December 6, 2024. Khaki shirt, well cut beard, Abu Mohammed el-Jolani grants an interview to the American channel CNN. The leader of the Islamist rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Cham (HTC) left his white turban, his camouflage jacket and his Kalashnikov in the closet. While at the same time, thousands of fighters base on Damascus in pick-ups covered with mud, the whole world discovers the face of the one who will soon become the interim president of Syria. Speaking in a posed tone, he wants to be reassuring. The atrocities against communities committed between 2013 and 2016 through Syria by the Al-Nosra Front, the jihadist group affiliated with Al-Qaeda which he was at the head? Of the past. From now on, it is the unity of the country that matters to him: “Communities have been coexist in this region for hundreds of years. No one has the right to eliminate them.” Syrians believe in it. At the entrance to the cities – Hama, Aleppo, Homs – who fall like dominoes to the passage of the convoys of armed groups led by HTC, the inhabitants acclaim the fighters and throw flowers for them.
Three months later, hope gave way to fear. For the first time since he took power, the one who abandoned his war name to become Ahmed al-Charaa again, seems to lose control of the situation. He calls for “civil peace” in a Damascus mosque, but his words are now struggling to convince in a dreaded country to see a thirteen -year -old civil war which left the exsangue country restart. A fear rekindled after the mass massacres perpetrated since March 6 on the Syrian coast and targeting in particular the Alawite community, from which the El-Assad clan came.
“My family died of anxiety, my aunt Nouha hides in the forest for fear that fighters enter her village, on the heights of Lattaquié”, trembles Nader, sitting two days after the start of violence in a cafe in the center of Tartous, a stone’s throw from the sea. The young man Alawite took refuge in this public place after being informed that his neighborhood was going to be searched by the security forces, weapons and loyalists of the old regime. Although he has nothing to do with the latter, he fears to undergo abuses that have been victims of a number of civilians in his community. His look riveted on the screen of his phone hoping to receive news from his aunt, he sees dozens of videos scrolling on social networks in which residents are summarily executed by individuals with masked faces.
800 civilians killed in 5 days
In Baniyas, a coastal city located 40 kilometers north of Tartous, these same men control the entrance to the Al-Qoussour district, which carries the stigma of their unleashing of violence. On this day of March 8, in the streets where a dead silence reigns, the houses were looted. Certain facades, previously marked with a black cross, have been burned. A civil defense vehicle comes to seek the last corpses that lie on the asphalt. Further on, on the Corniche road, pick-ups and tanks are parked. In a city square, the flag of the Al-Nusra Front replaced that of the Syrian Revolution, with three stars.
This wave of hatred, unprecedented since the fall of Bashar el-Assad, begins on Thursday, March 6, when loyalists of the old regime attack security forces in the Jableh campaign. This is the first step in an offensive led by 4,000 men who have faithful to the fallen regime, according to figures from the Syrian Ministry of Foreign Affairs. They take control of several armed bases and six hospitals in the coastal cities of Latquié, Baniyas and Jableh, bastions of the Alaouite community. In response, the authorities call for general mobilization. Thousands of armed men, some of whom are not integrated into the state security apparatus, converge on the coast. They come from Idlib, Homs or Deir Ez-Zor, to the east. Some are linked to militias historically supported by Turkey, others are foreign jihadists. Between March 6 and 10, 803 civilians are killed, according to the Syrian network of human rights (SNHR), an NGO.
Very quickly, the authorities are accused of being responsible for this bloodbath. Almost half of the executions were carried out by “unregulated factions and groups affiliated to the Ministry of Defense,” said the SNHR. This does not necessarily mean that they acted under the orders of the government, which does not control all the components of the army – a mixture of factions from the civil war. But voices are raised to say that Damascus would have let the abuses make. Others are more cautious: “Al-Charaa has been trying to show an image of respectability since taking power, that is exactly what he wanted to avoid, because the political cost is very high,” said Firas Kontar, human rights activist and Franco-Syrian essayist.
In an attempt to regain control, the acting president denounces all those who “overthrew the law” and announces the formation of an “independent commission of inquiry”. Insufficient, according to Majid, 26, student in a private university in Damascus. “Of course the authorities are responsible, they speak of individual acts and errors, but do not even bother to apologize,” he annoys. In a low voice, he confides that he no longer believes in Ahmed al-Charaa and wanting to leave the country. However, he too had come down to the street, “thirty minutes after the fall of the old regime”, to celebrate the new strong man of Damascus.
A new constitution in preparation
“The first challenge for Ahmed al-Charaa is to regain the confidence of all, mainly thanks to the commission of inquiry he announced,” analyzes Firas Kontar. This is made up of seven members-judges, lawyers and soldiers-who must make their conclusions within thirty days. The leader of HTC also seeks to reassure the political transition he has promised. On February 26, he organized a national dialogue conference during which 900 civilians established recommendations aimed at drawing the contours of the future regime. A first draft Constitution was then signed by the President: it provides for a period of transition over five years, lays down the basics of a presidential regime and ensures that “the State undertakes to ensure coexistence and social stability”.
“This declaration offers good surprises, judge Cédric Labrousse, doctoral student at EHESS and specialist in armed groups in Syria. It guarantees freedom of expression, women’s rights or the possibility of dismissing the president.” But it is only a first step: “Now, we are waiting for the appointment of the Assembly,” he continues. According to the constitutional text, a third of the parliamentarians will be appointed by the president, and the rest by a commission of which he himself chooses the members. If Parliament does not include all Syrian communities, it risks losing the confidence of citizens a little more. The population is made up of a mosaic of confessions, a large majority of Sunnis, Alawites, Christians, Druzes, as well as Kurds (around 10 %).
Subject to intense contradictory pressures, the president risks having trouble rallying the most radical groups which have brought him in power and who disagree with his current policy, believes Cédric Labrousse, who notably quotes the Suleiman Shah brigade, led by Abu Ahmsha. Mostly formed of Sunni Turkmeni fighters supported by Turkey, it has just shown in the West its ability to spread chaos. “The situation is explosive, there is a real risk that these factions will rebel against the central power,” judges the researcher of the EHESS.
Al-Charaa could be tempted to dismiss these extremist elements. “Historically, it has always been hard with the radicals when they exceeded the red lines. In the coming weeks, heads should fall,” said a Western diplomatic source. In 2023, HTC led a purge in its fief in northwestern Syria, arresting hundreds of individuals from the military and security apparatus.
Reform the army
To guarantee civil peace and political transition, the government has no choice but to build a clear chain of command in its army. “It is an essential prerequisite,” explains Cédric Labrousse. The government has been overwhelmed by groups which refused to integrate its security apparatus or which lent it allegiance, but which are uncontrollable. “
Problem, the Ministry of Defense is sorely lacking in staff. Many of HTC’s “historic” fighters returned to civilian life or have changed in hiding. If he wants to have an army capable of controlling all of its territory, Al-Charaa must rely on the brigades today autonomous, such as the Druze factions of the south of the country, or Kurds of the North East. It is in this yardstick that the historical agreement must be read which was signed on March 11 between the acting president and the Kurds of the Syrian democratic forces. The document provides “the integration of all civil and military institutions in northeast Syria in the administration of the Syrian State”. This agreement is a means, for the authorities of Damascus, to promote the stability of a territory which represents a third of the area of Syria, but above all to capture thousands of combatants trained and equipped.
It remains, for the new power, to relaunch the economy while more than 80 % of the population lives below the poverty line. A situation that could encourage some to join armed factions, such as loyalists at the Assad clan. “The latter are betting on the resentment of the Alawite officials dismissed by the authorities to push them to join their ranks,” points out the political scientist Firas Kontar.
But these challenges cannot be met without the lifting of international sanctions still imposed on Syria, a number of experts say. The massacres do not seem to have slowed down the process of normalization of relations with the new Syrian authorities. “The European Union and France still want to give Al-Charaa a chance, even if other actors try to question this process”,, Nuance Firas Kontar. Proof that the link is not broken, the Minister of Foreign Affairs went on March 17 in Brussels to the 9th annual conference for supporting Syria. It was the first time that a leader in this country was invited.
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