The Syrian Arab Army is no more, an institution built to fight Israel that eventually ate itself due to rampant corruption and ineptitude.
Few analysts could have predicted the events that unfolded last week in Syria when a limited rebel offensive in Aleppo province led to the downfall of Bashar Al-Assad’s regime, 13 years after a revolution against his corrupt and authoritarian rule began.
Opposition forces have taken control of the capital after a significant offensive. Here is how it unravelled.
In the early hours of Sunday morning, opposition forces declared Syria liberated from the rule of President Bashar al-Assad as opposition forces surged into the capital.
Israel has struck more than 250 military targets in Syria, according to an Israeli radio military correspondent.
Following the rebels’ overthrow of the Assad regime in Syria, the Israel Defense Forces entered the buffer zone for the first time in 50 years and are conducting strikes to eliminate weapons that could be used against Israel.
Syria’s prime minister said Monday that most cabinet ministers were back at work after rebels overthrew President Bashar Assad, but some state workers failed to return to their jobs, and a United Nations official said the country’s public sector had come “to a complete and abrupt halt.”
Meanwhile, streams of refugees crossed back into Syria from neighboring countries, hoping for a more peaceful future and looking for relatives who disappeared during Assad’s brutal rule.
What role are outside powers playing in Syria’s new rebel offensive?
Turkey is the most important outside power supporting the rebel side. It geographically adjoins Syrian rebel territory in the northwest, and Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan’s government supported the 2011 Arab Spring uprising against Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s regime. At times, he also backed a variety of Islamist groups during the Syrian civil war. The leading and most substantial rebel group, Ha’yat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), is the former Al-Nusra Front, a jihadist organization that fought the self-declared Islamic State (ISIS). It renamed itself and claimed that it renounced some of its more extreme positions, has become more respectful of minorities, and has taken on some institutional responsibilities in the form of local government. While there are indications that HTS acquired Turkish help in the form of arms, primarily drones, prior to this offensive, HTS is not Ankara’s primary client. It’s also worth noting that HTS has reportedly been manufacturing its own arms in recent years.
After rebel takeover, Israeli Air Force and Navy strike missile depots, naval vessels, fighter jets and more to ensure they don’t fall into wrong hands
Following a major 48-hour bombing campaign in Syria, the Israel Defense Forces on Tuesday said it had destroyed most of the former Bashar al-Assad regime’s strategic military capabilities, in an effort to prevent advanced weaponry from falling into the hands of hostile elements.
Iran has opened a direct line of communication with rebels in Syria’s new leadership since its ally Bashar al-Assad was ousted, in an attempt to “prevent a hostile trajectory” between the countries, a senior Iranian official told Reuters on Monday.
The lightning advance of a militia alliance spearheaded by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, a former al-Qaeda affiliate, led by Abu Mohammed al-Jawlani, marked one of the biggest turning points for the Middle East in generations.
Assad’s fall as president removed a bastion from which Iran and Russia exercised influence across the Arab world.
Hours after Assad’s fall, Iran said it expected relations with Damascus to continue based on the two countries’ “far-sighted and wise approach” and called for the establishment of an inclusive government representing all segments of Syrian society.
There is little doubt about Tehran’s concern about how the change of power in Damascus will affect Iran’s influence in Syria, the lynchpin of its regional clout, Reuters reported.
But there is no panic, three Iranian officials told Reuters, as Tehran seeks diplomatic avenues to establish contact with people whom one of the officials called “those within Syria’s new ruling groups whose views are closer to Iran’s”.
“The main concern for Iran is whether Assad’s successor will push Syria away from Tehran’s orbit,” a second Iranian official said.
“That is a scenario Iran is keen to avoid.”
A hostile post-Assad Syria would deprive Lebanese armed group Hezbollah of its only land supply route and deny Iran its main access to the Mediterranean and the “front line” with Israel.
One of the senior officials said Iran’s clerical rulers, facing the loss of an important ally in Damascus and the return of Donald Trump to the White House in January, were open to engaging with Syria’s new leaders.
“This engagement is key to stabilise ties and avoiding further regional tensions,” the official said.
Contact with new Syrian leadership
Tehran has established contacts with two groups inside the new leadership and the level of interaction will be assessed in the coming days after a meeting at Iran’s Supreme National Security Council, a top security body, the official told Reuters.
Two of the Iranian officials said Tehran was wary of Trump using Assad’s removal as leverage to intensify economic and political pressure on Iran, “either to force concessions or to destabilise the Islamic Republic”.
After pulling the United States out of Iran’s 2015 nuclear deal with six major powers in 2018, then-president Trump pursued a “maximum pressure” policy that led to extreme economic hardship and exacerbated public discontent in Iran.
Trump is staffing his planned administration with hawks on Iran.
In 2020, Trump, as president, ordered a drone strike that killed Qassem Soleimani, Iran’s most powerful military commander and mastermind of overseas attacks on U.S. interests and those of its allies.
“Iran is now only left with two options: fall back and draw a defensive line in Iraq or seek a deal with Trump,” said Ali Vaez of the International Crisis Group.
The fall of Assad exposed Tehran’s dwindling strategic leverage in the region, exacerbated by Israel’s military offensives against Hezbollah in Lebanon and the Palestinian militant group Hamas in Gaza, Reuters reported.
Iran spent billions of dollars propping up Assad during the civil war that erupted in Syria in 2011 and deployed its Revolutionary Guards to Syria to keep its ally in power and maintain Tehran’s “Axis of Resistance” to Israel and U.S. influence in the Middle East.
Assad’s fall removes a critical link in Iran’s regional resistance chain that served as a crucial transit route for Tehran to supply arms and fund its proxies and particularly Hezbollah.
Is Israel’s targeting of Palmyra and killing of dozens of pro-Iranian militias and regime forces in response to the visit of the Minister of Defense of the Islamic Republic of Iran and his accompanying delegation a few days ago?
Israel has carried out about 250 air strikes on Syrian territory since the announcement of the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, on the morning of December 8, in less than 48 hours.
While the Syrians celebrate the end of the rule of the “tyrant,” Israel destroyed the most important military sites in Syria, including Syrian airports and their warehouses, aircraft squadrons, radars, military signal stations, and many weapons and ammunition depots in various locations in most Syrian provinces, in addition to scientific research centers, which resulted in their complete destruction, the disabling of air defense systems, and the taking of those sites out of service.
In Deir Ezzor Governorate, Israeli aircraft launched raids targeting weapons depots in a former military site near the city of Deir Ezzor, warehouses belonging to the Iranian Revolutionary Guard in the desert south of Albukamal, and weapons stores and warehouses in the salt mine and former centers of the former regime forces and the Iranians in the Deir Ezzor desert.
In Hama Governorate, the raids targeted the Scientific Research Center near the town of Al-Zawi in the Masyaf countryside.
In Homs Governorate, raids were launched on Al-Shayrat Airport and warehouses in Shinshar.
In Al-Hasakah Governorate, raids were launched on the Qamishli Airport area and the 54th Regiment, known as the Tartab Regiment.
In Latakia, Israel targeted an air defense facility near the port of Latakia on the Syrian coast, and the damage affected Syrian naval ships and warehouses of the former regime forces in Al-Kurniche, Al-Mushairfa, and Ras Shamra in the Latakia countryside.
In Damascus and the Damascus countryside, raids were launched on the headquarters of the Electronic Warfare Administration near Al-Bahdaliyah adjacent to Sayyida Zeinab, and weapons warehouses in the village of Ain Mneen in the Al-Tall area. Air strikes were also launched north of the city of Al-Qara, warehouses in Al-Sumaria, Aqraba Airport, Scientific Research in Barzeh, Al-Mazzeh Airport, and Beitima in Mount Hermon, the headquarters of the Fourth Division near Scientific Research, and the warehouses in Danha in Qalamoun in the eastern Lebanon mountain range, and the security square in Damascus.
In Daraa, raids were launched on positions of the 112th Brigade between the cities of Sheikh Maskin and Nawa in the western countryside.
It targeted several times the military warehouses in the vicinity of the town of Muhajjah, north of Daraa, and the 12th Brigade in the city of Izraa, which resulted in the martyrdom of two citizens who were in the targeted area. It also targeted Tal al-Hamad, Tal Jedya, Tal al-Hara, the 12th Brigade, and the 175th Regiment in Izraa.
Quneitra Governorate, Tell al-Shaar, and a site near the Golan.
This comes within the framework of destroying the remaining weapons in warehouses and military units that were controlled by the forces of the former regime.
Following the rapid overthrow of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, Moscow is now facing the prospect of losing its naval and air bases in Syria. Russia’s two key bases are located in the Latakia governorate, which is already under the control of rebel groups. Syrian opposition forces have yet to take an official stance on their relationship with the Russian military contingent currently stationed in Syria. And Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has deemed it “too early” to talk about preserving the Russian bases at Khmeimim and Tartus. “This is a subject for discussion with those who will lead Syria,” he said on Monday. By all appearances, however, this “discussion” is already underway. Citing diplomats involved in talks between Russia, Iran, Turkey, and “leading Arab nations,” the Wall Street Journal reports that Moscow has “likely received commitments” that it could maintain its bases in Syria as “part of a transition.” But to what extent the Syrian rebels will honor those commitments remains unknown. Meduza breaks down what facilities Russia has in Syria and why their future is so uncertain.
The three-starred flag of the Syrian rebel groups has been installed over the Syrian embassy building in Moscow.
At the Syrian embassy in Russia’s capital, Moscow, a group of men raised the opposition flag a day after the government of Bashar al-Assad fell in Damascus.