Fourteen years ago, I stopped traveling to Syria. A security agency was suspicious of my visits because my passport listed my profession as a journalist. So I felt a bit anxious when, entering from Lebanon only a few days after the Assad regime was toppled last December, a gunman at the border inspected our car. The driver told the smiling, bearded militiaman what my profession was, and he waived us in without even checking the passports. “Journalists are most welcome,” he said, “we are at your service.”
As we drove to Damascus, I quickly noted the glaring absence: not a single billboard with the smug face of ousted president Bashar Al-Assad, nor the conspicuous statues of his father, Hafez al-Assad, who established the family’s autocratic rule in 1970. Gone were the banners, slogans of allegiance to the eternal leaders and vacuous Arab-nationalist propaganda about sacrifice, unity, freedom and homeland. Gone was the menacing slogan, “Assad Forever”. This forced “eternity” had indeed come to an end.
We headed straight to a predominantly Christian neighbourhood in Damascus, curious to see how people would be celebrating the first Assad-less Christmas, only two weeks after Islamist militias had taken over the capital. Armed militiamen blocked the way, telling us politely that the main street was pedestrian-only due to the festivities.
That evening, and during the following days, we came across many soldiers from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). Earlier that month, the former al-Qaeda affiliate had led other factions from north-west Syria to Damascus. They seized Assad-controlled cities one after the other, reaching the capital within two weeks. Now these militiamen were patrolling Syria’s main metropolises, mingling with the people and sometimes intervening to prevent infractions by overzealous comrades. In one instance, HTS members behaved too aggressively upon entering a bar. On another, militiamen from another group burned down a Christmas tree.
On those occasions, apologies were made, but the conciliatory approach would soon give way to terrible violence: three months later, starting on 6th March, dozens of HTS soldiers were ambushed and killed by gunmen reportedly loyal to the fallen Assad regime. Subsequent clashes in north-western Syria led to as many as 1,000 deaths, more than half believed to be civilians. In some cases, Syrians were reportedly executed based on their ethnic origin. According to the UN, there were areas where Sunni gunmen loyal to the HTS-led interim government went from house to house, asking the inhabitants: are you Sunni or Alawite?
Advocates of the new regime blamed undisciplined militiamen and old grudges for the brutality, saying the violence erupted after an organised rebellion by Assad loyalists. The interim government announced a fact-finding commission.
Back in December, before the country’s sectarian animosities had come so violently to the surface, I encountered people across Syria who had long been deprived of numerous freedoms. They were making up for several lost decades. In front of Damascus’s old railway station, a vigil commemorated the hundreds of thousands of Syrians killed, missing and disappeared during that time—the vast majority at the hands of the fallen regime. At a cafe, youth gathered to debate the best political and economic routes ahead. Some voiced concerns about HTS and its Islamist beliefs, but many more seemed worried about skyrocketing inflation and grinding poverty. Portending the violence in March, still others worried about rising attacks on minorities.
For the first time in decades, Syrians were thinking of how to address their past and shape their future—and they were doing so openly. There were myriad questions to answer. Who would rule the country? What to do with the emaciated economy? What to do with the foreign military presence in the country (Israeli, American and Russian)? What about the other armed militias that control various parts of the country (Kurds, Turkish-backed Islamists, etc)? And what about the Assad army and paramilitary groups who had been responsible for so many deaths?
For most Sunnis, the majority of Syria’s population, it was high time for accountability. The Assads were members of the minority Shia Alawite sect, and they had enshrined sectarianism. There were certainly many Alawites who suffered for their political opposition to the Assads, and also many Sunnis who worked for the regime. But individuals from the Alawite minority dominated the army, security and other important state agencies. The Assads were also the gatekeepers of the crony capitalism managed by close family members and acolytes. This meant that most of those who ultimately controlled the state and the economy were Alawites.
Now, with the Assads gone, women activists, religious and ethnic minorities and secular Syrians all fear their new political freedoms could be jeopardised by conservative Islamist restrictions. Indeed, on 14th March, HTS’s leader Ahmed al-Sharaa—who was formerly known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, and who had himself named head of state after Assad’s ousting—signed a temporary constitution which cites Islamic jurisprudence as the country’s “main source of legislation”. But many also fear that Syria’s new rulers could stall the political transition, re-establishing Assad-esque repression in majoritarian Sunni garb. The fallen regime had cynically deployed secularist and Arab nationalist claims while deepening divisions and persecuting Syria’s Kurds. This is Assad’s persisting legacy: a state eviscerated of public function, and a people long deprived of the capacity to organise and participate as citizens in peaceful politics. Still, the country’s complex challenges are more than a simple sectarian divide. Syria is its own story.
Walking through Syrian streets, I frequently meet HTS soldiers. They are mostly young men in their twenties or early thirties, well-groomed in military uniform. They watch over protesters in city squares, roam busy markets and sometimes stop for photos. They hand their rifles over to young people who pose for pictures while holding the guns.
There have been many reports and verified videos of violations committed by HTS soldiers and militias allied to the group. Until early March, these were mostly sporadic, and the HTS leadership blamed them on bad apples. All that changed when violence erupted in the predominantly Alawite coastal areas in the north-west that month.
When the opposition forces were closing in on 8th December 2024, Assad ignominiously fled to Russia. He went in the middle of the night, leaving behind his commanders and tens of thousands of his troops, who were later retired by the new regime. These former officers lost out in terms of status, and financially. They fear being held accountable for Assad-era atrocities. Many of these officers are Alawite, and some were reportedly behind the attacks on HTS soldiers in early March. Misinformation has played a role in fuelling these deep-seated grudges and fanning worries about retribution. Since Assad fell, social media has been rife with sectarian incitement to violence, hate speech and dangerous falsehoods, according to Verify-Sy, Syria’s main fact-checking outfit.
In media interviews and official statements, Sharaa has taken pains to come across as moderate and pragmatic. (At the end of January, HTS was formally dissolved, but it remains the de facto ruling party in the new transitional state.) Until March’s terrible clashes, HTS had shown political skill, engaging with public sentiment, diverse communities and international stakeholders. Even before the killing was over in the coastal areas, Sharaa had signed a remarkable deal with Syria’s Kurds outlining a potentially historic solution to one of the country’s most vexing challenges: Kurdish separatism. But this relative success does not mask Syria’s extreme fragility. HTS’s mishandling of the security challenges on the coast may have led to the deaths of many civilians, including women and children.
Nor does Sharaa’s apparent ability to “do politics” reassure those familiar with HTS’s extreme past. Verified videos from 2015, for example, show the current interim government’s minister of justice in his judicial capacity in an HTS-controlled part of Syria. He is seen reading out a death sentence before two women are publicly gunned down for “prostitution”.
Even with HTS’s new brand, which it does seem to have genuinely embraced several years ago, Sharaa needs concrete success in the coming months. How else can his government resuscitate a crumbling economy and address calls by Kurd and Druze minorities for more autonomy? More urgently, after the violence on the coast, HTS needs to show it can control its own people and disband some of its more militant and sectarian allied factions, or even that it can integrate them into the national army or police. In short, HTS needs to show it has transitioned from a militia into a regular army. It needs to show it is led by statesmen who can share authority with every element of Syria’s multi-ethnic population.
The interim president’s apparent ability to ‘do politics’ does not reassure those familiar with his organisation’s extreme past
Analysts argue that HTS and its allied factions managed to overturn Assad because of his failures, rather than their own strategic superiority. In December, thousands of HTS fighters faced demoralised and disjointed army and pro-regime militias. After years of negligence and corruption, Syria’s military was in a terrible state.
And it couldn’t rely on old friends. The Lebanese Shia militia Hezbollah, which had supported Assad for many years, was heavily depleted in late 2024, after weeks of ceaseless Israeli bombing. These attacks killed and injured thousands of Lebanese civilians, as well as many Hezbollah fighters and most of the group’s commanders, including iconic long-time leader Hassan Nasrallah. So, by 27th November, as opposition forces advanced on Aleppo, Hezbollah did not come to the rescue.
HTS’s victorious march to Damascus took less than two weeks, but the preparations, militarily and ideologically, took several years. In that time, the organisation moved away from transnational armed jihad (of the kind practised by al-Qaeda) to a more moderate Islamism that was focused on Syria. HTS also acquired governance experience, ruling over a sizable civilian population in Syria’s north-western Idlib province for some years.
Sharaa (then still known as Jolani) severed ties with al-Qaeda in 2016, not long before HTS’s official formation. HTS went on to engage in bloody confrontations with Islamic State (IS), adopted a milder school of Islamic jurisprudence, and vastly improved the way it treated minorities in the territories it controlled. HTS was still socially conservative, but it ceased to be a menace to neighbouring countries and to the US, adopting a Syria-only project that seemed cognisant of the diverse ethnic and sectarian mosaic of the country. Though not very permissive of political opposition, HTS managed its territories relatively well, compared with the rest of the country, with an effective civil administration providing social services and guaranteeing security.
HTS needs to show it has transitioned from a militia into a regular army. It needs to show it is led by statesmen who can share authority with every element of Syria’s multi-ethnic population.
All of this makes HTS’s recent statements to the international community about building a state for all Syrians unsurprising. However, running a state differs somewhat from administering a predominantly conservative, rural and Sunni province. There could also be a lingering influence of HTS’s discarded extremist past, both from hardline factions and disgruntled radicals, especially foreign fighters who came to Syria from places like Turkey, Egypt and Jordan, as well as Chinese Uighurs and central Asian fighters, to join in jihad.
Still, the main challenge for Sharaa and his comrades is how to govern as the honeymoon period ends and new regional, ethnic and sectarian opposition factions emerge—not to mention clashing foreign demands—while the economy remains weak.
A visitor to Damascus—one of Syria’s least war-damaged cities—might be deceived by the crowded restaurants and bars in the more affluent neighbourhoods. But poverty is etched into the city’s weary streets. It is evident in its crumbling infrastructure, in conversations about meagre salaries, and in the many stories about disintegrating public services, not to mention a creeping sense of insecurity. Syria’s cities go very dark after sunset.
A short trip to the suburbs of Douma, Darayya and Yarmouk reveals the horrors wrought by the Assad regime: on trash-strewn streets, with pulverised buildings on both sides, I felt transported to the scenes of death and destruction in Gaza. It was in these areas on the outskirts of Damascus and other major urban centres that the anti-Assad uprising first took hold in 2011. Assad may be gone, but the poverty and marginalisation—the jarring legacy of Assad’s brutal reprisals—persist.
Deprivation is not merely a consequence of Syria’s war; it was one of its leading causes. Even before 2011, youth unemployment was high. That year, it soared from 20 to 30 per cent, while around 33 per cent of Syrians were living in poverty. Unprecedented droughts between 2006 and 2011 forced millions to migrate from rural areas to cities in search of work and basic services. Since 2011, Syria’s economy has shrunk by 85 per cent, leaving it valued between $7bn and $9bn. Poverty affects 70-90 per cent of the country’s 23m citizens.
As this deterioration persisted, Syria’s elite led increasingly extravagant lives. After 2011, some of these extremely rich individuals relocated to Dubai. A new generation then emerged, working directly for the regime, with First Lady Asma al-Assad playing a key role in their rise. The Assad government evolved into a full-blown mafia, with the palace at its helm and a network of security officials and businessmen safeguarding its interests. These elites controlled major contracts, imports, exports and public services. They secured their wealth through monopolies, backroom deals and extortion. Sweeping US-led international sanctions, imposed in response to the regime’s widespread human rights violations and ties to Iran, deepened the economic crisis while barely hurting Assad and his acolytes.
Syria may need hundreds of billions of dollars for reconstruction—funds that will not materialise without a stable political system and the removal of US sanctions
The new de facto government under HTS has attempted to boost its popularity by pledging to raise the salaries of 1.25m government employees by up to 400 per cent. This could cost as much as US$120m per month. External aid promises have emerged from Qatar and Saudi Arabia, but cash has not really flown in yet. Syria may need hundreds of billions of dollars for reconstruction—funds that will not materialise without a stable political system and the removal of US sanctions. Earlier this year, Washington announced a temporary six-month easing of sanctions, but the measure is far from sufficient. Sanctions still restrict energy-related investments in a country where electricity is cut off for most of the day.
Syria imports most of the fuel it needs owing to the collapse of its domestic oil industry. Current production stands at 120,000 barrels per day, according to Syrian economist Karam Shaar, which is 30 per cent of Syria’s pre-2011 production. A decade ago, US-led forces heavily bombed IS-controlled oil fields in Syria, and now they need major rehabilitation. The Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), US allies, control most of these fields and, according to Shaar, use primitive methods that have “reduced production capacity”. Under the deal signed between HTS and the Kurds this month, SDF forces would be integrated into those of the state, as would border crossings, an airport and oil and gas fields that the SDF controls in its territory in Syria.
Economist Jihad Yazigi, editor-in-chief of Syria Report, insists that rebuilding Syria is impossible “without a central role for the state to manage and distribute funds fairly and oversee large projects”. But the state is a mess, and lacks clear economic and social policies.
Foreign embassies in Damascus seem quiet. Some, like the Iranian mission, have been abandoned. But beyond the capital there are various foreign presences. To the east, there is a US military base at al-Tanf. Heading north-west, there is a Russian naval base at Tartus. Further north, outside Latakia, lies Russia’s Hmeimim airbase. Along the northern border are Turkish bases and personnel working with rebel factions. Meanwhile, Israeli forces are not only present in the Golan Heights, occupied since 1967, but also in additional territories seized after Assad’s fall.
Russia established the Hmeimim airbase in 2015, while its Tartus naval facilities date back to 1971. Moscow is in talks with Syria’s de facto government about the future of its military bases, as well as oil concessions for Russian firms. The former Soviet Union was a major ally of the Assads from the 1960s until the communist empire started to disintegrate in the early 1990s. Ten years ago, the Kremlin welcomed the opportunity to regain a more assertive presence in the Middle East in exchange for keeping Assad afloat. Russian military aircraft, intelligence and advisers helped the regime up until it fell.
For now, the Kremlin would be content with keeping these bases. It could use the Assads, still in Moscow, as a bargaining chip. Syria’s current defence minister, Murhaf Abu Qasra, told the Washington Post in early February that the interim government “is open to letting Russia keep its air and naval bases... as long as any agreement with the Kremlin serves the country’s interests”.
Turkey, meanwhile, has a special relationship with HTS and its leader. In February, Sharaa went to Ankara on his first foreign tour, also visiting Riyadh. Turkey wants to reduce the influence of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a militant group whose goal is a Kurdish homeland in parts of Iraq, Syria and Turkey. The PKK still has significant influence over the SDF, which works closely with the US against the remnants of IS in Syria. In January a Turkish official said Ankara aims to raise trade volume from US$2.5bn to US$10bn in the medium term, mostly with Turkish exports.
About 2,000 US troops, alongside the SDF, currently secure prisons and camps in north-eastern Syria that house approximately 9,000 IS fighters and up to 40,000 of their family members. Recently, the US carried out numerous airstrikes against what it claims are IS targets. Despite its weakened state, IS and the threats it poses remain the main focus of the US military in Syria. There are fears that the current chaos could create an opportunity for a resurgence. The new Trump administration would like to withdraw forces and reduce costs, however, leaving the IS threat for Ankara and Damascus to deal with. Washington has urged the Syrian government to take responsibility for this issue, suggesting it as a possible condition for lifting economic sanctions.
Syria’s new government also has Israel to contend with. Since the 1973 war between Israel on one side and Egypt and Syria on the other, both Assad rulers repeatedly vowed to retaliate against Israeli attacks “at the right time”. That moment never came. In fact, the Assads made sure that not a single bullet was fired at Israel from Syrian territory. In recent years, Israel has increasingly operated inside Syria, assassinating Palestinian, Lebanese and Iranian militant leaders and destroying military sites, depots and facilities it claimed were serving Hezbollah and Iran. As such, Assad’s fall was an alarming development for Netanyahu, who immediately launched strikes against the remnants of Syria’s already weakened army and what Israel claimed were Syria’s chemical weapons stockpiles.
The fallen regime evaded justice for its use of chemical weapons against its own citizens. However, the prospect of these weapons falling into the hands of armed militias was deemed unacceptable to Israel—and probably to the US and other western powers, who refrained from condemning Israeli strikes on Syria in December, or Israel’s subsequent advances into Syrian territories. Israel is likely to illegally retain this hilly area as a bargaining chip in potential negotiations with Syria.
For neighbouring Lebanon, its relationship with Syria has long been dictated by Hezbollah. The militia sent thousands of fighters over a decade to support Assad, committing numerous atrocities. However, Hezbollah’s role has now significantly diminished, given its weakened status, and a newly installed government in Beirut could have a different set of priorities. Lebanon wants to see up to one million Syrian refugees go back home.
Jordan also seeks a stable Syria, particularly to secure its borders and curb smuggling. Saudi Arabia is the primary market for Captagon, an amphetamine-type stimulant produced in Syria and smuggled through Jordan, prompting Riyadh to enforce strict border controls. Jordan also prizes security cooperation in order to prevent the infiltration of guns and jihadi militants, particularly Jordanian fighters affiliated with IS and other extremist groups. In the coming months, a crucial priority will be the repatriation of 730,000 registered Syrian refugees in Jordan. Strengthening trade relations with Syria will also be a key objective.
Many Syrians fear the new government could attempt to grant amnesties for crimes committed since 2011, because some of its members have themselves been implicated in those crimes
The first Arab capital to host Syria’s new—officially interim—leader, however, was Riyadh. Thanks to immense wealth and vast markets, Saudi Arabia, led by an ambitious crown prince, is emerging as a dominant political and economic power in the region. Damascus seeks the financial and political backing of Riyadh, which is working to replace Tehran’s influence in the Levant. Qatar, meanwhile, was the first country to endorse Syria’s new leadership, with Emir Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani arriving in Damascus within hours of Sharaa formally taking office in January. They discussed reconstruction and how Doha can support the bankrupt state.
Among the Gulf states, only the UAE remains hesitant about Syria’s transition. Abu Dhabi has historically opposed any government with Islamist leanings, particularly since the Arab Spring. The UAE has long shown little interest in state-building or political stability when Islamists are involved. Instead, it has actively supported ethnic or national anti-Islamist armed militias, as seen in Libya, Sudan and Yemen. However, Sharaa has clarified from the outset that his ambitions remain within Syria’s borders, and that regional stability is a top priority.
Since the fall of the regime, families of the disappeared, former detainees, and survivors of Assad’s brutal security apparatus have been calling for justice. Estimates suggest that at least 110,00 people went missing between 2011 and 2024, with thousands more allegedly abducted by opposition militias during the same period. The victims include Sunnis, Alawites, Kurds, Christians, Druze, artists, clergy, lawyers, politicians, activists, men, women and children.
These figures do not include individuals forcibly disappeared by Syrian security forces since the 1970s, or those gunned down in earlier atrocities, such as the infamous 1982 Hama massacre when as many as 40,000 people, mostly civilians, were killed by the Syrian army. Nor do they account for the estimated half a million deaths that have occurred since 2011, most by Assad regime violence. The initial peaceful protests were brutally quelled, and Assad would go on to use indiscriminate bombing and chemical weapons, destroying whole towns and neighbourhoods in his bid to stay in power.
Mohammed Al Abdallah, director of the Syrian Centre for Justice and Accountability, tells me that “the sheer scale of documented atrocities—torture, mass executions and disappearances—reveals a horrifying level of brutality that often lacked any clear political purpose beyond absolute control and the eradication of dissent”. The collapse of the Assad regime leaves behind an enormous burden. Overcoming this legacy will require extraordinary national efforts of accountability and reconciliation.
Fadel Abdul Ghany, founder and director of the Syrian Network for Human Rights, asserts that “accountability is indispensable”. His organisation has a list of about 16,200 individuals who had allegedly been involved in violations throughout the many years that Bashar al-Assad was in power. Many Syrians fear the HTS-led administration could attempt to grant a general amnesty for all violations committed since 2011, because some members of the country’s new government have themselves been implicated in some of those crimes.
Thousands of individuals were involved in committing horrific violations over the years in Syria. Retaliatory acts could escalate into collective reprisals against entire sects
There is a pressing need to reform judicial institutions and law-enforcement agencies while avoiding a mass dismissal of employees. This could create long-term hostilities, as happened in Iraq with the disastrous de-Baathification programme that followed the US-led invasion in 2003. “We want real courts, truth commissions, reconciliation initiatives and reparation mechanisms, alongside justice and institutional reforms. We need apologies, compensation and the restitution of rights,” says Abdul Ghany.
This complex task requires capable authorities and patience. Both are in short supply. Prisons, detention centres and suspected mass graves were stormed or tampered with for weeks after the old regime collapsed. Numerous videos show activists, journalists and family members of prisoners roaming cells and security offices, handling files, retaining what could be evidence and personal documents, and even taking bones for analysis or a deserved, dignified burial. With so many grieving families still seeking answers about missing loved ones, such actions are understandable. But without a clear national mechanism to oversee these efforts, chaos will reign.
Thousands of individuals were involved in committing horrific violations over the years in Syria. Many remain in the country, and are probably known to their victims or their families. Many may be driven by a desire for revenge—or at least a need to know the truth. In the absence of concrete efforts to address this, retaliatory acts could escalate into collective reprisals against entire sects. Chief at risk among these are the Alawites, as became evident in early March.
Without embarking on the difficult path of transitional justice, Syria risks descending further into an endless cycle of bloodshed and vengeance. The looming danger for Syria now, as the celebrations of liberation fade away, is whether it can escape this cycle—or whether the country will succumb to it.
