Politics

The struggle for Syria after Assad

The Assad family’s 54-year rule over Syria has collapsed, as has the Iranian axis. In control of Damascus, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and its allied factions can write a new chapter in Syrian history

Aref Tammawi/AFP

Rebel forces shoot in the air as they celebrate in the central Syrian city of Homs early on December 8, 2024, after they entered Syria's third city overnight on their way to deposing Bashar al-Assad.

The struggle for Syria after Assad

Al Majalla - London

last update on 02 Jan 2025

Bashar al-Assad has fallen. Syria has wrenched itself free of his family’s grip and life has reaffirmed some enduring truths: that the people will prevail, unconquerable and resilient. Brutality may delay things, but it cannot reverse the tide of history. Dictators beware—downfall is your destiny.

Syria has turned the page on half a century of Assad presidency and 14 years of desperate struggle since the uprising in 2011. In the end, it took just 11 days for Assad to fly to Moscow, letting Ahmad al-Sharaa enter Damascus.

The scenes will not quickly be forgotten—rebel forces roaming presidential palaces, exploring hidden tunnels, as prisoners, long denied freedom, stepped out into the sunlight, breathing liberty at last.

In the end, Assad’s fall was swift, the ‘Battle of Aleppo’ starkly revealing that the Syrian army was both unable and unwilling to fight. The scale of its collapses west of Aleppo was staggering and surprised everyone. One after another, defensive lines fell, military units disbanded, and major cities were lost in rapid succession.

Iran and Russia

In recent months, Iran and its proxies have suffered significant setbacks, with Israeli strikes having severely weakened Hezbollah, the Houthis, and Hamas. At least it still had influence in Syria, or so it thought.

Bashar al-Assad’s escape symbolised the culmination of these strategic blows. Together with the killing in September of Hezbollah’s Hassan Nasrallah, it marked a turning point for the embattled ‘axis of resistance.’

In the end, it took just 11 days before Bashar al-Assad flew to Moscow, leaving Ahmad al-Sharaa to enter Damascus

It is a far cry from 2012, when Quds Force commander Qassem Soleimani arrived in Syria with weapons and militias, even personally leading several battles. Last month, as Assad's soldiers ran from battle, Soleimani's successor Ismail Qaani was notably absent from the battlefield.

Also absent was Assad's former protector-in-chief, Russia. Since his intervention in Ukraine in 2022, Russian President Vladimir Putin has had other priorities, notably those in his own backyard.

Amr Abdallah Dalsh/Reuters — Khaled Brigade, a part of Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), hold a military parade, after Syria's Bashar al-Assad was ousted, in Damascus on 27 December 2024.

Back in 2015, when Soleimani visited, they together devised a strategy: Russia would provide air cover while Iran would supply militias to bolster Assad's soldiers on the ground.

It worked, saving Assad's presidency by letting him reclaim 63% of Syria's territory. At one point, he had controlled a mere 10%. For his help, Putin secured two strategic military bases: an air base in Latakia and a naval base in Tartus.

In recent months, Iran and its proxies have suffered significant setbacks. Assad's escape symbolised the culmination of these strategic blows

By the end of 2024, as fighters closed in on Aleppo, Iran no longer had Soleimani to rally the militias, nor did Putin have his trusted ally, Sergei Shoigu, to send in Russian jets. Both Moscow and Tehran were preoccupied. It is then that Assad—sustained financially by the illicit production of the drug Captagon—knew that he was on his own.

Now the so-called Captagon Republic has come to an end, Syrians can turn their attention to the pressing questions and immense challenges they face, not least Israel's deep incursion into Syrian territory, an Iran weakened by Assad's departure, and Turkish influence expanding.

The future of the fighting factions in the south and north, and of the Kurds—supported by the US but targeted by Ankara—all demands urgent attention. Al Majalla dedicates its January 2025 cover story to exploring these pivotal questions.

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