In just some days, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) – an armed Islamist group primarily based in Idlib within the north of Syria – swept south, overrunning Aleppo and Homs after which taking the capital Damascus. Assad, in the meantime, is reported to have fled together with his household to Moscow.
Essentially the most optimistic observers view this second as an opportunity for peace. Assad has lastly been toppled, his key allies Russia and Iran are engaged elsewhere and a fragile calm is rising between Syria’s numerous armed factions. Others warning that the ensuing vacuum could result in a prolonging of chaotic violence of the sort that has plagued Libya since that nation’s dictator, Muammar Gaddafi, was overthrown and killed in 2011.
What occurs subsequent will rely as a lot on the powers outdoors Syria as these in it. I used to be in Syria in 2013, interviewing fighters and commanders from a number of of the teams that merged to type HTS, together with the Syrian al-Qaeda affiliate. As I realized by talking with them, armed teams reminiscent of HTS are likely to hear when the worldwide group tries to have interaction with them.
HTS was shaped in 2017 as a union between quite a few Islamist armed teams in northwestern Syria, together with the Syrian affiliate of al-Qaeda, referred to as Jabhat Fatah al-Sham. In earlier years, HTS had been pushed right into a nook within the area of Idlib. Nevertheless it held on stubbornly whereas many different armed teams faltered underneath the assault of a regime bolstered by Russian warplanes and Hezbollah fighters.
Syria is at a junction and has many potential paths forward. Some folks level to HTS’s Islamist roots. For these folks, the nightmare situation that the world has been making an attempt to forestall since 2011 has occurred: a radical Islamist group has risen to energy in Syria.
Others argue that the group has separated from its extra radical origins. Jabhat Fateh al-Sham divorced al-Qaeda in 2016, because it not needed to be tainted by its destructive international picture, and merged with different teams to type HTS.
And HTS has lately sought to push a extra reasonable picture, even encouraging spiritual tolerance. If its claims are to be believed, then it could goal to construct a peaceable and secure Syria.
Individuals celebrating within the streets after Syrian rebels captured the nation’s capital, Damascus.
Hasan Belal / EPA
Key to figuring out the way forward for Syria would be the actions of different international locations who search to have interaction HTS and its associates. My analysis means that, at occasions, they may implement adjustments because of such dialogue. Teams which have previously violated the legal guidelines of struggle could reply to worldwide stress and convey about adjustments of their conduct.
They will even at occasions reply positively to engagement by participating in negotiations and battle decision. However when ostracised, remoted or ignored, these teams could do the precise reverse.
Whereas in Syria, I spoke to quite a few the completely different rebel factions and a standard thread amongst them was how they felt ignored by the worldwide group. A basic from the Free Syrian Military (on the time a US-backed coalition of insurgent teams), complained concerning the difficulties of following worldwide humanitarian regulation with out worldwide assist to take action.
Fighters from Islamist teams complained concerning the hypocrisy of worldwide organisations. They felt ignored after they tried to have interaction with states and organisations, forcing them to ally with extra hardline teams as a substitute of moderates. A commander from the Islamic State even requested me to ship optimistic messages about them to my family and friends, hoping to encourage extra worldwide connections.
It might be a mistake to wholeheartedly imagine armed teams of their acknowledged claims of a need for peaceable cooperation. However by the identical token, ignoring them fully is unlikely to finish the preventing.
Is peace doable?
Explaining how we received up to now could also be simpler than predicting what occurs subsequent. Assad’s regime has lengthy been propped up by its allies. So, with Russia engaged in an struggle of attrition in Ukraine, and each Hezbollah and Iran reeling from their battle with Israel, HTS noticed a chance and took it.
Though many are celebrating the failure of Iranian and Russian interventions in Syria, it’s unlikely that both energy’s affect in Syria is over. Current occasions may even push the 2 nearer collectively in partnerships that will embrace interventions elsewhere, or exchanges of weapons applied sciences.
Neither nation will merely give up their aims in Syria. Russia, for example, has strategic air and naval bases there which might be very important for the Kremlin to undertaking energy into the Center East, the Mediterranean and Africa. Russia is not going to abandon these simply.
Russia has lengthy been a key backer of the Assad regime in Syria.
Michael Klimentyev / Sputnik / EPA
Turkey, a protracted supporter of HTS, appears to be in a robust place to affect occasions. This may increasingly embrace urgent its benefit in its continued assault towards the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in Syria’s northeast.
Though the SDF are nominal American allies, it’s unlikely they’ve forgotten Donald Trump’s sudden abandonment of them in 2019. When the US president introduced a withdrawal US army forces from Syria, it created an influence vacuum that Turkey used as a cause to launch a army operation towards the Syrian Kurds. The way forward for Kurdish autonomy could due to this fact be unsure, although the battle-hardened SDF will in all probability not go down with out a battle.
It’s but unclear how the Trump administration will have interaction with Syria underneath HTS management. However, whereas it’s unlikely we are going to see a rise in American involvement on the bottom, it’s tough to think about Trump turning into allies with HTS, an armed group with historic Islamist hyperlinks.
In the meantime, Israel has seized momentary management of a demilitarised buffer zone in Syrian-controlled areas of the Golan Heights. Some are fearful that this will likely result in an increase in battle there. The Israeli army has warned Syrians dwelling in 5 villages near the occupied areas to “stay home”. And a few colleges have shifted to on-line lessons in anticipation of unrest.
These occasions in Syria have large implications for the nation and the area, and on the centre of it’s HTS. It stays unclear if the group will be capable of maintain energy in Syria, and in the event that they do, what kind of regime they may search to construct.
The response of regional and international powers will probably be pivotal on this second, during which engagement with HTS is of significant significance if the chance for peace is to be seized.
