What’s happening in Syria?

In November 2024, the Assad regime fell, and the tyrant fled in ignominy to Moscow. The Russian capital is now a donkey sanctuary for mass murderers who have been driven out by their victims.

The insurgents have taken power in Syria. There was an indisputable sense of liberation. The establishment of the new government occurred remarkably smoothly. When the insurgents took Damascus and other major cities, it was not accompanied by the revenge slayings and looting that some had expected.

The former prime minister is under arrest. He then handed power over to the transitional government. Presumably, this was under duress.

The ruling party is Hai-at Tahrir Al Shams (Liberation Movement of Syria). HTS is a Sunni organisation. Its leader, Mohammad Al Sharaa, was a member of Al Qaeda 20 years ago.

The new leader is a practising Sunni Muslim. He has named his cabinet. Worryingly for some, they are almost all Sunni Arabs in a country where only 55% of the population is Sunni Arab. This is partly reflective of the fact that backers of the Hayat Tahrir Al Shams (HTS) rebels were overwhelmingly Sunni Arabs. There is a Christian woman, a Druze man, a Kurdish man and an Alawaite Shia man in the cabinet. There is also a Sunni female.

Russia still retains its naval base and air base in Syria. For decades, Russia called even peaceful protestors ‘terrorists'. Russia committed many, many atrocities in Syria. It used chemical weapons against civilians on countless occasions. Moscow provided diplomatic cover for the Assad regime.

It lied and lied and lied about the war crimes that Russia itself and the Assad regime had committed against the Syrian people. Were it not for the Russian Air Force and Wagner Group (Russian mercenaries), the Assad regime would have been ousted years earlier. The Iranian Revolutionary Guards Corps was also instrumental in saving Assad for years. Iran withdrew its forces because they were needed at home in case of an attempted revolution.

The HTS Government has thus far tolerated the presence of the Russian Military. Bearing in mind that Russia attacked HTS and massacred so many Syrian civilians, this is hard to understand. HTS recognises that it does not need more enemies. HTS has no air force, tanks and almost no artillery. They could drive out the few thousand Russians, but at considerable cost in lives. It could be that Russia has started paying HTS to allow Russia to keep the bases. Syria desperately needs money.

Qatar was a major backer of the now-victorious rebels. Qatar Airways restored flights to Syria in December 2024 for the first time in over a decade.

The Turkish Army still has its forces controlling some of Syria close to the frontier with Turkiye. There are ethnic Turcomans whom Turkiye says it is protecting. The Turks have their pet insurgent group in Syria: the so-called ‘Syrian National Army’. The new HTS can ill-afford to provoke Turkiye.

The United States is also illegally occupying a segment of Syria along the Iraqi Border.

Israel has illegally occupied some of Syria since 1973: the Golan Heights. When the Assad regime was ousted, the Israelis exploited the opportunity to grab even more land.

Therefore, Syria plays host to the militaries of four foreign countries. There is a serious chance that one of their foreign militaries could restart the conflict. These foreign armies could even fight each other.

There are several armed groups still active in the country: the Syrian National Army, which is Turkish-backed; the Syrian Democratic Forces (which is Kurdish), the Operations Room and others. There are also remnants of the Assad regime holding out in the mountains. Peace is precarious.

Syria is in a parlous situation. The country has been through 14 years of internecine warfare. Over 600,000 Syrians have been killed out of a population of 20 million. Many of them were not killed in combat but were civilians murdered by the Assad regime and its ISIS opponents. Hundreds of thousands of people are permanently disabled due to war wounds. There are many orphans and hundreds of thousands of internally displaced persons. There are millions of Syrian refugees abroad, particularly in Turkiye, Jordan and Lebanon. The country has missed out on over a decade of infrastructure repair. The roads, railways, bridges, tunnels, the electric grid and the sewage system are all in need of repairs and upgrades.

No foreign company has invested in Syria since the start of the civil war. It is difficult to tempt them back. Syria was one of the poorest countries in the Middle East even before the war. The country has some oil. Most of the wealth went to the Assad dynasty and its cronies. They expatriated their assets, mostly to Russi, for years before their downfall.

The USA renewed sanctions for 5 years just after the overthrow of Assad. This makes it very hard to attract the investment that the country so badly needs.

No country has officially recognised the new government in Syria. However, the cordiality between Damascus and Riyadh is plain.

The Kurdish separatists still control the north-east of the country where the Kurds are the majority. Turkiye is dead against Kurds breaking away. In 1991, Iraqi Kurdistan effectively seceded from Iraq. It declared independence in 2018 but is not recognised by any other country. A quarter of Turkiye is populated by Kurds. Ankara does not want Kurdistan to be recognised as a state because then Turkish Kurds may seek to join it.

In March 2025, it is said that HTS killed dozens of Alawi Shia civilians. This is the community that was the hardcore of support for the Assad family. Until then, HTS had been remarkably humane.

Peace is fragile in Syria. The HTS Government will find it impossible to get all foreign troops to leave the country. HTS has to square a circle: How does it stop the Kurds from breaking away without provoking the Kurds into fighting for independence? The Turks are desperate to stop the Kurds from establishing a state.

The author is a political analyst from the UK; the views expressed here are his own.