Syria After Asad: A Conflict Without Closure

On Sunday, December 8, the Asad regime collapsed, losing the capital, Damascus, to rebel forces. During the past week HTS (Hayʾat Tahrir al-Sham)[1] led Syria's rebels on a lightning offensive, capturing all of Syria’s major cities: Aleppo, Homs, Hama, and Damascus. Regime forces quickly retreated, withdrawing from large swathes of territory they could no longer hold or defend. The HTS offensive surprised the regime, exposing Asad’s tenuous grip on power. The question of whether there would be a repeat of the 2015 Iranian-Russian military intervention was rendered moot by the speed of events on the ground.[2] The 2015 intervention to reinforce the Asad regime began months earlier.[3] There was simply no time, resources, or manpower to rescue the Asad regime this time.[4] As Ghassan Charbel, the Editor-in-Chief of the pan-Arab daily al-Sharq al-Awsat, wrote, Asad’s fall is an “earthquake (zilzal),” and it is the end of an era (haqmatun kamilatun tuwiyat).[5]

The civil war in Syria was just one component of a multidimensional conflict, that began in 2011. It led to approximately 5.5 million refugees (with the majority residing in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, and Germany), to more than 12 million Syrians displaced from their homes, and to what is estimated at more than 600,000 deaths. Despite the magnitude of these figures, the scale of death, destruction, and human suffering caused by the war cannot be adequately quantified.

The war began as a popular uprising in 2011 and evolved into a civil war between the Bashar al-Asad regime and its opposition. The Syrian war is best understood as five interlocking conflicts:

1. A civil war between Asad/Iran/Hizballah/Russia on one side, and the armed Sunni opposition groups (led by groups rooted in Salafi-Jihadi ideology) backed by Turkey.
2. A war between the Salafi-Jihadi groups: HTS, al-Qaʿida, the Islamic State, and others.
3. A war between Syrian Kurds/U.S.-led coalition and the Islamic State.
4. A war between Turkey and the Syrian Kurds.
5. A war between Israel/U.S. and Iran in Syria.

Last week’s developments have ended the core conflict: the civil war between the Asad regime and the largely Sunni opposition in Syria. However, Turkey has renewed its war against the Syrian Kurds during the past week, using the Syrian National Army (SNA) and Turkish air power to attack Manbij and Kobani, which lie in territory controlled by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).[6] And, on Sunday, December 8, U.S. forces carried out “dozens” of precision airstrikes on Islamic State camps in central Syria.[7] The fate of the ʿAlawi minority and the state’s Ba‘th Party infrastructure remains unclear. Whether Russia and Iran will regroup and seek to project influence through former regime loyalists is also an important question. In other words, the Asad era is over, but Syria must now grapple with the unresolved dimensions of the conflict, as well as the enduring strategic interests of foreign powers.

A New Map?

The HTS-led offensive is redrawing the political map of Syria. The regime’s Syrian Arab Army (SAA) has collapsed and regime loyalists may seek refuge in the mountains of Jabal al-Ansariyah, the ʿAlawi hinterland. It is unclear whether regime loyalists will attempt to defend a rump statelet that includes the strategically valuable port cities of Latakia and Tartus.[8] In Latakia, opposition forces have already celebrated the downfall of the regime in parts of the city. Russia has withdrawn from its naval base in Tartus and Hmeymim air base outside of Latakia.[9] The HTS-led rebels now control the demographic spine of central Syria, extending from Aleppo to Damascus, north to south. Rebels, who are not affiliated with HTS-led groups, have also driven the regime out of southwest Syria (the Hauran region), including the Nassib border crossing with Jordan. In the east, the rebels have recaptured Palmyra, and regime forces have abandoned the Euphrates corridor, including Raqqa, Deir Ez-Zour, and the strategic border with Iraq, Abukamal. Much of this territory along the Euphrates River is now controlled by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF),[10] which have been backed by the United States. The SDF also controls much of northeastern Syria, which includes Manbij in the west and Qamishli and Hasaka in the east.[11] The Turkey-backed Syrian National Army (SNA), a component of the Syrian rebels, controls Afrin and the area north of Aleppo up to the Manbij countryside, as well as a strip of territory further east, in Hasaka Province. These territories were seized and occupied by Turkish-backed forces during three separate military offensives between 2016 and 2019, which sought to shatter Kurdish autonomy and territorial contiguity along Turkey’s southern border. Turkey views the Kurdish leadership in Syria as an extension of the PKK (Kurdistan Workers’ Party), which is recognized as a terrorist organization by the United States.[12]

The emerging lines of control in Syria bear some similarity to the borders established during the pre-independence French Mandate after World War I, particularly between 1925 and 1936.[13] The French divided Lebanon and Syria into statelets that separated the Sunni majority from what was perceived as its vulnerable “compact minorities”—ʿAlawis, Druze, and Maronite Christians.[14] The French also encouraged a large Kurdish migration from Turkey into northern Syria during the late 1920s and 1930s (along with Turkmen, Assyrians, and Armenians).[15] During the inter-war period, the Sunni nationalist elite sought to unite Syria, absorbing the minorities and their territorial patrimony into an independent Syria. Today, Syria’s rebels, who are led by Salafi-Jihadi Ahmad al-Sharʿa (formerly known as Abu Mohammad al-Jolani), have diverse (if not contradictory) aims, but they appear united in seeking to overcome the territorial divisions imposed by foreign powers. However, the Salafi-Jihadi rebels have a history of intra-jihadi war that was a major component of the Syrian conflict. It is not clear whether the Islamic State, al-Qaʿida, or even HTS cadres will accept Jolani’s Syria-centric vision.[16] Jolani has used rhetoric infused with nationalist themes (despite rejecting notions of popular sovereignty) to promote the idea of a unified and sovereign Syria, liberated from foreign domination.[17]

Foreign Powers

Since the 2017 “de-escalation” process that followed the joint Russian-Iranian military intervention in September 2015, Turkey has served as an informal sponsor and guardian for the Syrian rebels. Its military forces prevented the Asad regime, Russia, and Iran from destroying the jihadi-rebel safe haven in Idlib Province in 2019 and again in 2020 and 2021. Turkey has also built an army of loyal Syrian rebels (the Syrian National Army – SNA), which it had used to occupy and hold Syrian territory. In 2022, Turkey’s president, Recep Tayip Erdoğan, floated a plan to build 200,000 homes in northern Syria to repatriate and resettle Syrian refugees living in Turkey.[18] Turkey hosts more than 3 million refugees from Syria. Now that Asad’s regime has fallen and Russia has withdrawn its forces, Turkey is likely to try and achieve its longstanding goals of dismantling Kurdish-led SDF’s territorial control in north and eastern Syria; and repatriating as many Syrian refugees living in Turkey as possible.[19] On Sunday, December 7, Erdoğan’s public statement appeared to reflect the approach of the Syrian rebel leadership, “Syria belongs to the Syrians, with all its ethnic, sectarian and religious components. The Syrian people will determine the future of their country.”[20] For the past five years, Russia and the United States have prevented Turkey and its Syrian National Army (SNA) from invading SDF-controlled territory. The United States is in the midst of a presidential transition, and Asad and Russia are no longer in a position to obstruct Erdoğan’s plans for Syria.

Russia was a key backer of the Asad regime. Its air power became an instrument of terror, allowing the Asad to decimate the civilian population supporting the Syrian opposition. Politically, Russia provided important support that made it difficult for the U.N. special envoys for Syria to force a political transition on the Asad regime during the “Constitutional Committee” negotiations that included 45 delegates representing the regime, the opposition, and civil society in Syria.[21] Russia also facilitated the Astana process, which included Turkey and Iran, and was hosted by Kazakhstan. It worked in parallel to the U.N. Constitutional Committee and held twenty-one rounds of talks between 2017 and 2023. It was legitimized by the U.N. special envoys, who claimed it supported the official constitutional committee track, but the special envoys had little choice but to accept the competing format, over which they had no influence. In practice, the Astana process provided a forum for Russia to manage the competing interests of Turkey and Iran in Syria. Now that Russia and Iran have largely withdrawn their forces from Syria, Turkey will feel less constrained in pursuing its interests in Syria.

Iran reportedly invested $50 billion dollars in financial support for the Asad regime during the past 13 years.[22] Qasem Soleimani of Iran’s Qods Force, along with Hasan Nasrallah of Hizballah, played critical roles in providing Asad’s Syrian Arab Army with the ground forces it needed to defeat the opposition between 2015 and 2019.[23] Soleimani was assassinated by the United States in January 2020, and Israel killed Nasrallah in October 2024, during its war with Hizballah. Iran’s forces in Syria were degraded by regular Israeli air strikes throughout 2024, as Israel sought to break the “unity of fronts” between Iran and its military partners in Syria, Lebanon, and Gaza. Israel also aimed to destroy Iran’s land bridge, connecting Tehran to Lebanon through western Iraq and eastern Syria. Iran used this overland route to deliver precision missiles and other advanced weapons to Hizballah in Lebanon and Syria.[24] Iran also invested considerable resources in demographically re-engineering Syria’s geography, attempting to dilute the Sunni population and increase the number of Shiʿis in strategically important areas bordering Lebanon. Iran systematically exported its revolutionary Shiʿi identity to Syria by financing social, cultural, and para-military institutions based on the Islamic Republic’s model.[25] Israel’s war in Lebanon in October 2024 decimated Hizballah’s ranks and deprived the Asad regime of valuable Hizballah manpower, leaving it vulnerable to the HTS-led offensive that toppled the regime. Iran appears to have withdrawn its forces from eastern and central Syria, retreating across the border into Iraq for now.[26]

Israel fought its “campaign between the wars” against Iran in Syria for more than a decade.[27] Following the defeat of the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq in 2018 and 2019, Israel’s military operations targeting Iran in Syria and beyond escalated in line with increased Iranian efforts to expand its military presence in Syria between 2019 and October 2023. Israel also provided humanitarian assistance to civilians in southern Syria during the war in what became known in Israel as “Operation Good Neighbor” between 2013 and 2018.[28] The operation reflected Israel’s de facto policy of nonintervention in the civil war component of the Syrian conflict. More recently, the blows Israel’s military and intelligence operations against Hizballah and Iran in Lebanon and Syria in September and October 2024, left the Asad regime vulnerable to rebel forces.[29] Since the fall of the Asad regime, Israel has seized Mount Hermon (Jabal al-Shaykh) in Syria. Command of the highest peak in Syria provides Israel with the ability to more effectively monitor and respond to missile and drone attacks originating from Syrian and Lebanese territory. Israel also carried out a wide-ranging series of airstrikes in Syria to destroy much of the regime’s remaining air force, naval, and army hardware, including any unconventional weapons facilities.[30] When asked about Israel on December 11, Jolani is reported to have said that Syria “isn’t ready to enter wars and has no intentions to enter wars in the future. On the contrary the source of concern was the presence of Iran and Hizballah.”[31]

U.S. President-elect Trump issued a blunt statement about Syria on Saturday, December 6. He made it clear he wanted the United States to stay out of the conflict in Syria. During Trump’s first term, on December 19, 2018, he decided to withdraw all 2,000 U.S. troops from Syria, leading Secretary of Defense James Mattis and Special Envoy Brett McGurk to resign.[32] Trump’s decision followed an unscripted impromptu phone conversation between Trump and Turkey’s President Erdoğan. However, despite the U.S.’s 2019 troop reductions in Syria, today the United States maintains approximately 900 troops in Syria as part of a counterterrorism, anti-Islamic State mandate. The U.S. Department of Defense provided $398 million in 2024 to support this mission, with $156 million earmarked for the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in 2024 and $148 million budgeted for 2025.[33] Mike Waltz, Trump’s incoming National Security Advisor (NSA), was a member of the U.S. Congress’s Kurdish Caucus. Turkey’s surrogate forces in Syria, the SNA, have already begun assaults on Manbij and Kobani. It seems reasonable to guess that Erdoğan will again try and convince Trump to withdraw American support for the SDF. The relationship between Trump and Erdoğan may also determine if the U.S. continues to fight the Islamic State in Syria “by, with, and through” the SDF.[34] The SDF also administers and guards the 27 prison facilities and two detention camps in Syria that hold the 10,000 captured Islamic State fighters and 60,000 members of their families.[35] In other words, there is concern that if the United States withdraws its support for the SDF, and Turkey finishes dismantling Kurdish control over eastern Syria, it could open the door to an Islamic State comeback in Syria.[36]

Conclusion

On Sunday, December 7, Abu Mohammad al-Jolani (Ahmed al-Sharʿa) delivered a victory speech to Syria at the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, which was built in the eighth century by the Umayyad Caliph al-Walid bin ‘Abd al-Malik. The mosque had been built on the site of the Christian Cathedral of St. John and the pagan Temple of Jupiter before it. This 1,300-year-old Sunni landmark had been in Iranian hands during Syria’s long years of civil war. Jolani’s brief remarks (less than 3 minutes) condemned Iran’s “greed” and its support for Asad’s sectarianism in Syria.

Jolani wants to reunite Syria and end foreign (Iranian) domination. But modern Syria does not have a strong track-record of unity. Before the 54-year Asad era, Syria was plagued by instability and domestic upheaval. And foreign influence and interference were features of its domestic politics.

Turkey, Jolani’s patron and sponsor, has outmaneuvered Russia and Iran, who were weakened and distracted by the wars with Ukraine and Israel. Turkey claims it seeks to ensure “Syria's territorial integrity” and its “long-term transformation into a democratic, unitary state, far from any ambitions of occupation,”[37] but it occupies large chunks of Syrian territory in the north and its military is working to roll-back Kurdish control over eastern Syria. One could forgive an oversimplified and mistaken reading of this past week’s events as Syria trading Iran’s Shiʿi patronage for Turkey’s Sunni patronage. The reality, of course, is far more complex.

The Asad era in Syria has passed, and the Syrian opposition has prevailed. But the unresolved conflicts of the multidimensional Syrian war continue. The struggle for Syria is not yet over.

Brandon Friedman is a Senior Research Fellow at the Moshe Dayan Center (MDC) for Middle Eastern and African Studies, Tel Aviv University.

*The opinions expressed in MDC publications are the authors’ alone.