[News] Syria after al-Assad

Mon Sep 1 20:29:18 EDT 2025

peoplesdispatch.org
<https://peoplesdispatch.org/2025/09/01/syria-after-al-assad/>
Syria after al-Assad
Vijay Prashad
September 1, 2025
------------------------------
[image: Mohammed-al-julani.png]

HTS leader Mohammed al-Julani. Photo: Screenshot

On December 8, 2024, the government of Bashar al-Assad collapsed as the
army of the former al-Qaeda leader, Ahmad al-Sharaa entered Damascus and
seized the institutions of the Syrian state. The Syrian Arab Army, which
had remained loyal to the al-Assad government, appeared to dissolve. Rebel
forces took over military functions, rebranding themselves as the General
Security forces (after December 20). Between December 2024 and January
2025, leading figures from the former al-Qaeda-affiliated Hay’at Tahrir
al-Sham took over the Ministry of Defense and the Ministry of the Interior.
Many of the rebel forces remained independent
<https://media.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b02aceea9cb578af543d3029c&id=b82d0a108d&e=4db91f4c96>
but operated alongside the General Security forces.

As in 2003 when the United States occupied Iraq and the Iraqi armed forces
disappeared to regroup as a resistance force, many of the Syrian Arab Army
personnel decamped to their homes where they formed militia groups. Within
weeks, these groups reconstituted themselves as defensive forces for their
villages and towns. This was particularly the case in the largely Alawite
and Christian towns and villages in the Qalamoun region and in coastal
Latakia. But unlike in Iraq, these former Syrian Arab Army groups did not
begin a well-organized insurgency against the al-Sharaa government, they
remained a defensive force with only a few recorded attacks conducted
against the new rulers of the state.

The General Security forces and their associates in the former militia
groups, however, used their power to strike quickly against those who tried
to regroup a resistance. For instance, on January 23, General Security
members raided the villages of Fahel and Mreimin in search of – those they
claimed were – al-Assad government military officers. The General Security
forces raided homes and detained large numbers of people. According to the
report
<https://media.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b02aceea9cb578af543d3029c&id=cd1e6dea01&e=4db91f4c96>
of the Independent Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic, in
Mreimin, the General Security troops “beat and tortured residents, looted
multiple houses, and killed two civilians”. During these “combing
campaigns”, the General Security forces used such terms as *nusayri* (a
derogatory term for Alawites), “Alawi pig”’, “kuffar”, and whores to
describe those whom they beat, tortured, and detained. The crackdown
against these defensive militias quickly took on a sectarian form. The
point, it appeared, was to demoralize any resistance and to do so on
strictly sectarian lines.

Between January and March 2025, these General Security forces rode rampant
across the country, particularly in the coastal regions of the country.
There is no proper account of how many people had been killed, tortured, or
detained. But there is a very clear indication of the kind of violence
experienced in the country by those who had either been part of the
al-Assad government in even the most modest capacity and to those
communities (Alawites, Christians) seen to have benefited by it. When
al-Assad left Syria in December, Alawite residents from the village of Anz
rushed to safety elsewhere and waited to see what might happen. Anz is in
Eastern Hama, on the edge of Salamiye. When these residents returned to
their village, they found that their homes had been occupied, and their
belongings destroyed. On January 27, at 4am, four cars filled with masked
men who identified themselves as General Security entered the village and
began to search the homes of Alawite families. The Independent Commission’s
report tells the story clearly:

*The masked men gathered women and children in one room and forced them to
hand over all valuables at gunpoint. The gunmen also stole the keys of a
truck in which they put 40 sheep belonging to one of the families whose
house was raided. At least 10 men were dragged outside at gunpoint and
lined up in a square at the entrance of the village, their hands tied
behind their backs. The armed men opened fire on them, killing five men,
including one boy and an elderly person, and injuring five others. The
attack was conducted in around 30 minutes.*

The dead had to be buried in Tal Salhab, fifty kilometres from Anz, because
the families did not feel safe returning to their village.

In March, gangs of fighters descended upon the villages in Latakia. They
included men from the Ministry of Defense, the General Security, the Syrian
National Army’s Suleiman Shah Brigade, the Syrian National Army’s al-Hamza
Division, the Sultan Murad Brigade, Ahrar al-Sham, and Hay’at Tahrir
al-Sham. These fighters detained men and boys, shouted derogatory names at
them, tortured them, and then shot them in the head or chest. The majority
of those killed were civilians and not former military men, and in many
cases all the men in a family home were killed. Between March and May,
40,000 people fled
<https://media.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b02aceea9cb578af543d3029c&id=ac111c2273&e=4db91f4c96>
these villages for the relative safety of Lebanon. At around the same time,
men with Damascene accents, wearing black uniforms and masks, and calling
themselves General Security raided the homes of Alawite families in the
al-Qadam area of Damascus. They detained civilians, such as teachers and
doctors, threatening families that if they make any complaints “we will
send him back to you in a coffin”.

Conversations with people in Syria makes it very clear that the attacks did
not take place only in Western Syria, along the coastline, but also in
interior towns in northwest Syria (the towns of al-Qardaha and Masyaf), in
Western Syria (parts of the cities of Aleppo and Homs), and in Eastern
Syria (in Deir-ez-Zor and in the Euphrates River Valley). These attacks
follow a careful pattern: almost a pogrom not only against minorities, as
they have been reported, but against any leaders of resistance to the new
regime who have been trying to spark an insurgency. This was a
counterinsurgency operation carried through with efficiency and with brutal
force, outside the eyes of the international media. Equally quietly, the
new government suppressed the key logistical routes of the Alawite mountain
villages to Lebanon, which had allowed them to rearm themselves in case of
the breakout of a larger insurgency. Harsh raids by the former al-Qaeda
groups into villages such as Deir al-Bishl, Harf Banmarah, and Talkalakh
resulted in execution of civilians, detention and disappearance of key
leaders, and ethnic cleansing of some of the villages (such as Balghonas).
Some of this was documented by Human Rights Watch
<https://media.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b02aceea9cb578af543d3029c&id=3c2bed4760&e=4db91f4c96>
and by the Syrian Network for Human Rights
<https://media.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b02aceea9cb578af543d3029c&id=89dd465b4c&e=4db91f4c96>,
but received little international attention.

The Independent Commission showed that the perpetrators of this violence
came from the rebel groups who now hold power in Damascus. Nonetheless,
al-Sharaa’s government had other ideas. His National Committee for
Investigation and Fact-Finding argued
<https://media.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b02aceea9cb578af543d3029c&id=978a65b5d9&e=4db91f4c96>
that they had identified 265 suspects, all of whom “are members of outlawed
rebel groups linked to the Assad regime”. They do not accept the view of
the Independent Commission, nor do they offer any tangible evidence why
their findings are diametrically opposed to that of the United Nations. The
UN investigators called
<https://media.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b02aceea9cb578af543d3029c&id=810cdff17a&e=4db91f4c96>
the attacks “war crimes”, a phrase that has been rejected by the Syrian
government. Furthermore, rights groups urge
<https://media.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b02aceea9cb578af543d3029c&id=9e141daede&e=4db91f4c96>
the government to enact hate speech legislation to prevent the use of the
kind of language used to frighten and target the Alawite community, but the
government has rejected this as well.

Meanwhile, the Syrian government has been keen to deepen its normalization
process with Israel. Talks via the United Arab Emirates resulted in the
return
<https://media.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b02aceea9cb578af543d3029c&id=bb6d80a206&e=4db91f4c96>
of the archive of the Israeli spy Eli Cohen (who had been executed in
Damascus in 1965). Al-Sharaa told
<https://media.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b02aceea9cb578af543d3029c&id=78a0640deb&e=4db91f4c96>
the media that “chances are high” that his government will conduct a
security pact with Israel, the first open statement about normalization
(although he has said
<https://media.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b02aceea9cb578af543d3029c&id=60fbef2cc8&e=4db91f4c96>
that Syria cannot join the Abraham Accords as long as the Golan Heights are
under occupation). The excuse given for these “security talk”’ is the
protection of the Druze, although it is clear – as we have previously show
<https://media.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b02aceea9cb578af543d3029c&id=ee52ee843e&e=4db91f4c96>
– that the Israeli and Jordanian attacks on southern Syria have mostly to
do with the drug trade and with the attempt to put down any insurgency
against Damascus. There is no conversation anywhere about protection of the
Alawite and Christian minorities, who have taken the brunt of the attacks
by the government-led forces. But, in sum, these are not only attacks along
sectarian lines; the key issue here is that the Damascus government has
been given carte blanche to use maximum force against any threat to its
continued rule.

*Vijay Prashad** is an Indian historian, editor, and journalist. He is a
writing fellow and chief correspondent at Globetrotter. He is an
editor of* *LeftWord
Books*
<https://media.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b02aceea9cb578af543d3029c&id=e8db65b931&e=4db91f4c96>*
and the director of* *Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research*
<https://media.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b02aceea9cb578af543d3029c&id=055a4c3c1a&e=4db91f4c96>*.
He has written more than 20 books, including* *The Darker Nations*
<https://media.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b02aceea9cb578af543d3029c&id=e1b1569373&e=4db91f4c96>*
and* *The Poorer Nations*
<https://media.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b02aceea9cb578af543d3029c&id=2af7a42d8d&e=4db91f4c96>*.
His latest books are* *On Cuba: Reflections on 70 Years of Revolution and
Struggle*
<https://media.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b02aceea9cb578af543d3029c&id=b6050dea99&e=4db91f4c96>*
(with Noam Chomsky),* *Struggle Makes Us Human: Learning from Movements for
Socialism*
<https://media.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b02aceea9cb578af543d3029c&id=a8d8e76cac&e=4db91f4c96>*,
and (also with Noam Chomsky)* *The Withdrawal: Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan,
and the Fragility of US Power*
<https://media.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b02aceea9cb578af543d3029c&id=67ed7bb6ee&e=4db91f4c96>
*.*

*This article was produced by* *Globetrotter*
<https://media.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b02aceea9cb578af543d3029c&id=390a23f8a8&e=4db91f4c96>
*. *
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