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<a class="gmail-domain gmail-reader-domain" href="https://peoplesdispatch.org/2025/09/01/syria-after-al-assad/">peoplesdispatch.org</a>
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<h1 class="gmail-reader-title">Syria after al-Assad</h1>
<div class="gmail-credits gmail-reader-credits">Vijay Prashad</div>
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<div class="gmail-reader-estimated-time">September 1, 2025</div>
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<div class="gmail-moz-reader-content gmail-reader-show-element"><div id="gmail-readability-page-1" class="gmail-page"><img src="cid:ii_mf1t8u1b0" alt="Mohammed-al-julani.png" width="451" height="250"><br><p>HTS leader Mohammed al-Julani. Photo: Screenshot </p><div>
<p>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\u2019at Tahrir al-Sham took over the Ministry of
Defense and the Ministry of the Interior. Many of the rebel forces
remained<a href="https://media.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b02aceea9cb578af543d3029c&id=b82d0a108d&e=4db91f4c96"> independent</a> but operated alongside the General Security forces.</p>
<p>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.</p>
<p>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 \u2013 those they claimed were \u2013 al-Assad government military
officers. The General Security forces raided homes and detained large
numbers of people. According to the<a href="https://media.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b02aceea9cb578af543d3029c&id=cd1e6dea01&e=4db91f4c96"> report</a>
of the Independent Commission of Inquiry on the Syrian Arab Republic,
in Mreimin, the General Security troops \u201cbeat and tortured residents,
looted multiple houses, and killed two civilians\u201d. During these \u201ccombing
campaigns\u201d, the General Security forces used such terms as <i>nusayri</i>
(a derogatory term for Alawites), \u201cAlawi pig\u201d\u2019, \u201ckuffar\u201d, 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.</p>
<p>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\u2019s report tells the story clearly:</p>
<p><i>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.</i></p>
<p>The dead had to be buried in Tal Salhab, fifty kilometres from Anz,
because the families did not feel safe returning to their village.</p>
<p>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\u2019s Suleiman Shah Brigade, the Syrian National
Army\u2019s al-Hamza Division, the Sultan Murad Brigade, Ahrar al-Sham, and
Hay\u2019at 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<a href="https://media.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b02aceea9cb578af543d3029c&id=ac111c2273&e=4db91f4c96"> fled</a>
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 \u201cwe will send him back to you in a coffin\u201d.</p>
<p>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<a href="https://media.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b02aceea9cb578af543d3029c&id=3c2bed4760&e=4db91f4c96"> Human Rights Watch</a> and by the<a href="https://media.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b02aceea9cb578af543d3029c&id=89dd465b4c&e=4db91f4c96"> Syrian Network for Human Rights</a>, but received little international attention.</p>
<p>The Independent Commission showed that the perpetrators of this
violence came from the rebel groups who now hold power in Damascus.
Nonetheless, al-Sharaa\u2019s government had other ideas. His National
Committee for Investigation and Fact-Finding<a href="https://media.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b02aceea9cb578af543d3029c&id=978a65b5d9&e=4db91f4c96"> argued</a>
that they had identified 265 suspects, all of whom \u201care members of
outlawed rebel groups linked to the Assad regime\u201d. 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<a href="https://media.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b02aceea9cb578af543d3029c&id=810cdff17a&e=4db91f4c96"> called</a> the attacks \u201cwar crimes\u201d, a phrase that has been rejected by the Syrian government. Furthermore, rights groups<a href="https://media.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b02aceea9cb578af543d3029c&id=9e141daede&e=4db91f4c96"> urge</a>
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.</p>
<p>Meanwhile, the Syrian government has been keen to deepen its
normalization process with Israel. Talks via the United Arab Emirates
resulted in the<a href="https://media.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b02aceea9cb578af543d3029c&id=bb6d80a206&e=4db91f4c96"> return</a> of the archive of the Israeli spy Eli Cohen (who had been executed in Damascus in 1965). Al-Sharaa<a href="https://media.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b02aceea9cb578af543d3029c&id=78a0640deb&e=4db91f4c96"> told</a>
the media that \u201cchances are high\u201d that his government will conduct a
security pact with Israel, the first open statement about normalization
(although he has<a href="https://media.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b02aceea9cb578af543d3029c&id=60fbef2cc8&e=4db91f4c96"> said</a>
that Syria cannot join the Abraham Accords as long as the Golan Heights
are under occupation). The excuse given for these \u201csecurity talk\u201d\u2019 is
the protection of the Druze, although it is clear \u2013 as we have
previously<a href="https://media.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b02aceea9cb578af543d3029c&id=ee52ee843e&e=4db91f4c96"> show</a>
\u2013 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.</p>
<p><b><i>Vijay Prashad</i></b><i> is an Indian historian, editor, and
journalist. He is a writing fellow and chief correspondent at
Globetrotter. He is an editor of</i><a href="https://media.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b02aceea9cb578af543d3029c&id=e8db65b931&e=4db91f4c96"> <i>LeftWord Books</i></a><i> and the director of</i><a href="https://media.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b02aceea9cb578af543d3029c&id=055a4c3c1a&e=4db91f4c96"> <i>Tricontinental: Institute for Social Research</i></a><i>. He has written more than 20 books, including</i><a href="https://media.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b02aceea9cb578af543d3029c&id=e1b1569373&e=4db91f4c96"> <i>The Darker Nations</i></a><i> and</i><a href="https://media.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b02aceea9cb578af543d3029c&id=2af7a42d8d&e=4db91f4c96"> <i>The Poorer Nations</i></a><i>. His latest books are</i><a href="https://media.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b02aceea9cb578af543d3029c&id=b6050dea99&e=4db91f4c96"> <i>On Cuba: Reflections on 70 Years of Revolution and Struggle</i></a><i> (with Noam Chomsky),</i><a href="https://media.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b02aceea9cb578af543d3029c&id=a8d8e76cac&e=4db91f4c96"> <i>Struggle Makes Us Human: Learning from Movements for Socialism</i></a><i>, and (also with Noam Chomsky)</i><a href="https://media.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b02aceea9cb578af543d3029c&id=67ed7bb6ee&e=4db91f4c96"> <i>The Withdrawal: Iraq, Libya, Afghanistan, and the Fragility of US Power</i></a><i>.</i></p>
<p><i>This article was produced by</i><a href="https://media.us12.list-manage.com/track/click?u=b02aceea9cb578af543d3029c&id=390a23f8a8&e=4db91f4c96"> <i>Globetrotter</i></a><i>. </i></p>
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