The rekindling of fighting in Syria comes after a four-year lull in a civil war that first broke out in 2011.
The uneasy stalemate among the country’s various hostile factions was broken when rebel fighters captured the city of Aleppo from President Bashar al-Assad’s regime and another rebel group took a smaller city north of there from Syrian Kurdish forces.
Here’s your guide to the origins of the Syrian war, the domestic
players, and the external parties who have their own agendas in the
conflict.
What are the origins of Syria’s civil war?
Once a French-run mandate, Syria became independent after World War II.
In 1966, military officers belonging to the Alawite minority took
power. That assured the domination of the group, whose faith is an
offshoot of Shiite Islam, in a country where about 74 per cent of the
people are Sunni Muslim. Syria’s population includes sizable Christian,
Druze and Kurdish communities as well.
Long-time President Hafez al-Assad brutally suppressed dissent and was succeeded by his son Bashar in 2000.
As part of the wave of pro-democracy unrest known as the Arab Spring, protests erupted in Syria in March 2011.
Using his father’s playbook, Bashar al-Assad crushed them. He
unleashed attack aircraft, helicopter gunships, artillery and tanks
against the lightly armed rebels that began to organise.
Local residents cheer as they gather on a street in the Damascus suburb of Jaramana on Dec 8. PHOTO: AFP
The conflict broke largely along sectarian lines, with Syria’s Alawites supporting Assad and Sunnis backing the opposition.
Foreign powers – including Russia, Iran, the US and Turkey – saw the
war as an opportunity to extend their influence in a country that
straddles the region’s geopolitical fault-lines.
Foreign intervention increased after the al-Qaeda spinoff Islamic
State, which aims to create a puritanical Islamic society, used the
turmoil to conquer territory in Syria and in Iraq. The final Islamic
State stronghold fell in 2019.
A rebel led by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham
stands in the back of a vehicle in al-Rashideen, Aleppo province, Syria
November 29, 2024.(photo credit: REUTERS/Mahmoud Hasano)
Conflicting reports
Bloomberg reported that Assad's whereabouts were unknown, but listed multiple possibilities of where he could be.
Assad
could be in Damascus, as Syrian officials have stated. He reportedly
also could be in his hometown of Al-Qardaha, which is close to a Russian
base, or in Tehran, a US policy source familiar with the matter told
Bloomberg.
Officials told CNN that they believe the Assad regime will lose power over the weekend.
US
National Security Advisor Jake Sullivan said that the current fighting
in Syria is "a complicated situation. It’s one we’re monitoring closely,
and we’re staying in close touch with regional partners about it."
CNN further reported that there was little evidence that Syria's allies, Russia and Iran, would step in to help Assad.
Syrian rebels swept into Damascus on Sunday declaring they had
toppled “tyrant” President Bashar al-Assad, whose current whereabouts
are unknown after he reportedly fled the country.
Here’s what we know about where Assad could be, what happened to his
country’s army and who is in charge now after decades of rule by the
president’s family.
How did Assad flee?
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said Assad left
on a private plane that took off from Damascus international airport at
10pm (7pm GMT) on Saturday night, without specifying where he headed.
After that, the army and security forces pulled out of the airport,
with commercial flights already suspended earlier, added the
Britain-based Observatory, which relies on a network of sources on the
ground.
The rebels, who began a lightning offensive on 27 October, quickly
announced they had toppled “tyrant” Assad and that Damascus was a “free”
city, calling on millions of Syrians who fled the war for safety abroad
to return home.
Assad’s location was not clear on Sunday morning, but Observatory
chief Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP there were three main possibilities.
The first was that Assad headed to Russia, which
over the years has provided key military, political and diplomatic
support for the Syrian leader, including with its air power.
Second that he fled to his other main ally Iran,
which has sent military advisers to Syria and supported fighters,
including from Lebanon’s Hezbollah, who have been on the battlefield
alongside government soldiers.
The third option, Abdel Rahman said, is that Assad went to the United Arab Emirates,
the first Arab Gulf country to restore broken ties with Damascus in
2018 after they were severed following the war’s outbreak in 2011.
What about the Syrian army?
As news of Assad’s departure spread, army soldiers in various parts
of the capital Damascus began shedding their military clothes, local
residents told AFP.
One eyewitness, requesting anonymity, told AFP they saw dozens of
military vehicles abandoned in the upscale Mazzeh district, home to
military and security headquarters, embassies and United Nations
offices.
The army has not issued an official statement, but soldiers told AFP
they were told to leave their positions, with one saying “our direct
superior told us to leave and go home, so we knew it was over.”
There is very much more where readers should seek the full article. Next -
Syrian Prime Minister Mohammed Ghazi Jalali said the government was
ready to “extend its hand” to the opposition and hand over its functions
to a transitional government.
“I am in my house and I have not
left, and this is because of my belonging to this country,” Jalili said
in a video statement. He said he would go to his office to continue work
in the morning and called on Syrian citizens not to deface public
property.
A Syrian opposition war monitor, Rami Abdurrahman, said
Assad left the country on a flight from Damascus early Sunday. Jalili
did not address reports of Assad’s departure.
Opposition fighters entered Syria’s capital in a swiftly developing crisis that has taken much of the world by surprise. Syria’s army has abandoned key cities with little resistance. Who are these opposition fighters? If they take control of Damascus after seizing some of Syria’s largest cities, what then?
Here
is a look at the stunning reversal of fortune for Assad and the
government in just the past 10 days, and what might lie ahead as Syria’s
13-year civil war reignites.
The aim? Overthrow the government
This is the first time that
opposition forces have reached the outskirts of the Syrian capital
since 2018, when the country’s troops recaptured the area following a
yearslong siege.
The approaching fighters are led by the most powerful insurgent group in Syria, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham,
or HTS, along with an umbrella group of Turkish-backed Syrian militias
called the Syrian National Army. Both have been entrenched in the
northwest. They launched the shock offensive on Nov. 27 with gunmen
capturing Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, and the central city of Hama,
the fourth largest.
The HTS has its origins in al-Qaida and is
considered a terrorist organization by the U.S. and the United Nations.
But the group said in recent years it cut ties with al-Qaida, and experts say
HTS has sought to remake itself in recent years by focusing on
promoting civilian government in their territory as well as military
action.
HTS leader Abu Mohammed al-Golani told CNN in an exclusive interview Thursday from Syria that the aim of the offensive is to overthrow Assad’s government.
Possible rifts ahead
The HTS and Syrian National Army have been allies at times and rivals at times, and their aims might diverge.
The
Turkish-backed militias also have an interest in creating a buffer zone
near the Turkish border to keep away Kurdish militants at odds with
Ankara. Turkey
has been a main backer of the fighters seeking to overthrow Assad but
more recently has urged reconciliation, and Turkish officials have
strongly rejected claims of any involvement in the current offensive.
Whether
the HTS and the Syrian National Army will work together if they succeed
in overthrowing Assad or turn on each other again is a major question.
Others take advantage
While the flash offensive against Syria’s government began in the north, armed opposition groups have also mobilized elsewhere.
The
southern areas of Sweida and Daraa have both been taken locally. Sweida
is the heartland of Syria’s Druze religious minority and had been the
site of regular anti-government protests even after Assad seemingly
consolidated his control over the area.
Daraa is a Sunni Muslim
area that was widely seen as the cradle of the uprising against Assad’s
rule that erupted in 2011. Daraa was recaptured by Syrian government
troops in 2018, but rebels remained in some areas. In recent years,
Daraa was in a state of uneasy quiet under a Russian-mediated ceasefire
deal.
And much of Syria’s east is controlled by the Syrian
Democratic Forces, a Kurdish-led group backed by the United States that
in the past has clashed with most other armed groups in the country.
Syria’s government now has control of only three of 14 provincial capitals: Damascus, Latakia and Tartus.
What’s next?
A commander with the insurgents, Hassan
Abdul-Ghani, posted on the Telegram messaging app that opposition forces
have started carrying out the “final stage” of their offensive by
encircling Damascus.
And Syrian troops withdrew Saturday from much
of the central city of Homs, Syria’s third largest, according to a
pro-government outlet and the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human
Rights. If that city is captured, the link would be cut between
Damascus, Assad’s seat of power, and the coastal region where he enjoys
wide support.
“Homs to the coastal cities will be a very huge red
line politically and socially. Politically, if this line is crossed,
then we are talking about the end of the entire Syria, the one that we
knew in the past,” said a Damascus resident, Anas Joudeh.
Assad appears to be largely on his own
as allies Russia and Iran are distracted by other conflicts and the
Lebanon-based Hezbollah has been weakened by its war with Israel, now
under a fragile ceasefire.
The U.N. special envoy for Syria, Geir Pedersen, seeks urgent talks
in Geneva to ensure an “orderly political transition,” saying the
situation is changing by the minute. He met with foreign ministers and
senior diplomats from eight key countries including Saudi Arabia,
Russia, Egypt, Turkey and Iran on the sidelines of the Doha Summit.
An in-depth look at how many fighters are still arrayed against the
Assad regime, which ideology they subscribe to, and whether more
moderate actors can still seize the mantle from extremist factions.
After more than five years of war, most of the armed opposition to
Bashar al-Assad is increasingly fragmented, aside from the Islamic State
(IS) and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF). It is becoming
more and more difficult to predict the rebellion's dynamics, as the
number of groups continues to grow and the coalitions that house them
change in composition and name. The opposition's most universal trait is
its Sunni identity -- apart from foreign jihadists, most of the rebels
are Sunni Arabs, joined by a few thousand Sunni Turkmens, so it is fair
to refer to them as a "Sunni rebellion." But this religious homogeneity
is not enough to give the armed opposition the military cohesion and
unified political identity it so sorely needs. A closer look at the
geography of this fragmentation can help observers better understand the
rebellion and assess whether it still has a chance to prevail.
BETWEEN 100,000 AND 150,000 FIGHTERS
A March report
by the Institute for the Study of the War (ISW) categorized
twenty-three of Syria's hundreds of rebel groups as the main
"powerbrokers" and "potential powerbrokers" in the opposition. In total,
these groups command an estimated 90,000 fighters.
The report described a third category of groups with a few hundred
fighters each. While most of the twenty-six factions in this category do
not profess any ideology, several of them are linked to al-Qaeda:
namely, Jund al-Aqsa, Harakat al-Fajr al-Sham al-Islamiyah, Imarat
al-Qawqaz fi al-Sham, and a brigade called "Ajnad Kavkaq."
The report also outlined a fourth category composed of hundreds of
smaller groups with a few dozen fighters each. These factions correspond
to local clans, and their main objective is to protect their given
neighborhood or village; they are incapable of launching offensives.
Estimating the total number of fighters in the third and fourth
categories is difficult. The best approximation is between 10,000 and
60,000. In total, then, the "Sunni rebellion" could have anywhere from
100,000 to 150,000 fighters.
_____________FURTHER UPDATE____________
Here is a regional map. Crabgrass speculates that natural gas and oil south of Syria might, if a stable regime emerges, be piped trans-Syria into existing distribution systems, and that foreign nations who have been arming the Revolutionaries could be economically motivated, as least in part. Under the Assad family, ties with Russia were formed, where Russian gas into Europe via other existing overland pipelines (and trans-Blatic lines since blown up) would face economic competition from others if trans-Syria lines were built and integrated into existing distribution; i.e., with Russian bases and economic ties, other routing options were considered.
Beyond that, neighbors poke their noses into neighbors business, it happens; and the U.S. has its own foreign-relations policies. These interests go beyond fossil fuels, but include fossil fuels. How a Syria under Sunni jurisdiction, if stabilized, might alter balances of power and resource management reality is at present wide open to guessing. Which is what this latest UPDATE does.
Also, a Sunni Syria might be less willing to allow Iranian/Shia mischief. If so, Israelis would be cheered. Lebanese outside of Hezbollah should do better. Speculation by others more familiar with Iran is that things there will change little under Trump.
