All the pieces that brought down Syria’s Assad

All the pieces that brought down Syria’s Assad

Syrian allies Iran, Russia and Hezbollah failed to answer Assad’s call for help while Syrian Army quickly collapsed under rebel assault

by Daniel Williams December 9, 2024

The triumph of the Islamic insurgency that ousted Syria’s dictator-for-life Bashar al-Assad resulted not only from the weakness of  Syria’s own army but also the unwillingness of allies Iran, the Lebanese militia Hezbollah and Russia to help in an hour of need.

A decade ago, those three allies aided Assad in fighting off an armed uprising by an eclectic group of rebels that emerged out of the Arab Spring civil protests that had swept across the Middle East. With the help of Russian air power and Lebanese ground forces supported by Iran, Assad eventually and brutally drove armed Syrian rebels into a zone in the nation’s far northwest.

Fast forward to the present, only one of those allies was in a position to help Assad counter the latest rebel blitz. But they only offered token help and it was all too little, way too late:

Iran, which heads what it had called a regional “Axis of Resistance” but which is now engaged in a proxy war with Israel, had recently been bruised by Israeli rocket attacks. Tehran told Assad that it would only send some drones and rockets to protect the Syrian leader’s government.

Hezbollah, its top leaders killed during a variety of attacks by Israeli remote weapons and its soldiers bombarded throughout southern Lebanon and in Beirut, dispatched only a pair of “advisors” to Damascus and Homs last Friday (December 6). The rebels took Homs Saturday and then quickly went on to the capital.

Russia, its forces engaged in a slow effort to crush Ukrainian resistance, failed to commit itself to aid Assad, even though Syria hosts a pair of Russian military bases. Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said only the rebel offensive was wrong. “It’s inadmissible to allow the terrorist group to take control of territory,” said Lavrov, who was attending a conference in Qatar with officials from Turkey and Iran meant to find ways to end the conflict in Syria.

“The speed of recent advances made by armed groups in northern Syria came as a surprise for Damascus,” wrote the Carnegie Russia Eurasia Center, a Berlin-based think tank. “But the inability of Bashar al-Assad’s regime to hold back the rebels is easily explainable by the weakness of its allies: Iran and Hezbollah have been damaged by the conflict with Israel, while Russia is preoccupied with its war in Ukraine.”

And what of the Syrian army? It is largely a poorly equipped force composed of Sunni Muslims, the majority population in Syria – the ethnic group that has persistently opposed Assad and often persecuted by him. As rebels advanced beginning late last month, Syrian military units disintegrated, leaving the cities of Aleppo, Hamas and Homs and, eventually, Damascus defenseless.

Analysts said that chronic economic hardships and persistent armed conflict had taken a toll on Syrian society in general and on military morale in particular. The Syrian army is composed mainly of draftees.

“The army’s collapse is a reflection of a more general collapse in Syrian state institutions,” said Jihad Yazigi, editor of the Syria Report. “There is a deep sense in regime areas that things are not only not improving, but that there are no prospects of things getting better.”

“The fact that the security forces melted away is a bit of a surprise, but it’s not a huge surprise,” said Nathanial Hall, a researcher at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, a Washington-based think tank. “They didn’t have the sort of morale to stand up against something like this.”

Outside of his formal military support, Assad also counted on domestic militias that were either unwilling or unable to thwart the rebel onslaught. In addition, he depended on elite Republican Guard units and a vast intelligence service—both of which were heavily staffed by trusted ethnic Alawi personnel in case they were needed to clamp down on domestic opponents.

It’s not clear where the Republican Guard was located as the rebels advanced toward Damascus and where intelligence officers are now.

Syria’s domestic spy system had, in any case, degenerated long before the uprising. “The state security apparatus still rules Syria with an iron fist, but the regime no longer exercises control of the country as it once did. It lacks both the resources and the legitimacy to provide peace and stability,” wrote Chatham House, a research institute based in London.

The winner in this sudden shift of fortunes is a consortium of varied insurgent groups, most of which are based in northeast Syria, though some are also scattered along its far southern and northern borders.

The largest is Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which in English is translated as the Organization for the Liberation of the Levant. HTS was the group that entered Damascus. HTS’ leader, Abu Muhammad al-Jolani, had been previously seen walking down the steps of the massive Citadel castle in Aleppo, mobbed by supporters, when HTS conquered the city last week.

HTS was originally allied with al-Qaeda, which strove to establish an Islamic fundamentalist state in Syria. The group broke with the organization in 2017. In a move to attract foreign tolerance, if not support, HTS has pledged not to carry out terrorist attacks outside Syria. The United States and European Union still designate it as a terrorist organization.

HTS has effectively governed Idlib province in northeast Syria in recent years. During the long civil war, thousands of refugees fled to the Idlib area as well as to Lebanon and Turkey. There were plenty of destitute recruits to fill its ranks.

HTS’ next chore will be to set up governmental control over the territory it dominates. That would presumably exclude coastal Syria and small areas where US forces are based in northern Syria and near Jordan to the south.

Several allies were involved in the recent blitz that ended with the capture of Damascus. One of them, the Syrian Democratic Forces, is a Kurdish group sponsored by the United States. Another, the Syrian National Army, is sponsored by Turkey and employed to fight Kurdish separatists in Syria who might want to help Iraqi Kurdistan secede from Iraq.

Assad ally Russia, on the other hand, operates a naval base on the Mediterranean coast and an army inland. Russian forces were flaunting artillery and rocketry around its bases in recent days, in case rebels might approach.

Meanwhile, in an anodyne statement, Iran called for “the swift end of military conflicts, the prevention of terrorist actions, and the commencement of national dialogue.” Hezbollah has remained silent.

The US government, caught up in a political transition from lame-duck President Joe Biden to President-elect Donald Trump, reacted cautiously to the takeover. The Biden administration said only that it is “closely monitoring the extraordinary events in Syria.”

Trump issued a more effusive message on social media: “Assad is gone. He has fled his country. His protector, Russia, Russia, Russia, led by Vladimir Putin, was not interested in protecting him,” he wrote. “Russia and Iran are in a weakened state right now, one because of Ukraine and a bad economy, the other because of Israel and its fighting success.”

Perhaps forgetting he was not yet president, Trump concluded by saying that the United States would not get involved in any way.

Daniel Williams is a former foreign correspondent for The Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and Miami Herald and an ex-researcher for Human Rights Watch. His book Forsaken: The Persecution of Christians in Today’s Middle East was published by O/R Books. He is currently based in Rome.

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