Gen. Mazlum Kobani, the commander of the U.S.-backed Syrian Democratic Forces, in Kurdish-controlled northeast Syria, March 30, 2019. Most of the fighters in Syria shared a want to topple Bashar Assad’s authorities, however not a lot else: Their ideologies, political opinions and worldwide backers are very totally different. [Ivor Prickett/The New York Times]
Insurgent forces have swept by Syria and compelled former President Bashar Assad in a foreign country the place his household had dominated with an iron fist because the early Nineteen Seventies.
The speedy offensive marked a dramatic breakthrough for the numerous factions which were making an attempt to unseat the president for greater than a decade of civil battle. Most of the fighters in Syria shared a want to topple Assad’s authorities, however not a lot else: Their ideologies, political opinions and worldwide backers are very totally different.
Within the fallout created by Assad’s downfall, there are huge questions on who will step in.
Hayat Tahrir al-Sham
Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, whose title means Group for the Liberation of the Levant, is a former affiliate of al-Qaida that broke with the older group years in the past and got here to dominate the final stronghold of Syria’s opposition.
It was the principle insurgent group main the newest offensive, launching a shock assault in late November out of its base in northwestern Syria that shortly led to the autumn of the Assad authorities.
Members of the group had early hyperlinks to the Islamic State group, after which to al-Qaida. In 2016, they tried to shed their extremist roots, banding along with a number of different factions to ascertain Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. The US and different Western international locations nonetheless take into account it a terrorist group.
The group’s chief, Abu Mohammed al-Golani — who as of Monday shed that nom de guerre and is now going by his actual title, Ahmad al-Sharaa — instructed The New York Occasions that his main aim was to “liberate Syria from this oppressive regime.” He has tried to achieve legitimacy by offering companies to residents in his stronghold of Idlib province.
Due to its roots and its designation as a terrorist group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham has struggled to boost funds, in line with the Heart for Strategic and Worldwide Research, a Washington analysis institute. The group raises cash from border tariffs, amassing taxes on residents and holding a monopoly over utilities. Analysts say it has additionally been concerned in trafficking the artificial stimulant captagon.
Syrian Democratic Forces
Forces from Syria’s Kurdish ethnic minority, which makes up about 10% of the inhabitants, turned the US’ most important native accomplice within the struggle in opposition to the Islamic State group in Syria, beneath the banner of the Syrian Democratic Forces.
After the Islamic State group was largely defeated in 2019, the Kurdish-led forces consolidated management over cities within the northeast, increasing an autonomous area that they had constructed there. However Kurdish fighters nonetheless needed to cope with a longtime enemy, Turkey, which regards them as linked to Kurdish separatist insurgents inside Turkey.
Whilst rebels took management of Damascus, the capital, combating flared between Turkey and the Kurds within the northeast of Syria, centered on Manbij, a Kurdish-controlled metropolis close to the Turkish border. Not less than 22 members of the Syrian Democratic Forces have been killed in and round Manbij, and 40 others have been wounded, in line with the Kurdish group.
The Syrian Nationwide Military
This umbrella group consists of dozens of teams with totally different beliefs. It receives funding and arms from Turkey, which has lengthy been targeted on increasing a buffer zone alongside its border with Syria to protect in opposition to the actions of Kurdish militants primarily based within the area that it sees as a risk.
Turkey needs to create an space the place it might resettle a number of the 3 million refugees who’ve fled Syria and reside inside its borders. Nevertheless it has struggled to harmonize the ragtag teams that make up the Syrian Nationwide Military.
The group is basically composed of the dregs of the Syrian civil battle, together with many fighters whom the US had rejected as criminals and thugs. Some acquired coaching from the US early within the battle, however most have been dismissed as too excessive or too prison. Most don’t have any clear ideology and had turned to Turkey for a paycheck of about $100 a month when the group was fashioned.
On Monday, there have been fierce battles within the northern metropolis of Manbij between the Syrian Nationwide Military, supported by Turkish airstrikes and artillery, and the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces.
In keeping with the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a battle monitoring group primarily based in Britain, town was captured by the Syrian Nationwide Military. A spokesperson for the Syrian Democratic Forces mentioned fighters with the Syrian Nationwide Military had taken solely 60% of town. The claims couldn’t be independently verified.
The Druse Militia
Syria’s Druse minority is concentrated in Sweida, an space in southwest Syria that has seen uncommon anti-government demonstrations over rising prices of dwelling, and plenty of Druse males have refused army service. This week, Druse fighters joined the push to topple the Assad regime, launching an offensive within the southwest and clashing with authorities forces, in line with media stories.
The Druse fighters are a part of a newly fashioned group of Syrian rebels, which incorporates fighters from different backgrounds, working beneath the title the “Southern Operations Room.”
The Druse are a non secular group that practices an offshoot of Islam, developed within the eleventh century, that incorporates parts of Christianity, Hinduism, Gnosticism and different philosophies. There are greater than 1 million Druse throughout the Center East, largely in Syria and Lebanon, with some additionally in Jordan and Israel.
The Islamic State Group
The Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant seized huge stretches of territory in Syria and Iraq in 2014, establishing a brutal regime earlier than it was overwhelmed again by a U.S.-led coalition. Now its members are largely in hiding.
Recently, there have been indicators of the group’s resurgence in Syria amid wider instability within the area. The Pentagon warned in July that Islamic State group assaults in Syria and Iraq have been on monitor to double in contrast with the earlier 12 months. The group has repeatedly tried to free its members from prisons and has maintained a shadow governance in components of northeastern Syria, the U.S. mentioned.
President Joe Biden introduced Sunday that the U.S. army has been conducting airstrikes in Syria to maintain the Islamic State group from reasserting itself within the energy vacuum created by Assad’s ouster.
The US has about 900 troops in Syria to assist include and defeat what stays of the Islamic State group there. The U.S. has not given a date for ending its presence within the nation, saying it was contingent on circumstances throughout the war-torn nation. These circumstances have now modified dramatically.
“We’re cleareyed about the truth that ISIS will attempt to make the most of any vacuum to reestablish its functionality, to create a protected haven,” mentioned Biden, utilizing an alternate title for the Islamic State group. “We won’t let that occur.”
This text initially appeared in The New York Occasions.
