Biden administration officials, noting the remarkable speed of the Syrian rebel advance, increasingly see the possibility that Bashar al-Assad’s regime will fall within days, five U.S. officials told Reuters. CNN.
If the American analysis is true, it would represent a spectacularly rapid fall from power for the Syrian dictator after a 14-year war that was
“The emerging consensus is that this (Assad’s fall) is an increasingly plausible scenario,” said a senior US official.
“Probably by next weekend the Assad regime will have lost any semblance of power,” another official said.
“The only thing that would delay a rebel takeover would be a well-organized coup and reorganization, but Assad’s people have done a good job of stifling any potential competitors,” the official added.
Another source familiar with US intelligence on the events noted that, so far, . But the areas where opposition forces have advanced the most — Aleppo, Idlib and Hama — are also not flush with regime support, so they have encountered less resistance, this person said.
“The question is whether regime forces really stand their ground when it comes to Damascus,” they added.
Rebels are racing toward the Syrian capital after defeating government forces in two of the country’s largest cities in an advance that began just over a week ago. Homs, Syria’s third-largest city, stands in their way as they advance south.
Beyond there, the capital Damascus.
The Biden administration appeared caught off guard by the speed of the rebel advance launched last week. The regime’s troops have collapsed and melted away, leaving a fragile shell of an army to defend the president and Damascus.
The U.S. has misjudged the staying power of regimes before, most recently in Afghanistan—where the U.S. intelligence community judged the Afghan government to be more resilient than it actually was—and in Ukraine, which the U.S. mistakenly believed would fall to Russia just days after the invasion of Moscow. As a result, in 2022, US intelligence launched a review of how it assesses the “will to fight” of foreign military personnel, the report said. CNN previously.
White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan said Saturday that the U.S. “will not delve” into the civil war in Syria but that it will “take steps” to prevent any potential resurgence of the Islamic State, known as ISIS. “What we will do is focus on American national security priorities and interests,” Sullivan said at the Reagan National Defense Forum in Simi Valley, California.
who has ruled the war-torn country since 2000. Syria’s civil war began during the 2011 Arab Spring, when the regime suppressed a pro-democracy uprising against Assad. More than 300,000 civilians have been killed in more than a decade of war, according to the United Nations, and millions of people have been displaced.
Leading the rebel advance into Syria is a group designated by the US as a terrorist organization: Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, which was previously linked to al Qaeda.
“We have real concerns about the projects and goals of this organization,” Sullivan told CNN last weekend. “At the same time, of course, we do not cry over the fact that the Assad government, supported by Russia, Iran and Hezbollah, is facing certain types of pressure.”
There is little sign that Iran and Russia — whose support has kept Assad in power — will rush in to save him, at least in a way that makes a difference. Russia is bogged down in its war in Ukraine, and Iran has been significantly weakened following Israel’s recent attacks on its air defenses and the decimation of its regional proxies Hamas and Hezbollah. HTS appears to have taken advantage of the fact that Assad’s allies were all distracted — and that the world wasn’t paying much attention to Syria — when it launched its operation, one of the U.S. officials said.
One of the U.S. officials said the Pentagon, which has about 900 troops in Syria, is not making plans to change its force posture in the country and is waiting to see what happens as it takes additional force protection measures.
The US has a long-standing partnership with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces for anti-ISIS operations in Syria. The SDF has maintained contact with the rebel group known as HTS, the U.S. official said, but the U.S. does not communicate with HTS because it is considered a terrorist organization.
HTS does not appear to have the overt support of Assad’s adversary Turkey, but U.S. officials believe Turkey has given the group the green light to launch its operation.
A significant concern the administration has is the security of Assad’s chemical weapons stockpile, which reportedly includes chlorine and sarin, which Assad infamously used in rebel areas to the horror of the international community.
It is unclear where Assad would flee to, U.S. officials said. His patrons could offer refuge in Moscow or Tehran, and it remains to be seen whether the rebels will target Latakia, an enclave of the Alawite sect to which Assad belongs.
The potential fall of the regime in Syria comes at a critical time in the United States, as President Joe Biden prepares to hand over power to President-elect Donald Trump.
The new president is already making his views clear, taking to social media this Saturday (7) to ask that the US stay out of any potential regime change and let the conflict unfold.
“Syria is a mess, but it is not our friend,” he wrote, calling for a hands-off approach and concluding with the message: “LET IT HAPPEN. DON’T GET INVOLVED!”
Early in his first term, Trump ordered strikes against the Assad regime in response to a chemical weapons attack that killed dozens of civilians. Trump later attempted to withdraw U.S. troops involved in the fight against ISIS from northern Syria, although hundreds remained in the country.
Sen. Lindsey Graham, a Trump ally, warned Friday on social media that the U.S. government needs to ensure that ISIS-linked prisoners held in northeastern Syria are not released and that U.S. troops in the country are supported what they need.
“If there is a further collapse of the Syrian government, I fear that US forces could be put at risk. Therefore, it is imperative that we have contingency plans to reinforce our troops to ensure the anti-ISIS mission does not collapse,” the South Carolina Republican wrote on X.
