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Journalism of Courage
Over the past 10 days, two broad developments have been unfolding in Syria.
Prime Minister Mohammed al-Bashir has been trying to stabilise the country, consolidate its ethnic groups, and engage with the international community before the term of his transitional government ends on March 1 next year.
At the same time, Kurdish-controlled Northwestern Syria (Rojava) has been bracing for renewed hostilities following a potential Turkish invasion. The US-mediated ceasefire between the Kurds and rebel forces backed by Turkey has broken down, despite the Kurds ceding the key town of Manbij to the rebels.
How has the so-called ‘transition’ in Syria progressed since the fall of Bashar al-Assad on December 8? What role has the Hayat Tahrir al-Shaam (HTS), the Sunni Islamist group that led the overthrow of the Baathist regime played so far?
Prime Minister al-Bashir has a background as an administrator with the Syrian Salvation Government (SSG) that has ruled rebel-held Northern Syria — especially Idlib — since its formation in 2017. Under him, the country’s caretaker administration has focused on both internal and external fronts.
First, there has been an effort to present a united Syria.
Leaders of the HTS/ SSG have said that all armed factions that fought to oppose Assad would be brought under the new defence ministry. Mohammad Yasser Ghazal, who has been brought from Idlib to head the Damascus City Council, has said the Salvation Government will be disbanded under the new Syrian Republic.
The new regime has also taken over key apparatus of the Assad state, including the Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) on December 15. The success in commandeering state institutions, albeit with the objective of reforming them, has enabled it to focus on the second, external, aspect.
The caretaker administration has been working for the lifting of international sanctions on the groups that now run Damascus. Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, the leader of the HTS, has secured direct engagements with British, French, and German diplomats, as well as the UN Special Envoy for Syria Geir Pedersen. On December 16, the UN Secretary General “welcomed” the commitment of the caretaker administration to full humanitarian access through all border crossings, continuity of essential services, engagement with the “wider humanitarian community”, and the protection of minorities.
The issue of allowing humanitarian aid to pass through certain border crossings has long been contentious — Russia has used its UN Security Council veto to block the movement of aid without the “authorisation of and in coordination with” the Assad regime. The efforts at ending this impasse help boost the international profile of the new government.
Differences between international and Syrian expectations and objectives continue to persist, however.
So, while the UN readout of Pedersen’s meeting with Jolani highlighted the need for a credible and inclusive political transition based on UNSC Resolution 2254, SANA reported that Jolani had requested certain amendments to “update” the resolution before it could be implemented. Note that the preamble of 2254 calls for the inclusion of women in the UN-facilitated transition.
Indeed, State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller has called for caution in dealing with the new administration, which the US does not yet officially recognise. The international community would be wary after the experience with the Taliban in Afghanistan, who have reneged on several promises even as they continue to seek sanctions relief.
On its part, the new Syrian administration has sought to reduce sources of tension with the West in other areas. Hence, while Jolani has criticised Israel’s fresh occupation of the Golan Heights and its continuing bombardment of Syria, he has sought “diplomatic” solutions instead of committing to a military response that would distract from the focus on rebuilding.
The HTS has at least seven years’ experience in running an administrative arm (SSG) in Idlib that governed while it fought.
The SSG’s rule was a mix of traditional state-like administration and ideological Islamist revivalism. While the latter meant social repression, forced disappearances, and extrajudicial killings, the former allowed alternative avenues for the delivery of state services to the people in the face of sporadic bombardment by the Assad regime.
The local response to the SSG administration in Idlib mimicked that of the larger Syrian population under Assad’s control. The SSG too, faced expressions of popular discontent — including protests over economic and humanitarian distress, and repressive actions of the HTS.
In terms of economic performance, the SSG-governed areas in Idlib did better than regime-held territories. Rebel-held regions were spared some international sanctions such as those imposed under the US Caesar Act on Assad-controlled Syria; however, the HTS’s attempts to better economic conditions through the use of the Turkish Lira since 2020 backfired after Turkey’s economy unravelled in subsequent years.
But the SSG did learn crucial lessons in administration and providing humanitarian services through its experience in running Idlib, especially during crises such as the Covid-19 pandemic and the 2023 Turkey-Syria earthquakes.
SSG leaders commissioned for duties in Damascus are now looking to apply their local experience on a country-wide scale. Their challenge will be to check the jihadist inclinations of some of its affiliated fighters, as well as the potential armed and unarmed resistance to Islamist tendencies of the type seen in Idlib in 2022.
The HTS faces two clearly identifiable challenges going forward.
One, the group must reconcile its brand of ‘pragmatic’ jihadism with the needs of a stable government — this means following norms that are accepted by the international community, but which will necessarily require concessions on their Islamism. Making this concession could mean ceding space to other jihadist forces, including remnants of ISIS, who might seek to fill the Islamist vacuum.
This is the reason that the Taliban ostensibly give for their inability to concede on women’s rights, in the face of threats from groups like the Islamic State Khorasan Province (ISKP). In Syria, the site of jihadist violence by the Islamic State across the 2010s, this threat is arguably much higher.
Second, are the questions of Syria’s relationships with Turkey and Israel.
The decision that Turkey makes on whether to militarily engage the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) will determine its dynamics with HTS-controlled Damascus.
Israel has over the last five days, not only re-occupied the Golan Heights and decisively breached the 1974 Agreement on Disengagement with Syria, but has also focused on destroying Syria’s military, especially its air power. On December 15, the Israeli government made a unilateral announcement that it was looking to build new settlements in the Golan Heights — deemed illegal by the international community, including India — to “double the population” of the region.
The Israeli bombardment of Syria’s military infrastructure arguably presents a lesser threat to the new administration than Israel’s expanded and entrenched occupation of the Golan does. The Israeli occupation, as it intensifies, will be increasingly harder to ignore for both Jolani the ‘pragmatist’ focused on rebuilding Syria and protecting its sovereignty, and Jolani the Islamist militant whose nom de guerre draws from the term ‘Golan’.
It is useful to recollect that Jolani showcased his inherently sectarian motivations years after he rebranded himself as a pragmatist — in a 2020 speech to HTS fighters, he declared: “The enemies of God are striving against the Sunnis not only in al-Shaam (Syria) but all of the region. Therefore, you are not just defending displaced people, but the ummah in its entirety.”
Bashir Ali Abbas is a research associate at the Council for Strategic and Defence Research, New Delhi
