Winners and losers: Who will benefit in Assad regime's fall?

BEHIND THE LINES: Few in Syria, among those close to the former regime, take seriously the moderate and considered image currently being presented by HTS leader Abu Mohammed al-Julani.

By JONATHAN SPYER DECEMBER 13, 2024 09:55

PEOPLE HOLD the Syrian opposition flag as they celebrate, after rebels ousted Syria’s Bashar al-Assad, in Jableh, in the Latakia governorate, on Monday. (photo credit: YAMAM AL SHAAR/REUTERS)

A week after [the Syrian terrorist organization] Hayat Tahrir al-Sham’s (HTS) astonishing 10-day ride from Idlib to Damascus, many factors impacting the emerging situation in Syria remain unclear. The sudden overthrow of the Assad regime is a historic event, the ramifications of which will be studied for years. The old power dispensation has vanished. But what will replace it is still emerging.

In Damascus, a curfew has been declared from 4 p.m. to 5 a.m. The airport is closed, and all flights have been canceled.

Detainees emerging from the Sednaya prison, the most notorious of the Assad regime’s houses of incarceration, are describing tales of horror that rival the excesses of some of the worst regimes known to history. Freed prisoners tell of group executions, the crushing of corpses to facilitate mass burial, and indefinite incarceration on the flimsiest of accusations. Or no accusation at all. 

In western Syria, among the Alawi population, which once formed the core support of the regime, armed militia elements remain. The ousted president’s younger brother, Maher Assad, whose precise whereabouts are unknown, has the money, lines of communication, and motivation to manage these groups. 

Few in Syria, among those close to the former regime, take seriously the moderate and considered image currently being presented by HTS leader Abu Mohammed al-Julani. They assume, rather, that without support from the former allies of the regime, they are likely to face sectarian retribution, especially as the facts regarding Sednaya and other centers of regime brutality start filtering through to the population. 

Rebel fighters pose as they hold a Syrian opposition flag at the Umayyad Mosque, after rebels seized the capital and ousted Syria's Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus, Syria December 9, 2024. (credit: REUTERS/AMR ABDALLAH DALSH)

The extent to which they will succeed in maintaining any kind of protectorate in the West remains to be seen. Their former Iranian allies, with their military proxies still mobilized in Lebanon and Iraq, will be able to offer only limited assistance.

Lebanese Hezbollah is, of course, a central loser in Bashar Assad’s downfall. It now finds itself isolated in the Mediterranean region with an angry, possibly vengeful, emergent Sunni Islamic government taking over Syria.

THE FIGHTING has not ended with the fall of Damascus. In this regard, it is important to bear in mind that HTS was not the only military force to be incubated by the Turkish government in Syria’s northwest over the last half decade. HTS and its Syrian Salvation Government controlled Idlib Province, from which it launched its fateful offensive toward Aleppo at the end of November. 

But further north, Ankara assembled another military force from the remnants of the Sunni Arab insurgency with its own self-styled administration. Known as the Syrian National Army (SNA), its administration, now surpassed by events, was called the Syrian Interim Government. 

Simultaneous to HTS’s push for Aleppo, the SNA commenced an offensive eastward, seeking to chip away the Western holdings of the Kurdish-led authority. The SNA is inferior in its organization and capacities to both the Kurdish-led SDF and HTS. But in their push along the border, they have received the active assistance of the Turkish armed forces. 

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This appears to have given them the advantage over the SDF, which lost Tal Rifaat to the SNA and has now abandoned the town of Manbij, west of the Euphrates River. Fighting took place for control of the town in recent days. As of now, the SDF appears resigned to the inevitability that it will lose any area it controls west of the Euphrates. 

In the period ahead, it will seek to hold on to roughly 30% of Syria’s territory. The recently captured areas of Deir el Zur province southwest of the Euphrates are set to be returned to the emergent new authority in Damascus in the next period. The river is set to constitute the de facto border between the Kurdish-ruled area and the remainder of the country. 

From the Syrian Kurdish point of view, much will depend on whether the 900 US service members currently stationed in their area remain. The collapse of the regime, and the likelihood of a contest over the remains of Syria in the period ahead, would appear to strengthen the case for their remaining, since the Kurdish-led authority looks set to be the core ally of the West in Syria in the period emerging.

Rule by HTS, which emerged from the Salafi jihadi circles that produced al-Qaeda and ISIS, may yet take a disastrous turn. Syrian Kurdish leaders seem to be making the case for the preservation of their authority as an island of pro-Western stability in the period ahead. 

There is a real possibility of clashes between the SNA and HTS. Julani has now appointed a close associate, Mohammed al-Bashir, as Syria’s new prime minister. This has caused some concerns among the SNA and circles close to the Turks that the HTS leader is seeking to bypass and sideline them. There are many former opposition factions, political and military, who believe they deserve a share of the victory. If they feel thwarted, internal splits among the victorious Sunni Islamists are likely to result. 

Israel’s current determined destruction of the former regime’s military infrastructure – and its expansion of the IDF’s presence into the “buffer zone,” as determined by the 1974 Separation of Forces agreement – appear to be derived from a perception that the “new” Syria, given its likely inclinations, needs to be kept as weak as possible, and firmly distanced from Israeli civilian populations. 

Winners and losers

So, the remaining regime loyalists and the Iran-led regional axis of which they are a part are the obvious losers. But pro-Western elements are not the winners. HTS’s conquest of Damascus was made possible by Turkey’s historic decision not to abandon the Sunni Islamist insurgents of Syria, even at a time when most of the world thought they were finished. 

By holding on to a small corner of northwest Syria, Erdogan enabled HTS to build and strengthen itself before erupting outward. Qatar, too, has a long-standing and close relationship with the organization, based on financial support.

HTS’s ride to Damascus represents the return of Sunni political Islam to power and consequence in the Middle East. The Sunni Islamists enjoyed a moment in the sun a decade ago, when the Arab Spring brought governments of their stripe to power in Egypt and Tunisia. 

The rise of ISIS also seemed to indicate that this outlook might be the wave of the future. That moment was short-lived. By 2020, it looked like the Iran-led Axis of Resistance and its fight against Israel and other pro-Western states would form the central strategic contest in the Middle East. 

But the wheel has turned again. Iran is now profoundly weakened. The Sunni Islamists have returned to fill the vacuum. The precise form that their newfound primacy in Syria will take will become apparent in the period ahead. These are historic days.