Heights). His second trip was to Türkiye.
Normalising his rule is a double-edged sword. After Afghanistan, Syria has become the second state to fall under control of an extremist entity. For Europe and others, two core interests are at work. First is to arrest any mass migration towards the continent, which previously remodelled European politics towards the right. Second, to take advantage of the fact that both Russia and Iran, Assad’s main patrons, have been forced to exit this theatre.
most read
Closer to the borders, Al Sharaa will also have to navigate regional interests in a way that will prevent Syria from becoming a proxy battle ground once again. He would not want to get entrapped into a West-led narrative against Moscow and Tehran. While some reports already suggest new Iran-backed groups are taking shape, Damascus is looking to initiate talks with Moscow on the future of their two military bases around Tartus, the Kremlin’s only military presence in the region.
Finally, despite a perceived sense of relief and calm, Syria stands at a delicate juncture. A proverbial Damocles sword continues to sway over the country as it transitions from one family’s control towards another unknown. The euphoria on the Syrian street today has more to do with relief that the years-long violence has ended, than celebrating a change of political or ideological power. The fact that a renewed idea of nation-building for Syria is now down to a non-traditional political entity with roots in extremism keeps the trajectory of the state’s future in suspension.
Kabir Taneja is a deputy director and Middle East fellow at the Observer Research Foundation
