President Bashar al-Assad’s regime has fallen in Syria, nearly 14 years after an uprising against him began and more than half a century after his father launched a brutal family dictatorship.
Rebels led by the Islamist movement Hayat Tahrir al-Sham took control of Damascus early Sunday after criss-crossing the country for the previous 12 days.
A quick end to permanent tyranny was initiated celebration of many Syrians — but deep uncertainty about what will come next in the country at the strategic heart of the Middle East.
How did we get to this point?
The unusual scenes of rebels and civilian opponents of the regime celebrating across the country are the end of a long arc in the “Arab Spring” uprisings that began at the end of 2010.
At the beginning of 2011. Assad dismissed the possibility that revolutions like those seen in Tunisia and Egypt would sweep through Syria. He wasn’t right. In March of that year, a protest began over the torture of children accused of drawing anti-regime graffiti in the southern city of Deraa. The regime responded by opening fire on the protesters, sparking a wider uprising that soon spread nationally and escalated into civil war.
Assad’s rule came under severe pressure during the early years of the conflict. But support from Iran, its affiliate Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and – since 2015 – Russia has helped turn the conflict in the regime’s favor.
The regime’s calculated release of imprisoned militants helped fuel the rise of jihadist movements, particularly ISIS. Western countries have launched military action including airstrikes against Islamic State following videos of beheadings of Western hostages and deadly terror attacks in European countries.
The combination of events helped Assad regain control of most of Syria’s territory and push Sunni rebel groups into the Turkish-backed northwestern province of Idlib. Turkey has also deployed troops to other northern areas, controlling enclaves housing other rebel factions, while Ankara has sought to push Kurdish militants from its border.
Why is Syria so important in the region?
Syria lies at a regional crossroads, with Turkey to the north, Iraq and Iran to the east, Jordan and the Gulf states to the south, and Lebanon, Israel and the Mediterranean Sea to the west. The capital, Damascus, and the second city of Aleppo in the north have been inhabited for millennia, making them some of the longest inhabited urban centers in the world. Syria has long been attractive to foreign powers, including the Romans, Crusaders and Ottomans, and they have occupied it in whole or in part.
The country gained independence from France after World War II, but political instability ensued, with multiple coup attempts as rival factions fought for control.
The 1963 coup established the one-party rule of the Ba’ath Party. Bashar’s father Hafez al-Assad, the defense minister and former air force commander, took power in 1970. He presented himself as an Arab socialist, nationalist and secularist, but ran Syria as a security state.
Hafez al-Assad ruthlessly crushed discontent, most notoriously in the massacre of tens of thousands of people in the central city of Hama in 1982. Syria had close ties to the Soviet Union before its collapse, with many officials and military officers trained there.
How did Bashar al-Assad rule?
After the death of Hafez al-Assad in 2000, his 34-year-old son Bashar took power. Bashar, a British-educated ophthalmologist married to a British-Syrian banker, projected an image of modernity and reform. He was welcomed by Western leaders such as British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who hosted Assad and his wife Asma in Downing Street in 2002.
The international reaction did not reflect the events in Syria. The regime suppressed a brief wave of freer political activity after the death of Hafez al-Assad known as the Damascus Spring. He continued to hold the country in a tight grip – until the restrained opposition spilled out in 2011.
What was Assad’s power base and what will happen to it now?
The Assad family is part of a sect known as the Alawites, which is centered in the western region of the country including its Mediterranean coast. Alawite beliefs are similar to those of Shia Islam, Iran’s official religion. The dominance of the Alawites in the regime and the lucrative Pajta deals caused deep resentment among many Syrians.
The majority of the population are Arab Sunni Muslims, but the country has many ethnic and religious minorities. It is estimated that up to 10 percent of the population is Kurdish, mainly in the northeast. It was also thought that Christians made up as much as 10 percent of the population before the war.
Many Alawites, including regime opponents, fear reprisals now that Assad is gone. Other Syrians from various backgrounds are nervously waiting to see how the Islamist victors will rule.
What are the wider effects of a rebel takeover?
The conflict in Syria had a global as well as regional impact, involving world powers and causing an international refugee crisis.
Russian military support for Assad has allowed Moscow to consolidate and expand its presence in Syria, a vital Middle Eastern stronghold for President Vladimir Putin. It has a Mediterranean naval base in Tartus and an air base in Khmeimim. The fate of these facilities, as well as other Russian operations in the country, is not clear.
The conflict in Syria has displaced more than 14 million people, according to the UN. Almost 5 million Syrian refugees are registered in Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt alone. More than half of them are in Turkey.
The exodus has caused political tensions in Europe, especially during the peak years of asylum seekers in the mid-2010s. By 2021, Germany has hosted more than half a million Syrian refugees The UN said. Far-right parties in many European countries have grown in popularity with campaigns against the arrival of Syrians and other asylum seekers.
During the war, Syria was a great source of stimulants popular in the Middle East called captagon. This is estimated to have generated billions of dollars for the regime and its allies during the conflict. It is one of many assets up for grabs now that the Assad era is over.
Why are US troops in Syria?
The main US military intervention in Syria came in the 2014 campaign to drive ISIS out of the caliphate it had declared and which spans large parts of Iraq and Syria.
US troops have been working with the Syrian Democratic Forces, dominated by rebel Kurds, in the north and east of the country. A US military contingent remained in Syria after Isis was driven out.
Other US soldiers are stationed at the Tanf garrison near the Iraq-Jordan border. About 900 US troops are now in Syria in total, according to the Pentagon.
The presence of the US military will depend not only on political developments in Damascus, but also on the return of Donald Trump to the post of US president next month.
In 2018, during Trump’s first term, he called for the withdrawal of US troops from Syria — but a full withdrawal never took place, in part because of concerns that Russia and Iran would take advantage.
Cartography by Steven Bernard
