Western governments and mainstream media may have presented the terrorist forces in Syria as pluralist victors, determined to keep the peace and protect minorities, but those of us who have been following the Syrian crisis since the beginning knew better all along.
For his part, Jolani (and HTS) is the new de facto leader of part of the country, even as four other nations launch bombing campaigns inside it, and competing terrorist armies fight with another over territory, religion, or other disputes.
Jolani publicly states that he wants good relations with all neighbors and that all Syrians will have rights and protection.
But the situation on the ground is a bit different.
For instance, 14 members of HTS were killed in Tartous in an ambush by the remnants of the Syrian Army. HTS is engaged in a mission to “pursue Assad loyalists” and “restore order,” though no one is sure just how liberally the term “Assad loyalist” is being applied. Indeed, it has been extended from a targeted search of those who tortured or executed prisoners to “loyalists” in a very short time.
Nevertheless, the clashes lasted at least two days and since spread to the mountain region of Lattakia.
Clashes raged in Syria on 26 December between the remnants of the Syrian Arab Army (SAA) and the currently-ruling Hayat Tahrir-Sham (HTS) extremist group several hours after over a dozen HTS militants were killed in the western Tartous governorate.
Violent armed clashes were recorded by citizens in Tartous on Thursday. Video footage also showed positions of the SAA’s 25th Division stationed in the Latakia mountains in western Syria.
HTS-led authorities announced on Thursday that they confiscated weapons belonging to former government soldiers in the Damascus countryside. HTS’s Military Operations Administration has launched a security operation to confiscate SAA weapons and arrest “those who incite” sedition, according to a source from Syria’s new Ministry of Interior cited by Al-Watan newspaper.
Fourteen HTS militants and three armed men were killed in combat on the evening of 25 December in Tartous, in what was initially reported as an ambush by former government loyalists and soldiers.
Syria’s Interior Minister Mohammad Abdul Rahman confirmed on Thursday the killing of 14 HTS security personnel and the injury of 10 others carried out by “remnants of the former regime.”
According to UK-based war monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), the HTS militants were killed while trying to arrest an officer linked to the former government-run Sednaya prison – where thousands of prisoners were released after the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s government on 8 December.[1]
Protests were sparked after a video was circulated showing a famous Alawite shrine burning as HTS fighters stood by. HTS has a solid alibi, of course. They say the video is old, from when they took the city of Aleppo in November. In other words, the protests are completely unwarranted. They contend that the desecration of the shrine is in the distant past, a whole two months ago.
However, others have contended that the video is indeed new.
HTS added that it is dedicated to protecting religious sites.
The Cradle reports on this incident as well, writing in its article “Clashes erupt in western Syria after locals ambush HTS fighters,”
The incident came as unrest quickly spread across Syria in the past 24 hours after protests by Alawite citizens erupted across the country due to the emergence of a video showing the burning and desecration of an Alawite shrine by extremist militants.
Some reports said the undated video is new, while others said it dates back to the start of the 11-day offensive that began late last month and resulted in the collapse of the Assad government.
The video shows the resting place of Hassan bin Hamdan al-Khusaibi, a highly revered Alawite figure, on fire. The militants reportedly killed several people present inside the shrine. Their bodies can be seen in the footage.
Protests also stemmed from the killing of five Alawite judges in the Hama countryside on 24 December.[2]
Separate protests broke out amongst Syria’s Christians after a video was circulated showing members of armed forces setting fire to a Christmas tree. HTS acknowledges the incident and says it located the foreign fighters who set fire to the tree and detained them.
The Cradle states,
Syrian Christians have been protesting as well, triggered mainly by the burning of a Christmas tree in Hama days ago by foreign militants under HTS’s command.
A curfew was imposed by authorities in Homs in response to the Alawite demonstrations, in which protestors were reportedly attacked by security forces of the new government, causing deaths and injuries.
Clashes between locals and HTS-led authorities have left around nine dead. Alawite demonstrators have been detained and humiliated on camera.[3]
As Omar Abdel-Baqui of the Wall Street Journal writes in his article “Deadly Ambush, Protests Challenge Syrian Leaders’ New Power,”
The tensions raise the risk that Syria could enter a period of new conflict as the celebrations over the downfall of the widely despised Assad regime fade. The country is divided along religious and ethnic lines and is home to many armed rebel groups no longer focused on a common enemy. While HTS controls Damascus and other major cities, swaths of the country are beyond its reach, and foreign powers are pursuing their own agendas on Syrian territory.
In the resource-rich northeast, which HTS doesn’t control, fighting has heated up between Kurdish-led groups and militias supported by Turkey, which consider the Kurdish groups enemies. Without control of the northeast, a future central Syrian government would be stymied in its reconstruction efforts, as most of the country’s oil fields are located there.
In the southwest, Israel is deepening its presence in Syrian territory and continues to hold areas in a buffer zone between the countries it seized as the Assad regime fell. The Israeli military fired toward people in a Syrian town earlier this week, after it said troops told protesters approaching them to back away.[4]
Reports have also circulated that the Christian village of Maloula, where Aramaic is still spoken to this day, is in the sights of terrorist forces who are currently advancing there under the eye of HTS.
Syria has now reached the point of country-wide civil war. While some may hold out hope that the recent clashes are just the death pangs of war whose end rarely takes place with signed papers or surrender, there is a very real possibility that Syria may go the way of the Lebanese civil war and sink into total chaos and civil war for years to come.
Regardless, the country and the region itself is currently being remade for the benefit of Israel and the Western powers who have desired to do so even before September 11, 2001. Those powers may have hit a road block in Syria, but the block was only temporary. The caravan of horrors is now headed to its next destination.
[1] “Clashes erupt in western Syria after locals ambush HTS fighters.” The Cradle. December 26, 2024. https://thecradle.co/articles-id/28226
[2] “Clashes erupt in western Syria after locals ambush HTS fighters.” The Cradle. December 26, 2024. https://thecradle.co/articles-id/28226
[3] “Clashes erupt in western Syria after locals ambush HTS fighters.” The Cradle. December 26, 2024. https://thecradle.co/articles-id/28226
[4] Abdel-Baqui, Omar. “Deadly Ambush, Protests Challenge Syrian Leaders’ New Power.” Wall Street Journal. December 26, 2024. https://www.wsj.com/world/middle-east/deadly-ambush-protests-challenge-syrian-leaders-new-power-8bd3dde0
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