Kurds celebrate the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in Qamishlo, the main city in northeastern Syria. It´s the end of the dynasty that has ruled the fate of the Syrians for more than five decades. Credit: Jihan Darwish/IPS

By Karlos Zurutuza
ROME, Dec 9 2024 (IPS)

Nobody saw it coming. After years of brutal war in Syria, many believed the battle lines had stabilized, leaving only sporadic skirmishes or even the potential for negotiations.

Syria has become the epicentre of a Third World War: the Russians, the International Coalition, Iran… all the major powers are fighting here,” Salih Muslim, PYD
Syria? Was there anything left to report? That question was answered loud and clear on November 27.

While the world looked away, a jihadist coalition backed by Turkey launched a sudden offensive on Aleppo, Syria’s second-largest city. Ten days later, Damascus fell.

The swift assault by the Levant Liberation Organization (HTS)—a group classified as a “terrorist organization” by the UN Security Council, the United States, Russia, and Turkey—brought back echoes of ISIS’s 2014 capture of Mosul, Iraq’s second-largest city, or the Taliban’s takeover of Kabul in 2021.

In Syria, the Assad family’s five-decade-long rule has come to an end. Moscow confirmed on Sunday that the family is now in Russia, but what lies ahead for the nation they left behind remains deeply uncertain.

Bashar al-Assad, president of Syria since succeeding his father in 2000, waves from central Damascus. He and his family have taken shelter in Russia. Credit: Karlos Zurutuza/IPS

The Road Here

The Syrian war began in 2011 during the so-called “Arab Spring,” a wave of uprisings—many of which spiralled into conflict—sweeping through the Middle East and North Africa.

Frustration with the Assad regime’s repressive and authoritarian rule, which had endured since 1971, erupted into mass protests that were met with brutal crackdowns.

In response, the opposition formed an armed group called the Free Syrian Army (FSA), a loosely coordinated coalition that soon included Islamist hardliners.

Over time, these hardliners, backed by logistical and military support from neighbouring Turkey, seized control of the rebellion, eventually consolidating their power in the northwestern region of Idlib.

Meanwhile, the Kurds emerged as a third force in the conflict. With their own vision rooted in human rights and a horizontal egalitarian society, they distanced themselves from both the Islamist opposition and the Assad regime, which had treated them as second-class citizens for decades.

Supported by the International Coalition, the Kurds dealt a decisive blow to ISIS, whose territorial grip—spanning an area the size of the United Kingdom across Syria and Iraq—collapsed with the fall of its final stronghold in spring 2019.

Families of ISIS fighters after leaving Baghouz, ISIS’s last stronghold to fall in 2019. Despite no longer controlling territory, its cells remain active across large parts of Syrian territory. Credit: Jewan Abdi/IPS

By then, Syria had fractured into three parts: Turkish-backed jihadists in the northwest and other border areas; the Kurds in the northeast—with a U.S. military presence in their territory—and the Assad regime, supported by Russia and Iran, controlling the rest of the country.

This fragile equilibrium shattered on November 27. Syria’s map has been redrawn.

The collapse of Assad’s forces didn’t stem from a sophisticated jihadist campaign. Instead, 13 years of conflict had left the army debilitated, relying on outdated Soviet-era equipment and demoralized troops.

A grim international backdrop added to the chaos. The fall of Aleppo coincided with a tenuous ceasefire in Lebanon, following two months of relentless Israeli strikes targeting Hezbollah, a critical ally of Assad and a prized asset for Iran.

Meanwhile, Russia’s hands were tied. Four years into a conflict it had expected to last weeks, Moscow now faces NATO medium-range missile strikes on its own soil.

But Turkey holds the real leverage in Syria. Failed attempts by Ankara to normalize relations with Damascus, coupled with U.S. President-elect Donald Trump’s recent announcement of a full withdrawal of American troops, significantly shaped the current crisis.

This echoes a similar withdrawal announcement in March 2019, which led to Turkish-backed Islamist forces occupying the Kurdish-Syrian district of Serekaniye. A year earlier, the same groups took control of Afrin, another Kurdish enclave north of Damascus.

Since then, Turkey has conducted an ethnic cleansing campaign against the Kurds along its southern border, marked by relentless bombings and forced resettlement projects that have displaced thousands.

Kurdish children displaced by Turkish-backed jihadists play in the ruins of a church destroyed by ISIS in 2019. This is a poignant metaphor for the nightmare Syrians have endured since the war began in 2011. Credit: Karlos Zurutuza/IPS

What Now?

“Syria has become the epicentre of a Third World War: the Russians, the International Coalition, Iran… all the major powers are fighting here,” Salih Muslim, a prominent Kurdish leader and member of the Democratic Union Party’s presidential committee, told IPS in a phone interview from Qamishlo.

Muslim, a former political prisoner, stressed the need for Syrians to coexist “regardless of their ethnicity, creed, or ideology.”

Surprisingly, Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, the leader of the jihadist offensive, has echoed similar sentiments. However, his credibility is questionable given his history as a commander in Al Qaeda’s Syrian branch.

According to a report by the Rojava Information Center titled “When Jihadism Learns to Smile,” Al-Jolani has worked hard to construct a “careful façade, both in foreign and internal politics.”

“The separation between ISIS and HTS is definitive. However, debate continues over the nature and extent of any remaining ties between HTS and Al-Qaeda,” the report states.

Spanish journalist and Middle East analyst Manuel Martorell is sceptical about HTS’s promises.

“When Islamists take power, they always claim they’ll respect minorities and avoid imposing fundamentalism. But beneath these promises lies a hidden agenda that eventually leads to the Islamization of society and forces minorities to flee,” Martorell told IPS in a phone interview from Pamplona.

He describes HTS’s offensive as part of “a strategic operation by Erdogan to impose his own solution for Syria,” which includes dismantling Kurdish autonomy and ethnically cleansing Kurds along the Syria-Turkey border.

“It’s inconceivable that pro-Turkish Islamist groups and Al Qaeda’s successors launched this offensive without Turkey’s consent and support,” Martorell added.

As uncertainty looms, Kurdish leaders have called for full mobilization to repel the jihadist advance, warning that power vacuums like this are fertile ground for the resurgence of ISIS.

Reports have already surfaced of ISIS activity in desert regions and camps housing its families and affiliates. Meanwhile, clashes between Turkish-backed jihadists and Kurdish forces are intensifying, particularly in places like Manbij, northeast of Damascus.

On December 5, UN Secretary-General António Guterres lamented the escalation in Syria, calling it the result of “years of chronic collective failure.”

Now, as thousands of displaced Syrians return from Turkey, they cross paths with those fleeing yet another uncertain future—a new wave of exodus from a nation that has been in ruins for more than a decade.