Syria

In recent days, Syrian rebels seized the capital and President Bashar al-Assad fled to Russia, following 13 years of civil war and more than 50 years of his family’s rule. The main rebel commander Ahmed al-Sharaa, better known as Abu Mohammed al-Golani, met with Assad’s Prime Minister Mohammed Jalali and Vice President Faisal Mekdad to discuss arrangements for a transitional government. The leader of the Islamist militant group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) is putting himself forward as the figurehead of a post-Assad future in Syria.

Without his group’s sudden, devastating advance on Aleppo and then into Hama and Homs from their powerbase in the north-western province of Idlb, there is no doubt that the tumultuous events of the past week and a half would not have happened. But other rebel groups rose up too, and it was most likely that sense of the entirety of Syria turning on the regime that so swiftly led to its collapse.

Over to the east, Kurdish-led forces have benefited from the collapse of the Syrian army to take full control of the main city, Deir El-Zour. In the vast Syrian desert, remnants of the so-called Islamic State could also look to take advantage of the situation. And in the far north along the Turkish border, the Syrian National Army, backed by Ankara, could also prove to be a significant player in what happens next.

Al-Golani has for years endeavored to shift the perception of his organization from one to be feared for its ideological zealotry into one that could be accepted by Syrians as a pragmatic alternative to the Assad regime. HTS was set up under a different name, Jabhat al-Nusra, in 2011 as a direct affiliate of al-Qaeda. The leader of the self-styled Islamic State (IS) group, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, was also involved in its formation.

It was proscribed as a terrorist group by the UN, the US, Turkey and other countries, and it remains so. But al-Golani publicly broke ranks with al-Qaeda, dissolved Jabhat al-Nusra and set up a new organization, which took the name Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) when it merged with several other similar groups a year later.

The group has in the past been involved in internecine conflict with other rebel and opposition groups. That could well happen again. The end of President Assad’s rule does not in any way change for now the divisions within Syria, where different groups have held various territories outside government control.

Losers seems to be Iran and Russia, who supported President Assad, with a winner Turkey, which has backed rebel groups, as well as the US which still maintains a military presence in the Kurdish-held east of the country. They are now playing catch up, as they try to set a new strategic course to serve their interests in the aftermath of the downfall of the Assad dynasty.

The group’s leader Golani, who spent years in U.S. custody as an insurgent in Iraq has vowed to rebuild Syria. One of the final areas to fall was the Mediterranean coast, heartland of Assad’s Alawite sect and site of Russia’s naval base. Israel said Assad’s fall was a direct consequence of Israel’s punishing assault on Iran’s Lebanese allies Hezbollah, who had propped up Assad for years but were decimated since September by an Israeli air and ground campaign. Since rebels entered Damascus, Israel has struck sites in Syria. Israeli officials said those air strikes would carry on for days, to keep Assad’s former arsenal out of hostile hands.

The U.S., which has 900 soldiers in Syria alongside Kurdish-led forces in the east, said its forces hit around 75 targets in air strikes on Islamic State on Sunday. The U.S.-backed Kurdish forces have clashed with Turkey-backed rebels in the north. The Turks might go after their arch enemy the Kurds, but the U.S. might resist this and get more involved. Syria will have an uncertain future, but it is an opportunity for the U.S. to get more engaged and strengthen the foothold in the Middle East.