“Nobody is interested in seeing Syria united and retaining its sovereignty because there is a lot of friction, lots of killing of minorities, it was the Alawites not long ago, and is the Druze now,” says Delhi-based Syrian journalist Dr Waiel Awwad.
Dr Awwad was a guest on The Gist, analysing the situation in his homeland seven months after the overthrow of the Bashar Assad regime by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a salafist-jihadist group that evolved from the Al Qaida affiliated Jabhat al-Nusra.
The HTS is backed by Turkey, he said and said it represents one of two “projects” currently underway in Syria. The other is by Israel which does not want to see an Islamist group in power in Damascus. The Jewish state’s military support for the ethnic Druze in recent fighting against Damascus-backed Bedouin tribes, signals its refusal to accept the HTS.
Israel is now demanding the creation of a demilitarized zone 65 km deep inside southern Syria, that includes the Golan Heights which has been under Israeli occupation since the 1967 war, and formally annexed in 1981.
“I think the plan is to break Syria into a Druze state with the Alawites on the seaside (west) and the Kurdish forces in the north east,” Awwad said. The HTS is fighting back supporting the Bedouin tribes.
“It’s an open Pandora’s box and there will be lots of killing and Syria will disintegrate in no time. Also oil was discovered in the Golan in 2014 by an American compan, which means Israel on the pretext of protecting the Druze, will seek to control the oil fields.”
HTS leader and Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa is feeling the heat. He hopes to reshape Syria into an Islamic emirate and has the backing of Turkey, also the 70,000 odd mercenaries who helped overthrow Assad.
The conflicting ambitions of the major powers in Syria point to one direction only: the likely emergence of a weak Syrian state at the mercy of Al Qaida affiliated fighters and of course Israel.
Tune in for more in this conversation with Dr Waiel Awwad, Delhi-based Syrian journalist.
