How Syria rebels’ stars aligned for Assad’s ouster

Top rebel commander Abu Mohammed al-Golani greets the crowd at Ummayad Mosque in Damascus, after Syrian rebels announced that they have ousted President Bashar al-Assad, Syria December 8, 2024. (REUTERS)
Top rebel commander Abu Mohammed al-Golani greets the crowd at Ummayad Mosque in Damascus, after Syrian rebels announced that they have ousted President Bashar al-Assad, Syria December 8, 2024. (REUTERS)
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Updated 09 December 2024
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How Syria rebels’ stars aligned for Assad’s ouster

How Syria rebels’ stars aligned for Assad’s ouster
  • Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, speaking in Doha on Sunday, said Erdogan’s effort in recent months to reach out to Assad failed and Turkiye “knew something was coming”

ISTANBUL/DAMASCUS: After 13 years of civil war, Syria’s opposition militias sensed an opportunity to loosen President Bashar Assad’s grip on power when, about six months ago, they communicated to Turkiye plans for a major offensive and felt they had received its tacit approval, two sources with knowledge of the planning said. Launched barely two weeks ago, the operation’s speedy success in achieving its initial goal — seizing Syria’s second city, Aleppo — took almost everybody by surprise. From there, in a little more than a week, the rebel alliance reached Damascus and on Sunday put an end to five decades of Assad family rule. The lightning advance relied on an almost perfect alignment of stars for the forces opposed to Assad: his army was demoralized and exhausted; his main allies, Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, were severely weakened by conflict with Israel; and his other key military supporter, Russia, was distracted and losing interest.
There was no way the rebels could go ahead without first notifying Turkiye, which has been a main backer of the Syrian opposition from the war’s earliest days, said the sources, a diplomat in the region and a member of the Syrian opposition.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Rebels told Turkiye about attack plan six months ago

• Operation helped by Assad’s weakened allies and demoralized army

• Hezbollah’s withdrawal from Syria aided rebels, impacting Iranian influence

• Turkiye emerges as strong player in Syria

Turkiye has troops on the ground in northwest Syria, and provides support to some of the rebels who were intending to take part, including the Syrian National Army (SNA) — though it considers the main faction in the alliance, Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), to be a terror group. The rebels’ bold plan was the brainchild of HTS and its leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa, better known as Abu Mohammed Al-Golani, the diplomat said.
Because of his former ties to Al-Qaeda, Golani is designated as a terrorist by Washington, Europe and Turkiye. However, over the past decade, HTS, previously known as the Nusra Front, has tried to moderate its image, while running a quasi-state centered on Idlib, where, experts say, it levied taxes on commercial activities and the population.
Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan’s government, which struck a deal with Russia in 2020 to de-escalate fighting in northwestern Syria, has long opposed such a major rebel offensive, fearing it would lead to a new wave of refugees crossing its border.
However, the rebels sensed a stiffening of Ankara’s stance toward Assad earlier this year, the sources said, after he rebuffed repeated overtures from Erdogan aimed at advancing a political solution to the military stalemate, which has left Syria divided between the regime and a patchwork of rebel groups with an array of foreign backers.
The Syrian opposition source said the rebels had shown Turkiye details of the planning, after Ankara’s attempts to engage Assad had failed.
The message was: “That other path hasn’t worked for years — so try ours. You don’t have to do anything, just don’t intervene.” Reuters was unable to determine the exact nature of the communications. Hadi Al-Bahra, head of the internationally-recognized Syrian opposition abroad, told Reuters last week that HTS and SNA had had “limited” planning together ahead of the operation and agreed to “achieve cooperation and not clash with each other.” He added that Turkiye’s military saw what the armed groups were doing and discussing.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, speaking in Doha on Sunday, said Erdogan’s effort in recent months to reach out to Assad failed and Turkiye “knew something was coming.”
However, Turkiye’s deputy minister for foreign affairs, Nuh Yilmaz, told a conference on Middle Eastern affairs in Bahrain on Sunday that Ankara was not behind the offensive, and did not provide its consent, saying it was concerned about instability.
Turkiye’s foreign and defense ministries did not respond directly to Reuters questions about an HTS-Ankara understanding about the Aleppo operation. In reply to questions about Turkiye’s awareness of battlefield preparations, a Turkish official told Reuters that the HTS “does not receive orders or direction from us (and) does not coordinate its operations with us either.”
The official said that “in that sense” it would not be correct to say that the operation in Aleppo was carried out with Turkiye’s approval or green light. Turkish intelligence agency MIT did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Reuters was unable to reach a representative for HTS.

VULNERABLE
The rebels struck when Assad was at his most vulnerable.
Distracted by wars elsewhere, his military allies Russia, Iran, and Lebanon’s Hezbollah failed to mobilize the kind of decisive firepower that had propped him up for years.
Syria’s weak armed forces were unable to resist. A regime source told Reuters that tanks and planes were left with no fuel because of corruption and looting — an illustration of just how hollowed out the Syrian state had become.
Over the past two years morale had severely eroded in the army, said the source, who requested anonymity because of fear of retribution.
Aron Lund, a fellow at Century International, a Middle-East focused think-tank, said the HTS-led coalition was stronger and more coherent than any previous rebel force during the war, “and a lot of that is Abu Mohammed Al-Golani’s doing.” But, he said, the regime’s weakness was the deciding factor.
“After they lost Aleppo like that, regime forces never recovered and the more the rebels advanced, the weaker Assad’s army got,” he said.
The pace of the rebel advances, with Hama being captured on Dec. 5 and Homs falling on or around Sunday at the same time government forces lost Damascus, exceeded expectations.
“There was a window of opportunity but no one expected the regime to crumble this fast. Everyone expected some fight,” said Bassam Al-Kuwatli, president of the Syrian Liberal Party, a small opposition group, who is based outside Syria.
A US official said on condition of anonymity that while Washington had been aware of Turkiye’s overall support for the rebels, it was not informed of any tacit Turkish approval for the Aleppo offensive. The White House National Security Council did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Turkiye’s role.
US President-elect Donald Trump on Sunday said that Russia’s abandonment of Assad led to his downfall, adding that Moscow never should have protected him in the first place and then lost interest because of a war in Ukraine that never should have started.
Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday noted his country’s role in weakening Hezbollah, which sources told Reuters withdrew its remaining troops from Syria on Saturday.

GAZA FALLOUT
Sources familiar with Hezbollah deployments said the Iran-backed group, which propped up Assad early in the war, had already withdrawn many of its elite fighters from Syria over the last year to support the group as it waged hostilities with Israel — a conflict that spilled over from the Gaza war. Israel dealt Hezbollah heavy blows, particularly after launching an offensive in September, killing the group’s leader Hassan Nasrallah and many of its commanders and fighters. The rebel offensive in Syria began the same day as a ceasefire came into effect in the Lebanon conflict on Nov. 27. The sources familiar with Hezbollah said it did not want to engage in big battles in Syria as the group focused on starting a long road to recovery from the heavy blows.
For the rebel alliance, the withdrawal of Hezbollah presented a valuable opportunity. “We just wanted a fair fight between us and the regime,” the Syrian opposition source said.
Assad’s fall marks a major blow to Iranian influence in the Middle East, coming so swiftly after the killing of Nasrallah and the damage done by Israel to Hezbollah.
Turkiye, on the other hand, now appears to be Syria’s most powerful external player, with troops on the ground and access to the rebel leaders.
In addition to securing the return of Syrian refugees, Turkiye’s objectives include curbing the power of Syrian Kurdish groups that control wide areas of northeast Syria and are backed by the United States. Ankara deems them to be terrorists.
As part of the initial offensive, the Turkiye-backed SNA seized swathes of territory, including the city of Tel Refaat, from US-backed Kurdish forces. On Sunday, a Turkish security source said the rebels entered the northern city of Manbij after pushing the Kurds back again.
“Turkiye is the biggest outside winner here. Erdogan turned out to be on the right — or at least winning — side of history here because his proxies in Syria won the day,” said Birol Baskan, Turkiye-based political scientist and former non-resident scholar at Middle East Institute.

 


Malala Yousafzai says ‘Israel has decimated the entire education system’ in Gaza

Malala Yousafzai says ‘Israel has decimated the entire education system’ in Gaza
Updated 9 sec ago
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Malala Yousafzai says ‘Israel has decimated the entire education system’ in Gaza

Malala Yousafzai says ‘Israel has decimated the entire education system’ in Gaza
  • Nobel Peace laureate Malala Yousafzai on Sunday said she would continue to call out Israel’s violations of international law and human rights in Gaza
ISLAMABAD: Nobel Peace laureate Malala Yousafzai on Sunday said she would continue to call out Israel’s violations of international law and human rights in Gaza.
The education advocate was speaking at a global summit on girls’ education in Muslim nations hosted by Pakistan and attended by representatives from dozens of countries.
“In Gaza, Israel has decimated the entire education system,” she said in an address to the conference.
“They have bombed all universities, destroyed more than 90 percent of schools, and indiscriminately attacked civilians sheltering in school buildings.
“I will continue to call out Israel’s violations of international law and human rights.”
Yousafzai was shot when she was a 15-year-old schoolgirl by Pakistani militants enraged by her education activism.
She made a remarkable recovery after being evacuated to the United Kingdom and went on to become the youngest ever Nobel Prize winner at the age of 17.
“Palestinian children have lost their lives and future. A Palestinian girl cannot have the future she deserves if her school is bombed and her family is killed,” she added.
The war in Gaza was sparked by Hamas’s attack on October 7, 2023, which resulted in the deaths of 1,208 people on the Israeli side, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally of official Israeli figures.
During the attack, Palestinian militants took 251 people hostage, of whom 94 remain in the Gaza Strip, including 34 the Israeli military has declared dead.
Israel’s attack on Gaza has killed 46,537 people, the majority civilians, according to figures from the health ministry in the Hamas-run territory considered reliable by the United Nations.

Israel’s Netanyahu sends Mossad director to Gaza ceasefire talks in Qatar

Israel’s Netanyahu sends Mossad director to Gaza ceasefire talks in Qatar
Updated 12 January 2025
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Israel’s Netanyahu sends Mossad director to Gaza ceasefire talks in Qatar

Israel’s Netanyahu sends Mossad director to Gaza ceasefire talks in Qatar
  • His presence means high-level Israeli officials who would need to sign off on any agreement are now involved
  • Just one brief ceasefire has been achieved in 15 months of Israel's war on Gaza which has killed over 44,000

JERUSALEM: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has approved sending the director of the Mossad foreign intelligence agency to ceasefire negotiations in Qatar in a sign of progress in talks on the war in Gaza.

Netanyahu’s office announced the decision Saturday. It was not immediately clear when David Barnea would travel to Qatar’s capital, Doha, site of the latest round of indirect talks between Israel and the Hamas militant group. His presence means high-level Israeli officials who would need to sign off on any agreement are now involved.

Just one brief ceasefire has been achieved in 15 months of war, and that occurred in the earliest weeks of fighting. The talks mediated by the United States, Egypt and Qatar have repeatedly stalled since then.

Netanyahu has insisted on destroying Hamas’ ability to fight in Gaza. Hamas has insisted on a full Israeli troop withdrawal from the largely devastated territory. On Thursday, Gaza’s Health Ministry said over 46,000 Palestinians have been killed in the war.


Syria de facto leader Al-Sharaa phones congratulations to Lebanon’s newly elected President Aoun

Syria de facto leader Al-Sharaa phones congratulations to Lebanon’s newly elected President Aoun
Updated 12 January 2025
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Syria de facto leader Al-Sharaa phones congratulations to Lebanon’s newly elected President Aoun

Syria de facto leader Al-Sharaa phones congratulations to Lebanon’s newly elected President Aoun
  • Call followed talks between Al-Sharaa and Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati in Damascus
  • Al-Sharaa said he hoped Joseph Aoun’s presidency would usher in an era of stability in Lebanon

DAMASCUS: Syria’s de facto leader Ahmed Al-Sharaa called newly elected Lebanese President Joseph Aoun on the phone and congratulated him for assuming the presidency, Syria’s ruling general command reported on Sunday.

The phone call followed talks between Al-Sharaa and Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati, who was in the Syrian capital on Saturday with a mission to restore ties between the two neighbors.

Mikati’s visit was the first by a Lebanese head of government to Damascus since the Syrian civil war started in 2011.

Previous Lebanese governments refrained from visits to Syria amid tensions at home over militant group Hezbollah’s support for then ruler Bashar Assad during the conflict.

Syria’s new leader Al-Sharaa said he hoped to turn over a new leaf in relations, days after crisis-hit Lebanon finally elected a president this week following two years of deadlock.

“There will be long-term strategic relations between us and Lebanon. We and Lebanon have great shared interests,” Sharaa said in a joint press conference with Mikati.

It was time to “give the Syrian and Lebanese people a chance to build a positive relationship,” he said, adding he hoped Joseph Aoun’s presidency would usher in an era of stability in Lebanon.

Sharaa said the new Syria would “stay at equal distance from all” in Lebanon, and “try to solve problems through negotiations and dialogue.”

Mikati said ties should be based on “mutual respect, equality and national sovereignty.”

Syria was the dominant power in Lebanon for three decades under the Assad family, with president Hafez Assad intervening in its 1975-1990 civil war and his son Bashar Assad only withdrawing Syria’s troops in 2005 following mass protests triggered by the assassination of Lebanese ex-prime minister Rafic Hariri.

After mending ties with Damascus, his son Saad Hariri was the last Lebanese premier to visit the Syrian capital in 2010 before the civil war.

Taking office on Thursday, Aoun swore he would seize the “historic opportunity to start serious... dialogue with the Syrian state.”

With Hezbollah weakened after two months of full-scale war with Israel late last year and Assad now gone, Syrian and Lebanese leaders seem eager to work to solve long-pending issues.

Among them is the presence of some two million Syrian refugees Lebanon says have sought shelter there since Syria’s war started.

Their return to Syria had become “an urgent matter in the interest of both countries,” Mikati said.
Lebanese authorities have long complained that hosting so many Syrians has become a burden for the tiny Mediterranean country which since 2019 has been wracked by its worst-ever economic crisis.
Mikati also said it was a priority “to draw up the land and sea borders between Lebanon and Syria,” calling for creation of a joint committee to discuss the matter.
Under Assad, Syria repeatedly refused to delimit its borders with its neighbor.
Lebanon has hoped to draw the maritime border so it can begin offshore gas extraction after reaching a similar agreement with Israel in 2022.

The Lebanese premier said both sides had stressed the need for “complete control of (land) borders, especially over illicit border points, to stem smuggling.”
Syria shares a 330-kilometer (205-mile) border with Syria with no official demarcation at several points, making it porous and prone to smuggling.
Syria imposed new restrictions on the entry of Lebanese citizens last week, following what Lebanon’s army said was a border skirmish with unnamed armed Syrians.
Lebanese nationals had previously been allowed into Syria without a visa.
Several foreign dignitaries have headed to Damascus in recent weeks to meet the new leaders, with a delegation from Oman also in town earlier Saturday.
Unlike other Arab Gulf states, Oman never severed diplomatic ties with Assad during the war.
Italy’s Foreign Minister Antonio Tajani visited Damascus on Friday, while France’s Jean-Noel Barrot and his German counterpart Annalena Baerbock did last week.
Shaibani has visited Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Jordan this month, and said Friday he would head to Europe soon.
Syria’s war has killed more than half a million people and ravaged the country’s economy since starting in 2011 with the brutal crackdown of anti-Assad protests.
 


Eight killed, 50 injured in explosion of gas station, gas storage tank in Yemen’s Al-Bayda, sources say

Eight killed, 50 injured in explosion of gas station, gas storage tank in Yemen’s Al-Bayda, sources say
Updated 12 January 2025
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Eight killed, 50 injured in explosion of gas station, gas storage tank in Yemen’s Al-Bayda, sources say

Eight killed, 50 injured in explosion of gas station, gas storage tank in Yemen’s Al-Bayda, sources say

CAIRO: Eight people were killed and 50 others injured in an explosion of a gas station and a gas storage tank in Yemen’s Al-Bayda province, a medical source and a local official said.

 


Russia eyes Libya to replace Syria as Africa launchpad

Russia eyes Libya to replace Syria as Africa launchpad
Updated 12 January 2025
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Russia eyes Libya to replace Syria as Africa launchpad

Russia eyes Libya to replace Syria as Africa launchpad
  • On December 18 the Wall Street Journal, citing Libyan and American officials, said there had been a transfer of Russian radars and defense systems from Syria to Libya, including S-300 and S-400 anti-aircraft batteries

PARIS: The fall of Russian ally Bashar Assad in Syria has disrupted the Kremlin’s strategy not only for the Mediterranean but also for Africa, pushing it to focus on Libya as a potential foothold, experts say.
Russia runs a military port and an air base on the Syrian coast, designed to facilitate its operations in the Mediterranean, the Middle East, and sub-Saharan Africa, especially the Sahel, Sudan, and the Central African Republic.
However, this model is in jeopardy with the abrupt departure of the Syrian ruler.
Although Syria’s new leader, Ahmed Al-Sharaa, has called Russia an “important country,” saying “we do not want Russia to leave Syria in the way that some wish,” the reshuffling of cards in Syria is pushing Russia to seek a strategic retreat toward Libya.
In Libya, Russian mercenaries already support Khalifa Haftar, a field marshal controlling the east of the country, against the Tripoli-based Government of National Unity (GNU) which has UN recognition and is supported by Turkiye.
“The goal is notably to preserve the ongoing Russian missions in Africa,” said Jalel Harchaoui at the RUSI think tank in the UK.
“It’s a self-preservation reflex” for Russia which is anxious “to mitigate the deterioration of its position in Syria,” he told AFP.
In May 2024, Swiss investigative consortium “All Eyes On Wagner” identified Russian activities at around 10 Libyan sites, including the port of Tobruk, where military equipment was delivered in February and April of last year.
There were around 800 Russian troops present in February 2024, and 1,800 in May.
On December 18 the Wall Street Journal, citing Libyan and American officials, said there had been a transfer of Russian radars and defense systems from Syria to Libya, including S-300 and S-400 anti-aircraft batteries.

Since Assad’s fall on December 8, “a notable volume of Russian military resources has been shipped to Libya from Belarus and Russia,” said Harchaoui, adding there had been troop transfers as well.
Ukrainian intelligence claimed on January 3 that Moscow planned “to use Sparta and Sparta II cargo ships to transport military equipment and weapons” to Libya.
Beyond simply representing a necessary replacement of “one proxy with another,” the shift is a quest for “continuity,” said expert Emadeddin Badi on the Atlantic Council’s website, underscoring Libya’s role as “a component of a long-standing strategy to expand Moscow’s strategic foothold in the region.”

According to Badi, “Assad offered Moscow a foothold against NATO’s eastern flank and a stage to test military capabilities.”
Haftar, he said, presents a similar opportunity, “a means to disrupt western interests, exploit Libya’s fractured politics, and extend Moscow’s influence into Africa.”
The Tripoli government and Italy, Libya’s former colonial master, have expressed concern over Russian movements, closely observed by the European Union and NATO.
Several sources say the United States has tried to persuade Haftar to deny the Russians a permanent installation at the port of Tobruk that they have coveted since 2023.
It seems already clear the Kremlin will struggle to find the same level of ease in Libya that it had during Assad’s reign.
“Syria was convenient,” said Ulf Laessing, the Bamako-based head of the Sahel program at the Konrad Adenauer Foundation.
“It was this black box with no Western diplomats, no journalists. They could basically do what they wanted,” he told AFP.
“But in Libya, it will be much more complicated. It’s difficult to keep things secret there and Russian presence will be much more visible,” he said.
Moscow will also have to contend with other powers, including Turkiye, which is allied with the GNU, as well as Egypt and the United Arab Emirates, who are patrons of Haftar.
In Libya, torn into two blocs since the ouster of longtime leader Muammar Qaddafi in February 2011, “everybody’s trying to work with both sides,” said Laessing.
Over the past year, even Turkiye has moved closer to Haftar, seeking potential cooperation on economic projects and diplomatic exchanges.
Russia will also be mindful to have a plan B should things go wrong for its Libyan ally.
“We must not repeat the mistake made in Syria, betting on a local dictator without an alternative,” said Vlad Shlepchenko, military correspondent for the pro-Kremlin media Tsargrad.
Haftar, meanwhile, is unlikely to want to turn his back on western countries whose tacit support he has enjoyed.
“There are probably limits to what the Russians can do in Libya,” said Laessing.