Kelley Beaucar Vlahos is Editorial Director of Responsible Statecraft and Senior Advisor at the Quincy Institute
Cross-posted from Responsible Statecraft
Breaking this morning: Embattled Syrian President Bashar al Assad, who had survived attempts to overthrow his government throughout a civil war that began in 2011, has reportedly been forced out and slipped away on a plane to parts unknown.
According to the New York Times this morning: “President Bashar al-Assad’s immediate location was not initially clear after rebels took control of Syria’s capital. Russia’s foreign ministry did not provide details on where he had gone, saying only that he had resigned and left the country.”
Enter Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) who had led the shocking and successful attack on Aleppo, Hama, Homs, and other strategic towns and cities in the northwestern region of the country this week. HTS is a Sunni Islamist group once linked to al-Qaida and the Al-Nusra Front and is still considered a terrorist group by the U.S. government (there is still a U.S. bounty on him), though for days, the mainstream media has been reporting that the group has rebranded itself as more moderate. Photos this morning show cheering amid Sunni populations that had been opposed to Assad’s rule and the victims of his brutal crackdowns over the decade, though the fighting had remained in a largely frozen state over the last few years until this week’s uprising.
According to Al Jazeera, “opposition fighters” released their own statement on TV this morning:
“The city of Damascus has been liberated. The tyrant Bashar al-Assad has been toppled. All the prisoners have been released from the prison of Damascus,” a leader of the group said.
“We wish all our fighters and citizens preserve and maintain the property of the state of Syria. Long live Syria,” he added.
It is not clear, however, how the news is being taken by the Alawite and Christian populations, Assad’s support base, in Damascus, and how the new dynamics will affect the Kurdish advances (supported by the U.S.) in the northeast, the Turkish moves against both Assad and the Kurds, and Israel’s interests in maintaining its control over the disputed Golan Heights (though there have been reports of Tel Aviv bombing Assad military assets in Damascus this morning and taking over the Golan Heights UN buffer zone this morning). Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu reportedly called the overthrow of Assad an “historic day.”
Russia, too, has been involved in the war all along, and was providing airstrikes on behalf of Assad in recent days.
Egyptian officials out of the gate seemed to warn of factionalism and historically have no love lost for Islamist uprisings. In a statement they urged “comprehensive political process” to establish peace and support for Syria’s “sovereignty, unity and territorial integrity.”
Turkey for its part, according to Al Jazeera, has said it is ready to help “guarantee security” in Syria, whatever that may mean. Iran, which has been a military supporter of Assad’s regime, is urging against interference in Syria’s internal affairs. “Achieving this requires ending military conflicts as soon as possible, preventing terrorist acts, and starting national talks with the participation of all segments of Syrian society to form an inclusive government that represents all Syrian people,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.
As of this writing the Biden Administration. has yet to weigh in. Vice President-elect J.D. Vance posted on X a warning about celebrating when there are Christian minorities in Damascus at risk. “As President Trump said, this is not our fight and we should stay out of it.”
(Ret.) Col Doug Macgregor warns that with all of the external interests, the fate of Syria is likely factionalism, if not a partitioning. “In the near term, Israel and Turkey divide Syria to their liking, while Moscow and Tehran prepare for talks in Doha and Tehran prepares for all out war with Israel and the United States,” he tells RS. “In the long-run, the volatile mix of Kurds, Turks, Israelis and Islamist Arabs will make the partition of Syria tenuous.”
For his part, Trump said on Truth Social Russia had “no reason to be there in the first place” turned the situation into another call for negotiations in Ukraine.
“They (Russians) lost all interest in Syria because of Ukraine, where close to 600,000 Russian soldiers lay wounded or dead, in a war that should never have started, and could go on forever. Russia and Iran are in a weakened state right now, one because of Ukraine and a bad economy, the other because of Israel and its fighting success. Likewise, Zelenskyy and Ukraine would like to make a deal and stop the madness. They have ridiculously lost 400,000 soldiers, and many more civilians. There should be an immediate ceasefire and negotiations should begin.”
UK’s Prime Minister Keir Starmer said the UK welcomes the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s “barbaric regime” and called for the restoration of “peace and stability.”
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