The fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime on December 8, 2024 brought to an end nearly 54 years of Assad family dynastic and dictatorial rule over Syria. Just 10 days earlier, a coalition of opposition armed factions based in Syria’s northwest had launched an offensive aimed at sealing control of Aleppo’s western countryside. That bold, aggressive and disciplined move triggered the rapid collapse of successive regime frontlines. Ultimately, Bashar’s government collapsed like a house of cards, decayed and fragmented, and hollowed out to the core.
After more than 13 years of debilitating conflict in which the Assad regime’s motto of “it’s Assad or we burn the country” had come true in all its horrifying ways, Syria’s civil conflict came to a sudden and abrupt end.
Just weeks earlier, a grouping of nearly 10 European governments led by Italy had been lobbying intensively for the European Union to conduct a wholesale review of Syria policy and to re-engage with Assad’s regime. Having assessed Syria’s crisis to be permanently frozen, the outgoing Biden administration had been secretly exploring a deal to ease sanctions on Assad’s regime. And underpinning all of this was the fact that since the Spring of 2023, much of the Middle East had normalized ties with Assad after concluding that he had emerged as the victor of Syria’s civil conflict and that the only path to resolving the many spillover effects of its crisis was by engaging the regime itself.
Thus, in the space of 10 days – from November 27 to December 8, 2024 – the fundamental assessments that had determined much of the world’s approach to Syria were turned swiftly on their head. Having spent years decrying the intractable refugee crisis that was strangling regional economies and irritating populist politics in Europe, as well as Syria’s multi-billion dollar drugs trade, persistent terrorism and spiraling humanitarian needs, the international community watched from afar as Assad’s departure suddenly opened the door to considerable improvements, if not potential solutions to all.
However, while Assad’s departure heralded good news for many, the resulting transition that rapidly took shape in Damascus was run by an actor few would have chosen to fill the role: Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). As a former al-Qaeda affiliate born out of ISIS’s predecessor movement the Islamic State in Iraq, HTS and its leader Ahmed al-Sharaa (Abu Mohammed al-Jolani) carry with them significant ‘baggage.’
Nevertheless, the HTS of 2025 is the outcome of eight years of consequential, perhaps unprecedented evolution within the Salafi-jihadi world. After publicly declaring their break away from al-Qaeda in mid-2016, the group went on to accept Turkish military forces within their territory; it agreed to and observed a years-long Russian-Turkish ceasefire; and it aggressively and successfully cracked down on and defeated both ISIS and al-Qaeda in its territory. In more recent years, the group supported a technocratic ‘Salvation Government’ in northwest Syria that delivered a greater and more efficient level of public service than other regions of Syria, while its leaders quietly reached out to and engaged Western governments, on diplomatic and security levels. Throughout these years, the group’s ideological orientation shifted decisively away from the global and towards the local, doing away with ‘jihad’ and embracing ‘revolution’ and the green flag of Syria’s popular uprising.
Despite all these notable changes, nobody could have predicted that Ahmed al-Sharaa would one day stand in Syria’s Presidential Palace in a suit and tie greeting foreign Prime Ministers and the ICC’s chief prosecutor, nor taking private planes for state visits to Saudi Arabia and Turkey and receiving invitations to Paris from President Emmanuel Macron. After years of shadow diplomacy and secret meetings with diplomats in Turkey, al-Sharaa’s Foreign Minister Asaad al-Shaibani (Zaid al-Attar) took to the stage at the World Economic Forum in Davos on January 22 in a one-on-one panel with Tony Blair.
While regional governments and Europe were swift to engage Ahmed al-Sharaa’s team in Damascus, so too was the Biden administration. U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for Near East Affairs Barbara Leaf first met with them in Damascus on December 20. According to public reporting, Presidential Envoy for Hostage Affairs Roger Carstens and newly appointed Senior Advisor Daniel Rubinstein were both in attendance, but according to three senior HTS figures, so too was an “American General.” According to them, and al-Sharaa himself, the General took al-Sharaa aside at the end of the meeting and described how he had “monitored” the whole battle “from drones and satellites” and described it as “the most remarkable” and “disciplined” military offensive he had ever seen. He then took a medal from his pocket and gave it to al-Sharaa, congratulating him on his victory.
In the weeks since, the U.S. has established a formalized intelligence relationship with the HTS-led transition, channeled through the Interior Ministry (led by Anas Khattab, the Islamic State in Iraq’s former emir of the Syrian-Iraqi border) and his elite General Security Service (GSS). One major ISIS plot to massacre Shia Muslims at a shrine in Damascus’ Sayyida Zeinab suburb was foiled by the GSS as a result of U.S. intelligence, as were at least seven other unreported plots, according to interviews in Damascus. Beyond intelligence levels, the U.S. military also remains regularly in communication with the HTS-led transition, coordinating anti-ISIS actions in Syria’s central desert and facilitating regular in-person negotiations between our Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) partners and HTS leaders in the al-Dumayr Airbase, outside Damascus. The U.S. military also greenlighted the decision by our Syrian Free Army partners based in the al-Tanf Garrison to accept integration into the HTS-led process of forming Syria’s new armed forces.
For now, the transition underway in Syria remains managed by a Cabinet and team of provincial governors composed almost entirely by leaders from HTS and Islamist allies, including Ahrar al-Sham and al-Jabhat al-Islamiya. For many Syrians across the country, this “one color” government presents a source of concern, as Syria’s broad diversity remains unrepresented.
However, as the self-proclaimed interim President of Syria, al-Sharaa has emerged as a celebrity-like figure, whose genuine popularity is palpably felt in conversations with Syrians across the country. Having grown up an upper-middle class Damascene attending private school in the elite Mezzeh district, al-Sharaa has re-embraced his earlier persona to impressive effect. With his wife and children now public figures, he has displayed impressive political acumen and adapted quickly when facing criticism. He has even hired a “fashion advisor” to manage his clothing.
But pragmatism and political acuity will go only so far when confronted by the enormity of Syria’s challenges. At the heart of everything is the broken economy. With more than 50% of Syria’s basic infrastructure destroyed, more than half the population displaced, 90% of Syrians living under the poverty line and the Syrian Pound having lost 99% of its value, the economic crisis is as severe as it gets. Moreover, since Assad’s departure, the UN-led aid effort in Syria has diminished significantly, just as aid needs are spiraling and higher than ever before. While the widespread elation that has followed Assad’s fall is sustaining popular patience with Syria’s new caretaker authorities, that stoicism will not last forever. Aspirational promises and repeated assurances sound good, but discernible progress is needed.
Within this prevailing environment, American and European sanctions represent a vice-like grip around Syria’s neck. In its final weeks in office, the Biden administration introduced a six-month General License, temporarily permitting energy and remittance transactions into Syria, but according to some of Syria’s wealthiest businessmen and regional governments seeking to invest, temporary measures have done little to assuage long-standing de-risking concerns within financial institutions that need to process such transactions. Meanwhile, Europe has suggested for weeks an openness to sanctions relief but has taken no actual steps. For now, any prospect for Syria’s economy beginning to recover remains a pipe dream.
On another front, recent meetings with civil society across Syria revealed the extent to which the Syrian Democratic Forces’ (SDF) hold over northeastern Syria has become almost unanimously unpopular among Syrians of all stripes. The SDF’s “occupation” of Syrian territory, and its “theft” of the country’s natural resources (oil, gas and agriculture) was presented as a problem requiring an urgent solution – preferably a diplomatic deal, but military action if necessary.
The SDF, largely made up of Kurds has been offered full rights for the community, for Kurdish to become Syria’s second language and for SDF representation in all transitional government bodies, but on the condition that resources are turned over the Damascus’ control and most importantly, the SDF itself is dissolved and its tens of thousands of fighters are placed fully under the tutelage of Syria’s new armed forces, with its personnel to be distributed for service nationwide. After weeks of on and off-again talks, a deal was finally reached between the SDF and Damascus on March 10, signed in the Syrian capital by Ahmed al-Sharaa and SDF leader Mazloum Abdi and stipulating the SDF’s integration into and under the interim government. While it will take time for the agreement’s full implementation, and while plenty of hurdles remain, the agreement was a source of nationwide celebration in Syria. It is also an extremely significant accomplishment for the U.S. military, which remained integral to the negotiations and agreement.
As Syria’s transition proceeds, the challenges it faces are simply immense. For the international community, ensuring the transition succeeds should be seen as a historic opportunity to reshape the Middle East and deal Iran’s revolutionary regional agenda a potentially irreversible blow. But while the region itself stands ready to surge support into a broken Syria desperate for assistance, Europe remains slow and the Trump administration is nowhere to be seen. Syria’s newfound freedom may come with a number of complex dilemmas, particularly HTS’s leadership role, but time is not on Syria’s side and the clock is ticking increasingly fast. If sanctions are not lifted, the U.S. and Europe will stand justifiably accused of facilitating a likely collapse into a second chapter of bitter conflict and instability.
The world – and Syrians – caught a glimpse of what that second collapse could look like in early-March 2025, when an unprecedented evening of attacks by Alawite Assad loyalist gunmen triggered two days of horrific violence in which hundreds of combatants and civilians were killed in Latakia and Tartus. Initial evidence, including intercepted communications and seized documentation, indicates Iran likely played a role in the initial attacks, which were clearly aimed at provoking a frenzy of retaliatory and revenge killings. While the interim government’s attempt to establish investigative committees and justice mechanisms were a good first sign, its inability to control events and its likely complicity in some crimes present an existential challenge to its rule. While the vast majority of Syria’s yearn for stability, the existence of some who seek a return to chaos makes the country’s future volatile and highly unpredictable.
Charles Lister is a Senior Fellow at the Middle East Institute, co-director of the Syria Strategy Project and the founder of Syria Weekly.
