By P. Sudhir
The rapid advance of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and other armed factions led to the fall of Bashar al- Assad’s government in Syria. With this, the US has succeeded in toppling the last of the secular regimes in West Asia. US military interventions resulted not only in the fall of secular regimes in Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya and now Syria in the West Asia-North African region, but also created deep sectarian fissures in the region. The destruction unleashed by the US and the Frankenstein religious fundamentalist/extremist groups it helped create, is threatening peace and stability everywhere.
Syria was divided into three zones after the civil war, which started in 2011. Assad’s government was in control of only 65 per cent of the land. It was supported by Russia and Iran, which helped the government control the land and also repel attacks from militant groups.
The second zone of 25 per cent land is controlled by Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), with the backing of the US. The rest of the region, particularly the North-Western regions are controlled by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which is an off-shoot of the al-Qaeda and al-Nusra front. HTS declared itself as a separate entity in 2016 and has emerged as a dominant militant group. It is based in Idlib. Though declared a terrorist organisation by US, Russia and Turkey, it enjoyed covert backing from countries that were against Assad.
Basing itself in Idlib, the HTS actively worked to regroup its forces in the past one year and launched the attack. Its attack received a fillip from a parallel attack that was led by another militant group, the Syrian National Army (SNA) backed by Turkey, which is based in the areas north of Aleppo.
Iran and Russia, two main supporters of the Syrian government are bogged down by the conflicts in their neighbourhoods. Hezbollah, which played an important role in defence of the Syrian government is involved in the war against Israeli aggression. All these factors led to weakening of support to the Syrian government, which was already in a crisis.
Assad was not a popular president. He had initiated neoliberal economic policies that created discontent among the people. The government tried to suppress protests against such policies by using force. It curtailed all forms of democratic rights and imposed an authoritarian rule. Imperialist forces led by the US utilised this discontent to destabilise the regime. They used fundamentalist/extremist organisations like al-Qaeda and its regional associate al-Nusra to conduct militant attacks that led to the civil war. Israel, a major imperialist ally in the region, too played a role in creating disturbances.
Thousands of people lost their lives, many more were injured in the civil war. More than 6 million Syrians became refugees and were forced to flee the country. The economic loss suffered due to destruction ran into several billions. Even after the decade long civil war lost its intensity, Syrian government could not address peoples’ sufferings.
In the last one year, Israel has continuously bombed territories within Syria, in the name of cutting down arms supply to Hezbollah and eliminating its threat. Syria could neither resist nor counter such attacks. Soldiers in the Syrian armed forces were affected by the all round crises and were not ready to resist.
The Syrian government lost the confidence of its people as a result of its authoritarian character. This was its major weakness. It was because of these reasons that when the militant groups launched their offensive, whatever remained of the Syrian armed forces just melted away without offering any resistance. President Assad too fled the country and sought asylum in Russia.
Immediately after the fall of Assad, Israel intensified its attacks on Syria. Israel has carried out more that 480 aerial strikes in 48-hours (between December 10-11), which is more than what it had carried out in the past one year. Israel is claiming that the intensity with which it is attacking is an attempt to ensure that Syrian arms and ammunition does not fall into militants’ hands.
Israel has occupied the buffer zone between Syria and Israel near the Israeli occupied Golan Heights. It has officially declared that its defence forces have even ‘crossed the buffer zone’ into Syrian territories. This is Israel’s yet another brazen violation of UN resolutions. The far-right Zionists are begging for the occupation of as much territory as possible for the establishment of ‘Greater Israel’.
On the other hand, Turkey too is keen to establish its control and realise its regional ambitions. It is supporting the SNA to carry out attacks on Kurds and occupy their lands. It wants to eliminate the threat emanating from the Kurds’ demand for an autonomous Kurdistan. Media reports that the fighting between Turkish-backed and Kurdish-led forces in northern Syria has killed more than two hundred people in just three days.
People of various sects like Sunnis, Shias, Kurds, Alwaites, Druze and Christians live in Syria. In the coming days, sectarian strife is bound to increase because of the conflicting interests of the powers backing competing militant groups. There is every chance that the situation will deteriorate into another internal civil war, which would be detrimental to the people of Syria, who are harbouring high hopes after the fall of Assad’s government.
The militant groups announced the formation of an interim government with Mohammed al-Bashir, as the prime minister till March 1, 2025. He urged the people to remain united and promised to govern accordingly. Given the experiences of countries or regions governed by militant groups like the HTS, we can hardly expect them to live by such promises.
The future of Syria should be decided by the people of Syria, without any external influence, intervention or threat. Imperialism and Zionism should not be allowed to use Syria as a theatre to pursue its great power ambitions. (IPA Service)