Early March 2025 was when Syria’s post-Assad transition turned bitter. In scenes that resembled the worst moments of Syria’s civil conflict, tons of of Alawite civilians have been killed, most likely by a mix of pro-government forces and extra-judicial Sunni demise squads.
The violence started as an anti-government rebellion in Syria’s coastal, Alawite-dominated Latakia province. However the subsequent massacres have been a country-wide occasion, with experiences of Sunni militias killing Alawite civilians in Homs, Tartous, Hama and elsewhere.
These systemic acts of sectarian homicide apparently vindicated the long-held view by some observers that Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa — regardless of his obvious transformation from militant to statesman — stays an unreconstituted jihadist. Within the phrases of Secretary of State Marco Rubio, al-Sharaa’s previous ties to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State “will not be one that provides us consolation.” The West has apparently been duped once more: Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and al-Sharaa have used Western engagement to consolidate energy. The March massacres are the skinny finish of the sectarian, Islamist wedge.
This angle is deeply flawed. To make certain, the brand new Syria authorities is way from innocent, however the occasions of early March occurred not as a result of the brand new authorities is simply too sturdy, however as a result of it’s too weak. One of the best ways to cease Syria from falling additional into the abyss of sectarian violence is thru extra sanctions reduction, not much less. Al-Sharaa is neither a democrat, nor a liberal. He’s an Islamist. However his lengthy militant and political profession exhibits that he’s additionally a pragmatist. Western nations and accountable regional actors ought to interact with the brand new regime to encourage al-Sharaa’s pragmatism to take priority over his Islamism.
The Chameleon Jihadist?
One supply of al-Sharaa’s mystique is his unlikely transformation from jihadist warlord to accountable statesman. He started his “political” profession as a jihadist fighter in Iraq. His declare that he was solely a foot soldier in al-Qaeda will not be credible, provided that he was trusted with establishing a department of the group in Syria. That group, which in 2017 re-branded itself as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, employed suicide bombings, kidnapping, and extortion, while routinely torturing its opponents. Whilst late as 2021, Al-Sharaa inferred that the 9/11 assaults made him “joyful.”
It’s subsequently no shock that al-Sharaa has gone from being one of many Center East’s most wished militants, to considered one of its most watched leaders. Because the Assad regime fell in December 2024, observers have pored over each assertion and gesture by Syria’s enigmatic new president to decide whether or not he’s nonetheless an Islamist, or has grow to be a pragmatist, or perhaps a democrat. In keeping with skeptics, the brand new Syrian president and his Hayat Tahrir al-Sham militant group are nothing new. As an alternative, they’ve adopted the “opportunistic and gradual playbook” of Hamas, the Taliban, and different Islamist teams.
However this oversimplification ignores that al-Sharaa’s transformation didn’t happen in a single day. Al-Sharaa returned to Syria in 2011 from Iraq, as an al-Qaeda operative. He later turned his group’s weapons on al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham went from combating Turkish proxies, to counting Ankara as a key accomplice. Regardless of having spent 5 years in coalition jails in Iraq, he apparently bore america no unwell will in 2024, when assembly with Biden administration officers.
These adjustments within the group’s international relations correspond to shifts in Hayat Tahrir al-Sham’s actions in Syria itself. The militant group was beforehand often known as Jabhat Fatah al-Sham and earlier than that as Jabhat al-Nusra. These weren’t simply rebranding workouts. As an alternative, they mirrored political and ideological shifts as al-Sharaa purged his group of al-Qaeda sympathizers, while incorporating — by way of power and diplomacy — different insurgent teams. One such group was the Islamist-nationalist Ahrar al-Sham, whom Hayat Tahrir al-Sham displaced because the rulers of Syria’s Idlib province in 2017. However illustrating that this was much less absorption and extra osmosis, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham then continued Ahrar al-Sham’s emphasis on public service provision over spiritual dogma — an method that served it and Idlib’s residents effectively.
Explaining al-Sharaa’s Adaptability
Al-Sharaa and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham didn’t change after a self-indulgent journey of self-discovery. As an alternative, they did so when exterior dynamics satisfied them that it was in their very own pursuits. Initially, al-Sharaa sought to determine a launching pad for al-Qaeda assaults outdoors the nation. However this purpose misplaced its utility after Russia and america put their disagreements apart to coordinate airstrikes in opposition to jihadist teams. It was this occasion which prompted al-Sharaa to sever ties with international jihadists, as a result of these allegiances now demonstrably harmed his group’s pursuits and energy projection by inviting Russian and American airstrikes.
Equally, after Hayat Tahrir al-Sham seized energy in Idlib, al-Sharaa was prepared to forgive and overlook and domesticate shut ties with Syria’s neighbor and his group’s former rival Turkey. This fateful resolution formed Syria’s future. Al-Sharaa reached an lodging with Turkey that allowed the latter to place its troops inside Idlib province. This act constrained the Assad regime’s freedom of motion and earned Hayat Tahrir al-Sham Turkey’s safety, permitting the group to not simply survive but additionally thrive. While sanctions and civil conflict decimated the remainder of Syria, Turkey opened its border to commerce. In consequence, Idlib’s residents have been quickly higher paid and had larger entry to electrical energy than their counterparts in most different components of Syria.
After Hayat Tahrir al-Sham hardliners objected, al-Sharaa purged and changed them with civilian technocrats. This, in flip, engendered a extra hands-off method to governance — Hayat Tahrir al-Sham abolished its “sharia patrols.” This and a broader give attention to on a regular basis governance bolstered Hayat Tahrir al-Sham’s assist past its slender jihadist base. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and al-Sharaa have been now seen much less as a Syrian Taliban and extra as competent rulers who maintain the lights on, the rubbish collected, and the streets secure.
In sum, while al-Sharaa’s trajectory seems inconsistent, it was in truth constantly outlined by two immutable traits: flexibility and pragmatism. It’s this unlikely mixture that has enabled him to be a jihadist and Islamist, while constructing and sustaining assist past the slender base of extra austere interpretations of Islam. If British statesman Lord Palmerston did certainly say that “we now have no everlasting allies, solely everlasting pursuits,” he would have accredited of al-Sharaa’s willingness to align with, abandon, and incorporate a range of actors, all for the perpetual pursuit of energy. In so doing, he and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham have demonstrated extra flexibility and political acumen then any lively jihadist motion inside or outdoors of Syria.
Skeptics could argue that extremist teams have lengthy tailored to face adversity or obscured their very own bloody techniques and uncompromising objectives with inclusive rhetoric. They’d be right. However Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and al-Sharaa are totally different, in that they’re unencumbered by a inflexible imaginative and prescient and as a substitute have modified allegiances, coverage, and even ideology when it suited their pursuits. This additionally explains why al-Sharaa is speaking and appearing the best way he’s as Syria’s president: Seamlessly altering ideological positions and allegiances has served his pursuits prior to now, so there may be each risk that he expects it to permit him to consolidate his energy in the present day.
Sanctions and the Conditionality Downside
Relatively than search to stop this final result, Western nations ought to present al-Sharaa — if that is his purpose and motivation — that he’s proper. The best way to realize that is by way of sanctions reduction, assist provision, and — extra proactively — by establishing political and financial partnerships with the brand new authorities.
However exterior actors have didn’t rise to this low bar. The Biden administration issued a six-month sanctions waiver for monetary transactions with the brand new authorities and its central financial institution. President Donald Trump, although, has approached Syria with disengagement and apathy. That is counterintuitive for a president who loves making enterprise offers, provided that the Syrian authorities is determined to facilitate new industrial, political, and cultural ties.
Europe’s file is barely higher. In February 2025, the European Union introduced sanctions reduction for Syria’s banking, power, and transport sectors. After the Trump administration backed off, European nations and the European Union have taken up the mantle in persevering with their dialogue with al-Sharaa and his authorities. In January 2025 alone, the French, Italian, and German governments despatched their international ministers to Damascus. A member of the European Union’s fee additionally joined them.
However the European Union’s technique stays basically flawed. It took almost eight weeks after Assad’s departure for Brussels to rescind some sanctions. With most restrictions nonetheless in place and america sanctions waiver expiring quickly, companies have largely stayed away. The European Union and its member states stay sure to conditionality — the precept that sanctions reduction ought to solely come as a reward after the federal government’s deeds match al-Sharaa’s phrases. This isn’t how Hayat Tahrir al-Sham works — it adjustments way more regularly and basically than different jihadist teams, however solely when supplied concrete incentives to take action. Turkey understood this when it opened its border to commerce and stationed its troops in Idlib. It’s, in consequence, probably the most highly effective exterior actor in Syria in the present day.
The Proper Response to the March Massacres
There are few indicators that the West will observe Turkey’s lead. The European Union and United States have been proper to sentence the March 2025 massacres, however they’re studying the improper classes from this tragic occasion. One commentator lamented that the probabilities of additional sanctions reduction at the moment are “successfully zero.”
Apparently vindicating this declare, Washington’s response didn’t contextualize the violence inside Syria’s more and more dire downward financial spiral and the position that the persevering with sanctions regime performed in perpetuating established order. Roughly 90 % of Syrians stay under the poverty line. It’s going to value an estimated $800 billion to return Syria to pre-civil conflict ranges of prosperity — even then, it was hardly a affluent nation. Since 2011, 13 million Syrians have been displaced, and returnees are dying day by day from unexploded munitions. Syria is a rustic awash with weapons and filled with combat-trained younger males with unsure futures and few alternatives. Europe could really feel it will probably afford to attend by making sanctions reduction conditional, however the bloodshed exhibits that the Syrian individuals can not. While there isn’t a proof that the federal government ordered the massacres, the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham-led regime’s incapacity to share energy performed a contributing position. The militant group’s shift away from implementing spiritual dogma and in the direction of technocratic state constructing in Idlib received it associates past its base. But there was little corresponding shift in the direction of power-sharing or inclusive governance. Once they seized energy in Damascus, observers warned that what labored in Idlib wouldn’t work for the entire of Syria. It is because the remainder of the nation was greater, much less conservative, and extra ethnically, religiously, and politically various than one border province.
However Hayat Tahrir al-Sham did not pay attention. From prime ministers to visitors policemen and lecturers, the group transplanted its personal individuals from Idlib and despatched them to do the identical roles on a a lot bigger scale. The outcome was an influence vacuum, since Hayat Tahrir al-Sham merely didn’t have sufficient loyal members to maintain the streets secure and the facility on all through Syria. It precipitated a belief breakdown between Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and different insurgent militias and political teams, who both refused to combine into the brand new authorities’s safety forces, or dragged their ft within the hope that they might follow “reflagging” — professing loyalty to a brand new regime while retaining their unique construction and organizational distinctiveness.
It was this dynamic that precipitated the March massacres. Syria’s authorities claims it directed its forces to combat the pro-Assad remnant forces, not slaughter Alawite civilians. However Hayat Tahrir al-Sham is a comparatively small Syrian militia, with between 20,000 and 30,000 fighters. The central authorities was subsequently pressured to depend on different armed teams that have been pro-government, however outdoors of al-Sharaa’s management. It was principally these teams — international jihadists and Sunni militias beneath Turkish safety — that intentionally massacred Alawite civilians. Despite the fact that al-Sharaa introduced an impartial inquiry, its capacity to sanction the perpetrators stays unclear. What’s simple is that it will likely be unable to do a lot with out Turkey’s buy-in, provided that the federal government is reliant on Ankara’s political, diplomatic, and safety assist.
The Value of Inaction
The occasions of early March 2025 stem from and illustrate the federal government’s weak point, not its energy. Equally, fears that al-Sharaa will grow to be a strongman are overblown. That is much less by his personal design and extra by organizational limitations. Al-Sharaa as a model is greater than Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. This masks a weak point: he has way more gentle energy than arduous energy. Skeptics are proper that al-Sharaa and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham will not be democrats. But to remain in energy and stop an additional descent into sectarian violence they now haven’t any alternative however to grow to be extra inclusive. This goes in opposition to all of the group’s previous experiences governing Idlib and its restricted time in energy in Damascus, which is why engagement to push them on this route is extra necessary than ever.
The West, in flip, ought to assist the federal government set up a monopoly on violence, moderately than worry this final result. They need to present al-Sharaa with another patron to Turkey, which — given the Erdoğan administration’s personal authoritarian file — is unlikely to advertise good governance in Syria. The European demand that Hayat Tahrir al-Sham act first to institute democracy in addition to ladies’s and minority rights locks the established order of sanctions in place and makes a return to sectarian violence extra doubtless. It’s taking part in the fiddle of ideological purity while Syria burns. It’s morally indefensible that while Assad and his household luxuriate in Moscow, it’s the Syrian individuals who proceed to endure the implications of the previous regime’s sectarianism and authoritarianism.
Sanctions reduction alone is not going to banish the ghost of sectarianism from Syria. Ethno-religious stress is hardwired into the nation’s DNA. As a younger man, Hafez al-Assad’s private experiences of discrimination formed his notion that the nation’s Sunni elites would by no means willingly share energy together with his personal Alawite sect or Syria’s different’s minority teams. Syria beneath Hafez and his son Bashar, in flip, disproportionately featured minorities — significantly Alawites — inside its governing echelons. These historic dynamics clarify why it was Sunni militias that carried out the March massacres and why their targets have been Alawites. However this doesn’t imply, as some skeptics insinuate, that america has no good choices in Syria in the present day.
The West and its regional allies ought to acknowledge the post-Assad Syria that exists, moderately than await the one which they need and received’t get. On condition that al-Sharaa beforehand professed loyalty to the Islamic State and al-Qaeda, it’s completely affordable to doubt whether or not a free nation can emerge from the ashes of the Assad regime’s authoritarianism. That al-Sharaa has stored his imaginative and prescient for a post-Assad Syria so murky and undefined has solely exacerbated these present fears. But when the West and its companions choose to interact with the brand new authorities, they’ll engineer an incremental shift in the direction of a greater, albeit imperfect, Syria. The best way to take action is to reward al-Sharaa’s pragmatism and relentless drive for energy on the expense of his Islamism. All through his lengthy militant and political profession, he has routinely chosen the previous tendencies over the latter. This doesn’t imply that he’s a democrat, a liberal or a “good man.” However it does imply that he responds to inducements to vary his conduct.
While the nation nonetheless reeled massacres of early March 2025, Syrians obtained some respite when al-Sharaa introduced an integration and reconciliation deal with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, who’ve run a state-within-a-state within the nation’s east since 2011. Illustrating how exterior engagement is crucial for getting Syria to a greater place even on the direst of occasions, the deal would have been not possible with out intensive U.S. mediation.
However the West, and significantly the European Union’s conditional method, suggests that point is on their facet. This fatally misreads al-Sharaa’s historical past and his up to date political constraints. Al-Sharaa urgently must ship for the Syrian individuals. He cares much less about how he will get the sources to take action. This runs the chance of permitting different actors to fill the void, who lack any expectations of inclusive governance. On the identical time, the West needs to be clear-eyed as to who al-Sharaa is, the place he has come from, and what motivates his actions in the present day. One seasoned Syria watcher famous that al-Sharaa “has gone the place the wind has blown.” This illustrates that rapid sanctions reduction can form the route of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, al-Sharaa, and Syria for the higher. Disengagement or incrementalism, although, will solely achieve this for the more severe.
Rob Geist Pinfold is a lecturer in worldwide safety at King’s School London’s Defence Research Division, a analysis fellow at Charles College’s Peace Analysis Heart Prague, and an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins College of Superior Worldwide Research in Bologna.
Picture: Voice of America through Wikimedia Commons
