Orientul Mijlociu

While Syria celebrates the fall of the Assad regime, the mood in the north of the country is very different: taking advantage of the chaos, Turkey and its proxy, the Syrian National Army, have launched an offensive against the Kurds. In a matter of days, the autonomous region lost two major cities: Til Rifaat and Manbij. For the past decade, the Kurds have effectively existed in Syria as a quasi-independent state. The new Syrian authorities from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham have been actively discussing the need to disarm the Kurdish forces at meetings with Turkish officials. Turkey has long been trying to put an end to the Kurdish separatist movement. The Kurds are being helped by the United States, which needs them as effective allies in the fight against ISIS, but so far it does not seem that the Americans are ready to stand up for the Kurds in the confrontation with Turkey. The Insider correspondent, who lives in Syria, spoke with the Kurds about why they believe that their old enemies have now come to power in the country.

For the first time in 50 years, Syrians celebrated the New Year without the Assads. A month after the overthrow of one of the most authoritarian regimes in the Middle East, the country has largely returned to normal life. Immigrants have already begun to return to Syria, but it is difficult to call the situation calm yet. In the north, pro-Turkish groups are fighting with the Kurds, and the new government from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham continues to fight Assad supporters who have not laid down their arms. Religious and national minorities – Christians, Armenians and Alawites – are feeling anxious, fearing discrimination under the new government. The Insider spoke with residents of Syria about their moods and expectations.

The fall of the Assad regime in Syria presents the international community with a range of complex challenges. First and foremost, there’s a significant risk of an ISIS resurgence. Over the past year, there’s been an uptick of ISIS attacks every single month—not only in Iraq but in Syria as well. While the new ISIS caliph stays silent, learning from his predecessors that speaking publicly is likely to lead to his demise, thousands of ISIS fighters remain in camps and prisons run by Syrian Kurds. Therefore, should internal strife break out between the various anti-Assad forces and continue to spill over into Kurdish-controlled areas, the risks of incidents like the Hasaka prison break in 2022 will rise. Reports of fighting between the Turkish-controlled Syrian National Army (SNA) and Kurdish forces under the umbrella of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in Manbij, as well as between Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) forces and the SDF in Deir al Zour, are therefore highly concerning. Continued clashes between the various groups is all the more likely since a significant part of Syria’s remaining oil and gas resources are located in areas under Kurdish control, something no power broker in Damascus will likely accept.

After Damascus, Beirut now celebrates a new era with the election of a president, a position that Hezbollah had obstructed, leaving the post vacant since October 2022. This new phase in Lebanon concludes 50 years of regional exploitation of this small country, the second-smallest Arab state in terms of area.

The unexpected fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime on December 8 has put Syria in the spotlight once again. Following over a decade of conflict, the killing of hundreds of thousands of Syrians, the displacement of around half of the country’s population internally or externally, there is a new reality in Syria. While the aftermath of Assad’s fall has gone generally better than expected, the transitional period ahead is one that requires an alert and proactive US approach, rather than a disengaged and passive one.

In his Friday sermon, Syrian Islamic Scholar Sheikh Mustafa Al-Joulani, dressed in military fatigues, declared that polytheists, including Russians, Shi’ites, and Alawites, would burn in Hellfire, while the mujahideen would live in Paradise. “I bring you the glad tidings of Allah’s victory and conquest,” he said. Al-Joulani continued to bring the “glad tidings” of the victory of the “real men” who love death, just like the “sons of mut’a pleasure marriages” – meaning Shi’ites – love life. He also claimed that while the Shi’ites sought to turn Damascus into a Shi’ite city, Allah intended for it to remain Sunni. The sermon was uploaded to @Aljawhara_K3d on YouTube on December 30, 2024.

In a video from 2015 that has resurfaced on January 4, 2025, Syria’s new Minister of Justice Shadi Al-Waisi is seen overseeing the execution of a woman who was accused of prostitution. Al-Waisi reads out the woman’s sentence from a shari’a court. The execution was redacted from this video.

In a January 1, 2025 interview on Alaan TV (UAE), Syria’s new Minister of Justice, Shadi Al-Waisi, who was seen presiding over a 2015 execution of a woman accused of prostitution in a shari’a court, discussed the regime’s plans to implement shari’a law in Syria. He emphasized that Muslims make up roughly 90% of the Syrian population, and the government will reflect the will and aspirations of the people. As a result, the implementation of shari’a will play a “major role” in the coming days. Al-Waisi explained that the shari’a will be implemented in line with the conviction that 90% of Syrians hold “at the heart of their beliefs.” He concluded that the state will not impose anything on the people.

Introduction

Over the past four years, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) has tried to transform itself from a faction of the Global Jihad movement into the de facto local military and governing power in north-west (NW) Syria. This shift requires the group to seek sources of funding other than al-Qaeda and its donors; consequently, HTS has undertaken a slow but steady takeover of the economy in NW Syria, from financial services and oil and gas to internet and telecommunications. This paper lays out how that process has taken place and provides a detailed look at the economics of HTS.