MOHAMMED AL RIFAI/EPA
A torn banner with the image of Bashar al-Assad on a building after the rebels took over Damascus.
In civil war for more than 13 years, Syria is now saying goodbye to a long tyrannical regime. Taken over by rebels with different interests, the country faces a new beginning full of uncertainties — just like Russian strength in the Middle East.
Deposed from power, Bashar al-Assad has become a victim of the same fate that it imposed on millions of survivors of the civil war in Syria, which began in 2011: it is now a refugee.
The Syrian president, where he was welcomed for “humanitarian reasons”, according to a Kremlin source cited by two Russian agencies. Syrian Army sources confirm that the leader left the country on board a plane and the interim ruler, Mohammed al-Jalali, guarantees that he no longer has contact with him.
The question that remains now is: what will happen to Syria?
“To exiles from all over the world: a free Syria awaits you”, announced this Sunday morning the Islamist alliance Organization for the Liberation of the Levant (Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS).
Records on social media show the release of detainees in several regime prisons, including the famous Sednaya prison, north of Damascus, where thousands of Assad’s opponents were tortured and murdered.
Moderate Islamists?
But how free will the “new” Syria actually be? Attention is currently focused mainly on the leader of HTS, Abu Mohammed al-Jolaniwhich holds much control of the country. Different opinions are beginning to emerge about what his vision for the future of Syria will be.
Syria specialist at the German Institute for Global and Regional Studies (GIGA), André Bank believes that HTS has transformed over time and that Jolani himself years ago he distanced himself from Al-Qaeda.
Furthermore, the group is considered a rival of the Islamic State – a sign that Jolani may have left the crusade against the West to focus on Syria.
However, it is possible that the leader is now working to establish a salafist order (ultra-conservative movement within Sunni Islam).
Jolani himself has given signs of moderation. When attacking Aleppo, he instructed his commanders to spare Christians and other ethnic and religious minorities. In an interview with CNN, he also stated that he wanted to build government institutions that encompass all sectors of society.
The fact that so far there has been no violence against minorities is a “hopeful sign”says analyst James Dorsey, from the Middle East Institute, a Washington-based entity.
Less hopeful was German diplomat Andreas Reinicke, former ambassador to Damascus, in an interview with German news agency KNA, who says that HTS remains rooted in al-Qaeda ideologyand therefore the future of Christian and Kurdish minorities is at risk.
The role of the Syrian National Army
Groups other than HTS have influence in Syria. This is the case of the Syrian National Army (ENS), which emerged from the Free Syrian Army, a coalition of anti-Assad militias formed at the beginning of the civil war in 2011, and which today fights alongside Jolani’s troops, with support from the Türkiye.
The ENS was accused several times of crimes against humanityincluding recurring torture of Kurds. At the same time, the group will also have internal mechanisms to prevent this type of crime, according to Omer Ozkizilcik, from the Atlantic Council think tank, in an interview with Middle East Eye.
Everything will now depend on which ENS currents will be able to impose themselves internally and what their relationship will be like with HTS, which they see as a competitor.
Anti-Assad militias in southern Syria will also be relevant. In common with the HTS, they only have opposition to the dictator, as their mostly secular position distances them ideologically from the Islamists.
In northern Syria, the Kurds will try to prevail over the ENS, which has the support of Türkiye. It’s another conflict that has potential for violence.
Iran and Türkiye: the role of foreign actors
A Türkiye is expected to become quite influentialand will be able to work for an Islamist government – but not without first facing possible challenges with the Kurds and HTS.
Already the Iran could be the big loser the fall of the Syrian regime. For years, the country was on the side of Assad. It has established itself militarily in Syria – for the Tehran regime, the ideal opportunity to get closer to its arch-enemy Israel and, at the same time, supply Hezbollah with weapons. Both Iran and Hezbollah have now withdrawn from Syria.
Huge blow for Putin
Another loser of the uprising in Syria is Russiawho has been at Assad’s side since 2015, promoting his repression. In return, the Kremlin got a naval base in Tartus and an air base in Latakia, on the Mediterranean coast, which it must defend at all costs.
The Syrian rebels who took over Damascus have “guaranteed the security” of Russian bases in the country and there is potential for more conflict in these areas.
The Kremlin already said this Monday that it is still too early to talk about the future of the two air bases, but Russia has relied on its Hmeimim air base, in the Syrian province of Latakia, as a power projection center in the Middle East.
Putin already said, in 2017, that if “the terrorists” [opositores de Assad] raise their heads again”, would make “unprecedented attacks, like they have never seen”, from both bases, cited by .
The collapse of the Assad regime means the total loss of an allied state for the Kremlin, but also a serious blow to Putin’s influence as a power broker in the Middle East.
