Militant Leader End Game Is Big Unknown in Post-Assad Syria

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(Bloomberg) – Mirella Abu Shanab, a Damascus-based broadcaster and television producer, went to a pastry shop in the Syrian capital and saw armed Islamist fighters eating ice cream and cake. One of them turned to her and asked her if she was Christian, Druze, or Shiite, and if this was the reason she did not wear the hijab.

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“What worries me this time is that it may be just a question, but next time action will be taken that may put my life and the life of any girl or woman in Damascus at risk,” she said in a live recording on Facebook late Tuesday. She looks stunned and shaken.

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As Syrians rejoiced at the overthrow of former President Bashar al-Assad’s brutal dictatorship last weekend, concerns are mounting inside and outside the Arab country about the pivotal role played by the former Al-Qaeda affiliate that led the rebel offensive – and what they will do in power.

The new interim government, which is scheduled to remain in place until March 1, is under the control of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham, an Islamist group designated a terrorist organization by the United States and other countries. Its leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, known by his nom de guerre Abu Muhammad al-Julani, seeks to project a moderate image, and his interim prime minister has already met with foreign envoys in Damascus to promise a political transition.

Leaders of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham also reached out to religious and community leaders in the captured areas to allay their fears, and al-Julani issued a statement prohibiting his fighters from interfering in personal freedoms, especially women’s freedoms.

But Israel, for its part, still feels distrustful, launching one of the largest air attacks in its history to destroy as much of the Syrian army’s capabilities as possible. The country’s fighter jets targeted chemical weapons stockpiles, missile storage sites, air bases and ships that may have been carrying weapons, in order to prevent them from falling into the hands of militants.

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While the intensified Israeli air strikes have angered Arabs, the United States says it supports the right of its Syrian neighbor to protect its borders.

Mike Waltz, the incoming national security adviser to US President-elect Donald Trump, said in an interview with Fox News on Monday that “the jury is out” on HTS and al-Julani. “He is, at least so far, not beheading former Assad regime officials or hanging them on bridges. They seem to be sitting down and talking, which is a very good initial sign.

“But President Trump and our team are monitoring the matter closely,” he added.

Islamic rule

In an interview with CNN last week, Al-Julani did not rule out introducing Islamic rule in Syria. “People who fear Islamic rule have either seen incorrect applications of it or have not understood it correctly,” he said. He rejected concerns about the future of minorities in Syria, saying that they “have existed for hundreds of years and no one has the right to eliminate them.”

Inside Syria, doubts about Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham have grown since al-Julani abruptly fired the last prime minister appointed by Assad, after initially saying he should remain in office on an interim basis. His successor is Mohammed al-Bashir, who previously ran a quasi-government in the northwestern rebel stronghold of Idlib.

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Al-Julani appears to have marginalized other armed factions, including more moderate fighters from the south who were the first to enter Damascus on Saturday evening, raising fears of imminent infighting.

The outgoing Biden administration, which claims Assad’s ouster as a geopolitical win because it weakens the influence of the former Syrian dictator’s Iranian and Russian allies, has taken a relatively neutral stance so far.

Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Washington could recognize a new Syrian government that respects minorities and destroys stockpiles of chemical and biological weapons. The State Department said Monday that the terrorist designation does not prevent U.S. officials from speaking to leaders of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham.

But she is also concerned about the potential resurgence of the Islamic State, or ISIS, the U.S.-designated terrorist group that took advantage of the early years of the Syrian civil war to seize large swaths of territory in the east of the country and neighboring Iraq. The United States, which helped defeat the group at the end of the last decade, launched about 75 air strikes against ISIS targets in Syria over the weekend.

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Further complicating the picture is Turkey’s insistence on the withdrawal of US-backed Kurdish armed fighters in northeastern Syria, whom it considers terrorists due to their links to separatists fighting for autonomy in southeastern Turkey. The Kurdish militia is a key ally in the US-led war against ISIS and helps guard prisons filled with the group’s fighters.

The presence of 900 US troops in Syria has helped protect the Kurds, but there is a possibility that Trump will remove those forces as part of his campaign to end US involvement in foreign conflicts. Turkey-backed opposition groups have already expelled Kurdish forces from two cities in northern Syria.

“The worst scenario is that Syria becomes the Somalia of the Middle East,” said retired Brigadier General Nitzan Nuriel, who headed the counter-terrorism department in the Israeli Prime Minister’s Office. He added: “Based on experience in Afghanistan and Libya, we know that when regimes collapse and terrorist groups take power, there is a great opportunity for them to seize ammunition systems and platforms and use them against neighboring countries.”

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The International Atomic Energy Agency announced Wednesday that an investigation into possible Syrian nuclear weapons activities had been halted after Assad’s ouster, creating uncertainty for inspectors.

Many Syrian opposition leaders based abroad, who have doubts about Al-Julani’s first moves, are cooperating with rebels on the ground to try to shape what comes next.

“These are birth pains, and it will take some time,” said Ayman Abdel Nour, a Syrian political opposition figure and commentator based in Washington.

—With assistance from Dan Williams, Ethan Brunner, Selkan Hakaoğlu, and Thomas Hall.

(Updates on the Syrian nuclear investigation in the last third paragraph.)

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