By Husam Dughman
Reminiscent of the sudden speed with which the so-called Arab Spring uprisings popped up and spread out of nowhere in 2010-2011, Hay’at Tahrir Ash-Sham (The Levant Liberation Organization), or HTS, seemingly sprang out of nowhere and succeeded in overthrowing the 53-year-old Assad regime within two weeks. One is inclined to think that this episode will not likely fare any better than the failed “Arab Spring”.
Following similar uprisings in some other Middle Eastern and North African countries, Syrians rose up in 2011 against the then well-entrenched regime of Bashar Al-Assad who did everything in his power to crush that uprising. He was motivated by two factors: The first was the tyrannical nature of his rule, and the second was his deep-seated fear that the Sunni majority would massacre the Alawite minority to which he belonged. To begin with, Syrians did not want anyone else to intervene in their fight against Assad; they believed that they could achieve victory on their own, in contrast to the Libyan rebels who had benefitted from the UN-authorized NATO air campaign which later helped them overcome the Qaddafi regime. However, as little by little Syrians began to realize that removing Assad was not as easy as they had assumed, they started to turn to the West for military support. That was not forthcoming, however, partly because China and Russia- who had earlier been persuaded, not without difficulty, by NATO countries of the need to intervene in Libya- threatened to veto a similar intervention in Syria, and partly because by then, it had become gradually apparent that the “Arab Spring” in other countries was not leading to the establishment of secular liberal democracies, but rather to Islamists having a strong political influence in Tunisia, Libya, and Egypt, something which dissuaded Western countries in particular from seeking to intervene militarily in Syria. Sure enough, and before long, the Syrian rebels fighting the Assad regime presented themselves in the form of Jihadi, Islamist organizations, including Jabhat An-Nusra (The Nusra Front) and Harakat Ahrar Ash-Sham Al-Islamiya (The Islamic Movement of the Freemen of the Levant). Israel, too, became worried. For the Israelis, Assad was the lesser of the two evils compared to his Islamist opponents. But that is not all.
Assad profited a great deal from unstinted Russian and Iranian support (directly and through Hezbollah) to help him stay in power. Some Syrian minorities who were worried about an Islamist takeover of their country stood by Assad’s side, especially Christians and his own Alawite sect. Even some of Assad’s secular enemies, particularly women, stepped back once they realized that Assad could potentially be replaced by Islamists. In the end, Assad mostly prevailed over his adversaries. Syria then began to enter into a phase of relative stability. The 7th of October 2023 terrorist attack on Israel by Hamas changed all that. The following day, on the 8th of October, Hezbollah launched an unprovoked attack on Israel with a barrage of missiles. Hezbollah stated that it would not stop its attacks against Israel unless Israel ceased its offensive in Gaza. The fight between Israel and Hezbollah lasted for about a year. Once it had destroyed Hamas’s organized military fighting capabilities, Israel turned to Hezbollah. It then launched attacks against that organization which resulted in the decapitation of its leadership and the demolition of much of its weaponry. In addition, and in retaliation for Iran’s extensive missile attacks on it in April and October 2024, Israel launched powerful attacks against Iran, something which greatly weakened that country as a fighting force. The incapacitation of Iran and its proxy Hezbollah meant that the Assad regime became fragile. The coup de grâce occurred when it became patently clear that Russia, too, had become distracted and somewhat weakened by its Ukraine war to such an extent that it was no longer able or willing to prop up the Assad regime. The fall of that regime means that Russia has now effectively lost a strategic position in the Middle East from which it could have continued to project its influence and power in that region and beyond, including its warm-water naval base in Tartus and its Hmeimim air base in Latakia. As for Iran, it has now lost a land where it would have been able to easily access Lebanon in order to support Hezbollah, among other things. Both countries have now paid a very heavy price in terms of prestige and credibility. Moreover, the vulnerability of the Assad regime was further aggravated by the obvious weakness of the demoralized and underpaid Syrian army. Turkey took note of the whole arena.
For years on end, Turkey had been supporting all sorts of fighters opposed to the Assad regime. It has had difficult and unstable relations with HTS. However, in spite of the fact that it considers HTS to be a terrorist organization- just like the US, the UN, and the EU do- Turkey had recently been doing much work to strengthen and modernize HTS. This has turned that organization into a much more effective fighting force. In providing support for the HTS, Turkey was motivated by at least three elements: Firstly, Erdogan has for many years had a visceral hatred of Assad; he wanted him out at all costs. Secondly, Erdogan wanted to have a significant level of clout within Syria that would be strong enough to stymie any Kurdish participation in the governance of that country, particularly in consideration of his own intense hostility to the national aspirations of the Kurds of Turkey and elsewhere, and of the possibility that a strong Kurdish presence in Syria could potentially end up in a solid alliance with the Kurds of Turkey with a view to establishing an independent state of Kurdistan. Thirdly, Erdogan wants the over three million Syrian refugees in Turkey back in Syria. At a time of a serious economic downturn in Turkey, the general Turkish population has by and large become very much antagonistic to the presence of all those Syrians in their country, something which has lately cost Erdogan some popular support.
Throughout Syria’s civil war, Israel had always preferred Assad to some unknown quantity, especially Islamists. Yet, paradoxically, Israel’s necessary war against Hezbollah and Iran has partly led to the demise of the Assad regime and its replacement by an Al-Qaeda affiliate, the rebels’ public declarations notwithstanding. Israel has reacted to those events in various ways: Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has expressed a willingness to have friendly relations with the HTS as long as the latter was willing to do the same with Israel. Israel has now temporarily occupied the Syrian part of a demilitarized buffer zone in the Golan Heights following its abandonment by Assad’s Syrian troops. Netanyahu has said that it was a temporary move until better arrangements could be found. The Israeli air force has lately been pummelling Syrian sites suspected of having lethal chemical and conventional weapons which Israel deems too dangerous for them to fall into the hands of the new governors of Syria.
It is no secret that HTS has a shady background, to say the least. It evolved mainly out of the Islamist Jabhat An-Nusra which, years ago, had associated itself- to a certain extent- with the Islamic State group before choosing to affiliate itself with Al-Qaeda. Since then, HTS’s leader, Abu Muhammad Al-Julani, has tried to distance himself from his organization’s dark past, rebrand it as a moderate force, and reinvent himself as a reasonable, sensible leader. Many remain unconvinced, not least because there have been recent reports of extensive violations of human rights as well as economic mismanagement by HTS in the Syrian province of Idlib. HTS also seems to have a problem of coherence and tightness. Within the various groups of rebels who have now overrun large swathes of Syrian territory, HTS is the dominant- but definitely not the only- rebel formation. There are other factions who have worked with HTS, but they are not HTS per se. The nature of their loyalty, intentions, and aims is not yet clear.
Given the wariness, caution, and hesitancy with which the Western world has reacted to Al-Julani and HTS, it is quite likely that Turkey may be the only major player for now that will show any sympathy, however limited, towards that organization. In the event that Western countries continue to shun HTS, it is not inconceivable that that organization might then turn to China for military and political support. If that happened, the Chinese would in all likelihood welcome such friendly overtures, given that those would present them for the first time ever with a unique opportunity to gain a foothold in the Middle East, as well as exert great influence and hold much sway on events in that strategically important region. It remains to be seen, however, as to whether- if the aforementioned development materialized- China would be able to effectively tame the wild nature of HTS.
The two most corrosive, vicious, and destructive political forces that have wreaked havoc on the modern Middle East have, beyond a shadow of a doubt, been pan-Arabism- which produced tyrants such as Nasser, Qaddafi, Saddam Hussein, and Assad- and Islamism- which has produced the Muslim Brotherhood (including Hamas), the Salafi jihadis (including Al-Qaeda and the Islamic State group), in addition to the Islamic Republic of Iran, Hezbollah, the Houthis, and the Taliban. If pan-Arabists, such as the Assad regime, have been replaced in Syria by an Al-Qaeda affiliate, such as HTS, that is hardly a cause for celebration. One suspects that before long, many Syrians will say to themselves, “Be careful what you wish for; it may just come true.”
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About the author
Husam Dughman is a Libyan Canadian political scientist, religious thinker, linguist, and an expert on immigrants and refugees. He received his formal education in Libya and the UK. Mr. Dughman later worked as a university professor of political science in Libya. Due to confrontations with the Qaddafi regime, he resigned from his university position and subsequently worked in legal translation. Mr. Dughman has been working with new immigrant and refugee services in both Canada and the US since 2006.
Husam Dughman has published a book entitled Tête-à-tête with Muhammad. He has also written numerous articles on politics and religion. He has just completed the full manuscript of a book which he hopes to have published in the near future. The new book is an in-depth examination of Islam, Christianity, Judaism, and the non-religious school of thought.
