EGN NEWS DESK
Few noticed it coming. The sudden and dramatic fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Syria got here on Sunday after over a decade of brutal battle.
“It took 12 days for the Syrian regime to break down after 13 years of conflict,” Timour Azhari, the Iraq bureau chief at Reuters, wrote on X.
The Assad household had dominated Syria for over half a century that was marked by atrocities, mass incarceration in opposition to regime critics, and different grave human rights violations.
Rebel fighters declared Damascus liberated on Sunday and Assad fled to Russia. Many Syrians are jubilant in regards to the information and hopeful in regards to the nation’s future. But there are deep considerations about what lies forward after years of battle that has left at the least 500,000 dead and displaced nearly 7 million inside the nation and despatched tens of millions extra in search of refuge overseas.
It’s a posh scenario, with quite a few factions on the bottom and a number of other overseas actors concerned. To higher perceive what’s taking place, right here’s a quick background on the important thing gamers.
The Assad regime
Assad, the longtime President of Syria and commander of the Syrian Armed Forces, is a skilled ophthalmologist who succeeded his father Hafez in an unopposed election after the elder’s dying in 2000.
The household had held energy by the presidency since 1971 underneath the Ba’ath Party. The Assads come from the minority Alawite sect and their rule was characterised by its exploitation of sectarian divisions within the Sunni-majority nation and violent suppression of dissent.
In 1982, the elder Assad launched what got here to be often known as the Hama Massacre that killed 1000’s to place down anti-government protests led by the Muslim Brotherhood. The regime of the youthful Assad was broadly held accountable for a sarin gasoline assault in 2013 that killed round 1,400 folks and injured 1000’s extra.
Russia
During the Syrian civil conflict—which started in 2011 after large-scale protests broke out amid the broader Arab Spring—Assad’s regime was backed by Russia and Iran in its combat in opposition to numerous insurgent teams all through the nation, a few of which had been aligned with different overseas actors together with the U.S. and Turkey. Russia, as a everlasting member of the U.N. Security Council, has repeatedly wielded its veto energy to protect the Assad regime.
The New York Times’ Anton Troianovski described Assad’s ousting as “one of many largest geopolitical setbacks” of Vladimir Putin’s tenure, and an analyst advised the newspaper that the collapse of certainly one of his most vital strategic allies could possibly be blamed at the least partly on the conflict in Ukraine taking on consideration and assets. Assad has since been granted “humanitarian” asylum in Moscow.
HTS
Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), fashioned from the al-Qaeda linked al-Nusrah Front, is the Sunni Islamist militant group that led the current offensive and overthrow of Assad. The group is headed by founder Ahmed al-Sharaa, also referred to as Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, and has largely ruled Idlib province in northwest Syria for a number of years.
HTS was fashioned after Jolani broke ties with al-Qaeda in 2016. It is taken into account a terrorist group by the U.N. and a number of other nations, together with the U.S., although it has tried to rebrand itself lately as extra average. Jolani has been described as a “pragmatic radical” and has promised to usher in reconstruction and stability after the revolution.
Since taking up, HTS has tasked Mohammed al-Bashir, the previous head of the insurgent group’s civilian administration that ran Idlib (and that has been accused of human rights violations), with main a transitional authorities for the nation till March 1, 2025.
Islamic State
The Islamic State (also referred to as IS, ISIS, ISIL, or its Arabic acronym Da’esh) is a transnational jihadist group that gained world prominence in 2014, when it conquered massive swathes of territory in Syria and Iraq and proclaimed a caliphate.
After protracted preventing with Syrian insurgent teams and overseas forces, together with the U.S., IS was defeated territorially in 2019, although the group continues to be lively in pockets throughout the nation.
The energy vacuum in Syria following Assad’s toppling is seen by some observers as a chance for IS to take advantage of. The U.S. has carried out dozens of airstrikes at IS targets in Syria in current days.
SDF
The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) is a Kurdish-dominated coalition of ethnic militias that was based in 2015, is backed by the U.S., and controls components of northeastern Syria after combating IS there. Turkey, which controls components of northern Syria alongside its border, opposes the SDF coalition, viewing it as a part of the armed Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) separatist motion that each Ankara and Washington designate a terror group.
After Assad’s fall, the SDF clashed with Turkish-backed rebels in Aleppo province, although the 2 sides have since reached a ceasefire, in accordance with Reuters.
SNA
The Syrian National Army (SNA), a Turkish-backed coalition fashioned from the free umbrella group of armed northern Syrian opposition factions often known as the Free Syrian Army (FSA), labored along with different rebels together with HTS to topple Assad.
The SNA’s alignment with Ankara—pursuing not simply Assad’s fall but in addition Turkish army pursuits, together with combating Kurdish forces—has drawn some criticisms and accusations of being a Turkish proxy.
Hezbollah
Assad had lengthy relied on the Iran-backed Lebanese Shia militant group to backstop his personal army in thwarting rebels throughout Syria. But Israel has in current weeks decapitated the group’s management in Lebanon, together with killing its longtime chief Hassan Nasrallah, in a devastating two-month conflict earlier than a fragile ceasefire took maintain Nov. 27.
According to Bruce Hoffman of the Council on Foreign Relations, Assad’s fall poses an “existential risk” to Hezbollah as “HTS will possible staunch the movement of Iranian weaponry and different materiel” to the Lebanese militant group.
Iran
Assad has been certainly one of Iran’s long-standing allies, and Iran has backed him each financially and militarily for the reason that begin of the 2011 civil conflict. Days earlier than Assad was overthrown, nonetheless, Tehran started to withdraw its forces from Syria.
Some consultants say that when the HTS-led insurgent offensive started final month, neither Assad’s Iranian nor Russian patrons had been keen or able to launching a counteroffensive as they’d in 2016. “Both powers had grown more and more pissed off with Assad’s intransigence. For Russia and Iran, Assad was their man till he wasn’t,” wrote Nicole Grajewski, for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace think-tank’s Diwan weblog.
Nonetheless, Assad’s fall has marked a significant blow to Iran’s “Axis of Resistance” within the area. But reviews recommend Iran has established a line of communication with the insurgent teams.
Israel
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu referred to as the collapse of Assad’s regime a “new and dramatic chapter” in Israel’s aim to alter “the face of the Middle East.”
Israel has launched lots of of airstrikes on its neighbor Syria since Sunday, destroying total squadrons of fighters, a lot of the nation’s navy, radar and missile methods, and missile depots. The Israeli authorities mentioned that it’s attempting to cease “extremists” from accessing chemical and heavy weapons.
Israel has additionally pushed deeper right into a 155-sq. mi. buffer zone established after the 1973 Arab-Israeli conflict situated east of the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights. “Israel has an extended historical past of seizing territory throughout wars with its neighbors and occupying it indefinitely, citing safety considerations,” in accordance with a report within the Associated Press.
The U.S.
The U.S. has spoken out in opposition to Assad’s rule in Syria for the reason that 2011 civil conflict broke out and intervened militarily in 2014 to fight, later alongside the SDF, IS forces within the nation. Former President Barack Obama confronted in depth criticism for not pursuing a extra lively intervention following the 2013 chemical weapons assault broadly attributed to the Assad regime in jap Ghouta, simply outdoors Damascus. Obama had referred to as the usage of chemical weapons in Syria a “pink line.”
President Joe Biden referred to as the toppling of Assad’s regime “a basic act of justice” however added that it was a “second of threat and uncertainty.” The U.S. presently has about 900 troops stationed in Syria. President-elect Donald Trump, nonetheless, has mentioned that the U.S. shouldn’t intervene, posting on Truth Social: “THE UNITED STATES SHOULD HAVE NOTHING TO DO WITH IT. THIS IS NOT OUR FIGHT. LET IT PLAY OUT. DO NOT GET INVOLVED!”
