There are some interesting parallels in the collapse of the Assad regime in Syria with what happened in Afghanistan in August 2021. That’s when the government of President Ghani ended ignominiously with him fleeing Kabul as the Taliban entered the gates of the presidential palace.
The billions of dollars poured into Afghanistan by the US did not matter (much less the $3 billion India had invested in that country). The Ghani government just ceased to exist, its army dissolved leaving millions of dollars of equipment for the Taliban to use.
In Syria, there was no Western support of any kind, there was backing from Iran, Lebanon’s Hezbollah and of course Russia. But they never invested or maybe never had the kind of money to invest in Bashar Assad’s regime.
His army or what was left of it after so many years of civil war, vanished underscoring the point that perhaps there was no more will to fight. Reports say sections of the army went over to the Hayat Tahrir-al Sham (HTS), officers went home or some crossed over into Iraq with their families.
The last redoubt remaining in Syria is Assad’s Alawite stronghold on the coast, basically Latakia extending all the way up to Antioch. The Alawites are also present in significant numbers in Hama and Homs.
They are a minority but comprising 10% of the total population second only to the majority Sunnis. The question is whether HTS leader Ali Mohammad al-Jolani will make peace with them. It may not be easy given the long history of Alawite rule over the country when thousands were reportedly jailed, tortured or executed.
How the HTS treats the Alawites could have a bearing on their approach to Lebanon, where the ruling coalition comprises the Shia including the Hezbollah. It could also impact their ties with neighbouring Iraq, again a Shia majority country just getting over the sectarian excesses of the Sunni Islamic State.
What of the Kurds who hold a portion of eastern Syria and are backed by the US? What about the Christians who are scattered all over the country?
To be fair to the HTS, while one has not heard of atrocities being perpetrated on the minorities in Idlib, there are reports of political dissidents being detained, abused and tortured.
Jolani told CNN in an interview done on the day (coincidentally?) Aleppo fell, that people have been held accountable for those action. But it is an authoritarian group. In the government they run in Idlib, there is no representation for minorities or women.
Jolani’s background doesn’t help. He was sent to Syria by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, first “caliph” of the Islamic State. Although he claims to have come a long way from those days, cutting ties with Al Qaeda, styling himself as a revolutionary, wearing suits for the occasion, and solemnly intoning “Diversity is a strength”, doubts remain.
Will he abide by Bashar Assad’s ceasefire with Israel? Or will he open another front against the Jewish state?
Israel has deployed more troops on the Golan Heights, and carried out air strikes on weapons depots in Deraa in southern Syria as well as the Mezzeh airbase near Damascus.
Is his agenda internationalist? An AFP report of May 2015 quoted him as saying that he had no interest in attacking the West, much like the Taliban in Afghanistan. Is this for real or are they biding their time?
