The advance of the Syrian opposition rebels led by the Islamist group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), over the last week explosively reawakened the dormant Syrian civil war. Their success inspired ordinary Syrians living across the country to take the streets and proclaim the end of the brutal dictatorship that began in 1971 when Hafez al-Assad took over the presidency of Syria and ended sometime over the weekend when his son, Bashir al-Assad, fled the country.
Images of long-suppressed people pulling down statues of a dictator are greeted with enthusiasm in the West, but the situation in Syria is complex. HTS grew out of the Al-Nusra Front (Al-Qaeda’s (AQ) official affiliate in Syria). Its leader, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani fought in the Iraqi insurgency against the US as a member of the group that eventually became Islamic State (ISIS).
Other forces operating in Syria include Turkish-backed rebels supported by the Turkish military, Kurdish forces – including the US-backed People’s Defence Units instrumental in defeating ISIS – and Syrian government forces supported by Russia and Iranian proxies. It is the only country in the world to have both a US base (al-Tanf) and Russian military bases.
The consequences of the reignition of this conflict will reverberate outwards from Aleppo, Hama, Homs and Damascus, impacting countless Syrians on the ground, competing ideological and ethnic groups across the region and Bashir al-Assad’s key ally, Vladimir Putin, thousands of miles away in the Kremlin. As well as losing face, Putin has lost Russian military personnel and equipment as well as revenue streams for his war in Ukraine.
The civil war began in 2011 as a popular uprising during the wider Arab Spring protests. Assad set his brutal Baathist secret police in motion to crack down on the protestors, prompting the formation of armed rebel groups such as the Free Syrian Army. By mid-2012, an insurgency had escalated into a civil war. A counter-terrorism ally of the West became an international pariah, allowing Putin to re-establish strong relations between Russia and Syria.
Over the next two years insurgent forces, receiving arms from Nato and Gulf Cooperation Council states, made significant advances against the government forces. In 2014 Iran launched a major intervention to support Assad. Russia followed in 2015.
This turned the tide of the conflict. Russia’s intervention primarily consisted of intensive air and missile strikes, but also, in support of the ground offensive by Iranian forces (including their proxy Hezbollah), Putin deployed the private military company Wagner.
Wagner’s actions included the 2018 Battle of Khasham, when, alongside Syrian militia, they tried to seize control of an oil field from the US army and allied militias. A priority of the group was to seize control of oil and gas reserves and through a series of Russian companies extract the profits from them, making themselves rich and helping fund Putin’s wars.
Their greed was what got them kicked out of Syria when the need for them on the battlefield appeared to have receded. Some of the funding streams they established remained.
Syria thanked Russia for their support by being the only Middle Eastern country to vote against the UN General Assembly Resolution, denouncing the Russian invasion of Ukraine.
Before launching this offensive, opposition forces will have banked on Russian forces, which have been scaled back from 2015 levels due to redeployments to Ukraine, being unable to ramp back up as easily. They will have assumed the losses of proxies, Hamas and Hezbollah, in Gaza and Lebanon, meant Iran would also be unable to provide the same support as previously.
Even though they have professionalised as a military force and are leveraging drone technology, the opposition would not have expected government forces to capitulate so quickly. The garrisons in the north turned out to be hollowed out by corruption and undermined by under-manning.
Aleppo, the first city to fall, was held by the rebels between 2012 and 2016. It was during its siege that Assad dropped chemical weapons, crossing western red lines to no real consequence. Russian and Syrian air forces dropped cluster munitions on populated areas and carried out “double tap” airstrikes to target responding rescue workers. The siege left over 31,000 people dead. It was retaken with ease and the opposition continued towards Hama.
Hama also has symbolic significance. On a visit to Syria in early 2001, US congressmen received a lecture from Assad on how to combat terrorism. “Join the approach that has long been charted by Syria,” he suggested.
He was alluding to the flattening of Hama by Syrian tanks in 1982 in an operation by security forces serving Bashir’s father and predecessor, Hafez al-Assad, that killed 25,000 people and destroyed the Syrian Islamist movement led by the Muslim Brotherhood. It has remained a city opposed to Assad’s rule. As Hama fell, Assad raised his soldiers’ salary by 50%.
Homs was more strategically important. It sits at the crossroad that leads west to the heartland of Assad’s support, east to the sea and Tartus, the Russian Navy’s only operational base in the Mediterranean, and south towards Damascus. Its impending fall convinced Syrians across the country of Assad’s vulnerability and became the tipping point.
Assad pulled his forces back to protect the capital, but even the more well-equipped and well-prepared government forces, such as the Republican Guard, melted away. In war momentum and morale are key and the opposition had both, the government forces had neither.
Assad hoped that the calvary would arrive as it did in 2015. Iran looked to send reinforcements, but realised they were not going to be enough so instead started pulling out its forces.
Putin dithered, before initiating a panicked withdrawal of his military and advised all Russian citizens to leave. Some Russian soldiers embedded within Assad’s forces have already been killed.
After the staggering Russian losses in Ukraine, Putin decided he did not have the numbers to commit more to their deaths in the defence of Damascus. The loss of the strategically important Tartus will hurt.
Putin’s success in preserving Assad’s regime supported his assertion that Russia was still a global power. It also highlighted the failure of the US and allies to honour their promises of support to the rebels. Not supporting Assad now as that success is turned to failure, denies Putin his self-awarded high ground.
While celebrating Assad’s downfall, it is important to remember HTS’s roots. Although it has cut ties with AQ, it is still classified as a terrorist group by the UN.
Al-Jolani, has claimed, “I ask God that it be a conquest in which there is no revenge, but rather a conquest full of mercy and love.” Their record of love and mercy towards other ethnic and religious groups is so far bare.
Human rights groups have regularly reported executions following detentions for “moral reasons” in the areas HTS have held in northwestern Syria. AQ has already urged the rebels to turn on “Jews and Crusaders” (their term for all Christians). Turkish president Recep Tayyip Erdoğan may use the situation to further persecute Kurdish groups within Syria.
When groups of differing ideologies who were united by a single objective achieve that objective, what they have in common becomes less than their differences. Strong leadership and compromise will be needed to prevent Syria going the way of Libya’s chaos of competing factions.
Syria’s prime minister, Mohammed Ghazi al-Jalali, has stayed in Damascus to help with a transition of power, claiming in a social media post that Syria “can be a normal country that builds good relations with its neighbours and the world.” This was the hope of many involved in 2011 during the Arab Spring. Sadly, few states were able to deliver on the promise of democracy.
Donald Trump’s impending return to office is another complicating factor for what comes next in Syria. It is unlikely he will have much interest in this conflict, but his unpredictability further occludes the picture.
He is unlikely to want to intervene other than to support Israel’s interests. Considering recent US history in the region, no action may be the best course of action.
Israel is watching with interest. This conflict will disrupt Iranian weapon supplies to Hezbollah, weaken Iran’s regional influence and further undermine Ayatollah Khamenei, But a safe haven for Islamist groups and unaccounted-for chemical weapons on their border will create another threat they may feel they need to deal with.
People in both Iran and Russia will see that even the most seemingly resilient, decades-long, autocracies can be quickly toppled when a critical mass of opposition is reached.
If we have learnt anything from the post-9/11 wars in the Middle East, dramatic power shifts after decades of dictatorship create unpredictable vacuums that are filled by violence. Within this tragically complex situation, Putin has seen the options as being the order of autocracy or chaos.
This time chaos does not suit Putin, but he has been proven powerless to prevent it, and this failure may have wider repercussions for him and many others.
Andy Owen is a former UK military intelligence officer
