Zero hour in Syria

"Eternity is over," the Syrian intellectual, Yassin al-Haj Saleh, wrote on X on Saturday, along with a message to his wife, who disappeared 11 years ago and was believed to be killed by Islamists: "I wish you could be here."

As a young man, Saleh spent 16 years in Syrian torture prisons, "buried alive without being alive," as he says. Now, from Berlin, he watched as one prison after another was liberated by the advancing Islamists and thousands of those who had disappeared and been declared dead returned, disbelievingly, to life.

"Assad for all eternity," was the mantra of Syrian supporters of the regime, and that eternity lasted 54 years. In 1970, Hafiz al-Assad, the father of the now overthrown President Bashar al-Assad, seized power. He turned the young Syrian Republic, which had been plagued by instability and military coups, into a socialist one-party regime and a highly corrupt police state—the "kingdom of silence", as a Syrian poet once described it.

No one expected this regime, built to last forever, to collapse within ten days–not even the fighters themselves. Militant Islamists from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham began their advance in the northwest of the country on 27 November. Their aim was to stop air strikes by Assad and Russia on Idlib. When they met with little resistance, they marched on, capturing Aleppo, Hama and Homs.

Their triumph emboldened others. Rebel groups in the southern province of Daraa regrouped and advanced from the south on the capital, Damascus; Druze militias in Suwayda drove the regime out of the southeast. In the eastern province of Deir al-Zor, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) captured a crucial border crossing with Iraq. This cut off the supply routes for Shia fighters and weapons from Iran and Iraq.

Neither Russia nor the Islamic Republic of Iran were willing or able to save Assad a second time. Russia was preoccupied with the war in Ukraine, while conflict with Israel had weakened Iran and Hezbollah. In any case, how could they keep a regime in power whose own people were not willing to defend it?

Reason to celebrate?

And so, the Assad regime fell on the night of Sunday, 8 December 2024, and millions of Syrians inside the country, in neighbouring states and around the world, experienced a rollercoaster of emotions. Their enthusiasm, gratitude and joy at the fall of the hated regime were mixed with worries about the future and fear of chaos or another, possibly Islamist, dictatorship.

Can we be happy when Islamists topple Assad statues? Or, in solidarity with the country's minorities—Christians, Kurds, Druze, Ismailis and Shiites—should we fear a takeover by extremists?

Should we thank Turkey for the weapons which helped bring down the regime? Or should President Erdoğan and his mercenaries be condemned for attacking Kurdish fighters and civilians?

And are these Kurdish fighters of the SDF now partners of the West in the fight against IS, and pioneers of a democratic, federal Syria? Or have they long been secretly aligned with the regime after coming to an arrangement with Assad in 2011?

Amid the jubilation, questions like these divide Syrian society, both within the country and in exile. They also overwhelm many Western observers, who then resort to the usual clichés about chaos and civil war, jihadists and theocracy and sweeping friend-or-foe dichotomies. However, Syria can only be understood if we put aside either/or thinking, which reflects an ideological simplification rather than the complex reality on the ground. Instead of drawing quick and one-sided conclusions, it is important to tolerate ambiguity.

When people in Idlib celebrated the death of Hezbollah leader, Hassan Nasrallah, for example, it was because they had suffered for years at the hands of Hezbollah fighters at Assad's side, not because they approved of Israel's military campaigns in Gaza and Lebanon. After all, Israel still occupies not only Palestinian land but also the Syrian Golan Heights.

As a Syrian, you can be against Israel and the Islamic Republic of Iran at the same time; you can support Palestinians and Lebanese and still reject Hezbollah. The same applies to Syrian perceptions of Russia: anyone who has been bombed by Russian fighter jets for nine years will naturally side with the people of Ukraine.

The HTS fighters are militant Islamists, but not jihadists with an international agenda. They are not fighting for a global caliphate, but rather to overthrow the Assad regime and establish an Islamist order of some kind in Syria. Turkey has taken in more than four million Syrians and supports the Syrian opposition in exile, whose interim government was a beacon of hope for the West years ago, but has little legitimacy in Syria itself.

At the same time, Erdoğan's actions have contributed to the fact that some remnants of the once celebrated Free Syrian Army—founded in the summer of 2011 by deserters who wanted to protect demonstrations rather than attack them—have become undisciplined Syrian National Army (SNA) mercenary gangs who kidnap, kill and rape Kurdish women. Hence, even the green-white-black flag flying everywhere can trigger conflicting feelings. Is it still the flag of a revolution for freedom and dignity, or has it become merely the banner of Erdoğan-controlled Islamists or nationalist opponents of the regime?

An understanding of this context aids navigation of current events. Torn-down statues and posters of Assad trigger enthusiasm and satisfaction, while bearded Islamists on pick-up trucks evoke bad memories of IS rule. As displaced people return from Idlib to their hometowns, taking selfies in front of the citadel in Aleppo, inside the Ummayad Mosque in Damascus or next to the clock tower in Homs, and embracing their relatives after eight years in exile, others are fleeing to the coast in fear of the Islamists.

And while political prisoners long thought dead are released from Assad's torture prisons, Kurds in Shahba, north of Aleppo, are packing up their belongings and fleeing in their tens of thousands to the northeast, away from Erdoğan's mercenaries. The happiness of some is the suffering of others, it would seem. The big question is whether the new beginning will be as orderly, conciliatory and bloodless as the end of the Assad regime.

"Syria without sectarianism"

The HTS Islamists are trying to reach an understanding with all sections of society, and their leader Ahmed al-Sharaa (aka Abu Mohammed al-Jolani), is making placatory statements on an almost daily basis. He calls on his fighters to protect state institutions and treat civilians well. Wherever they move in, they first free the prisoners from the regime's dungeons, distribute bread, and take care of electricity and water supplies.

The former al-Qaeda leader has been working on a change of image for years, swapping his turban for a suit and presenting himself as a moderate to be recognised internationally as a point of contact. He broke with IS in 2013, and with al-Qaeda in 2016. Since 2017, he has ruled parts of Idlib province with his "salvation government".

The prime minister of this government, Mohammed al-Bashir, has now taken up official duties in Damascus. HTS has years of experience in local governance and its rule in Idlib is considered authoritarian but effective. Representatives of civil society groups in Idlib say critics are persecuted, arrested and mistreated, but the public administration is said to be functioning. Experts from the International Crisis Group, an NGO specialising in conflict resolution, have been calling for a more pragmatic approach to relations HTS for some time.

Now al-Jolani, on whom the USA has put a $10 million bounty, is touring the country looking like Zelenskyy: simple dark green uniform, short hair, full beard. He speaks of a "united Syria" for all its inhabitants, assures minorities that they have nothing to fear, and calls on the Alawites to work on a "Syria without sectarianism". Al-Jolani also offers cooperation and friendly relations with neighbouring countries and foreign supporters of Assad. He is in direct contact with many actors inside and outside Syria and seems to be successfully building trust.

Of all groups, HTS, an alliance of radical Islamists that once emerged from an al-Qaeda offshoot and is therefore classified as a terrorist organisation by much of the world, is attempting to unite Syrians. Will they be succesful?

The first signs are encouraging. Two weeks after the start of the offensive, the situation in Aleppo is calm. No massacres or looting, just a tense normality. The Christmas trees in the Christian quarters remain standing, church services are taking place and residents report that the electricity supply is now running for more than two hours a day. The Kurds of Aleppo were encouraged by HTS to stay, and SDF units that moved in to protect them have been able to leave the city.

Speaking to CNN, al-Jolani spoke of building new institutions which would represent all sections of society. He said it was not about individuals, but about state structures. Is he trying to shake off the old image of terrorism to mobilise national and international support, only to later establish a radical Islamic order similar to the Taliban regime in Afghanistan? Or does he mean what he says, becoming a Muslim Che Guevara who leads the Syrian revolution, unfinished since 2011, to success? Scepticism is appropriate.

First of all, HTS may have to discipline its allies, namely brigades of the Turkish-funded Syrian National Army (SNA) that are fighting the Kurdish forces of the SDF in the province of Aleppo. Tens of thousands of people—mostly Kurds, but also Yazidis and Christians who were driven out of Afrin by the Turkish invasion in 2018—are now fleeing to the area controlled by the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES). AANES is appealing for international assistance. SNA mercenaries are said to be abducting Kurdish female fighters, looting and displacing civilians. Local sources report that individual SNA commanders have already been arrested by HTS.

However, HTS needs Turkey for its supply of weapons, so it has to take Erdoğan's interests into account. For Turkey, the overthrow of Assad has fundamentally changed the situation. Ankara's two most important wishes—the repatriation of Syrian refugees and the weakening of Kurdish autonomy—could fulfil themselves. Many of the more than four million Syrian refugees will voluntarily return to a liberated Syria once the situation is stable. If the Kurdish-led self-government were to be absorbed into a federal Syria and free itself from the dominance of the Democratic Union Party, the Syrian branch of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), it would send an important signal to Turkey.

HTS could convince Erdoğan that Turkey has nothing to fear from the Kurdish-led SDF. Unlike the Islamists of the SNA, HTS has been seeking to reach an understanding with the Kurds for some time. The two leaders, HTS chief al-Jolani and SDF commander Mazlum Abdi, are in contact and working on pragmatic solutions on the ground.

Kurdish residents of Aleppo were already successfully persuaded to stay in the city after negotiations between the two groups. If this initial coordination were to develop into viable cooperation between the two most powerful armed actors—Islamist HTS and the Kurdish-led SDF—this would make a decisive contribution to stabilising the country.

Can HTS mediate between Erdoğan and the Kurds?

The USA and Europe should also encourage Erdoğan to rethink his approach. Instead of occupying territory in Syria and protecting it with gangs of mercenaries, he could commit himself to reconstruction in Syria, so that a prosperous economic partner is created on Turkey's southern border, instead of a failed state.

If HTS is unable to convince Erdoğan, some hope that the future US president will put his foot down. Donald Trump wants to bring the 900 US soldiers stationed in northeast Syria home and prevent any further American involvement—bad news for the fight against IS, which is gaining strength in the east of the country and will try to take advantage of any power vacuum. During his first term in office, Trump already withdrew troops from Syria, enabling Turkey to capture a strip of land east of the Euphrates between Tal Abyad (Girê Spî) and Ras al-Ain (Serê Kaniyê) in October 2019.

Can the future US administration mediate between Turkey and the Syrian Kurds? Will Trump succeed in bringing Erdoğan and the SDF to the negotiating table?

Much depends on Erdoğan's flexibility and pragmatism. Until recently, the Turkish president had intended to reconcile with Assad and to end the Kurdish autonomy project in north-eastern Syria in collaboration with the regime. But for a normalisation of Syrian-Turkish relations, Assad insisted that Turkey withdraw from the occupied territories, which Ankara rejected. This new beginning in Syria also offers Turkey the chance to rethink its position; there has never been a more favourable opportunity for a Turkish-Kurdish rapprochement.

With Erdoğan's consent, the Syrian opposition in exile in Turkey could reconcile with the Kurdish administration in north-eastern Syria. This closing of ranks among Assad's opponents is the key to positive development in Syria. A new Syria—one that is democratic, federal and inclusive of all population groups—can only arise if Arabs and Kurds work together. The vast majority of Syrians want to see a scenario of this kind—these are the "good guys" who go unnoticed.

This text appeared in an earlier version on 7 December on Zeit Online. Updated for Qantara.de by the author.

This text is an edited translation of the German original. Translated from German by Louise East.