The Syrian Chronicle by Interstices – Fajawat, January 24, 2025

CHRONICLE WRITTEN IN COLLABORATION WITH FRENCH COLLECTIVE/MEDIA “CONTRE ATTAQUE

Security situation under the Military Operations Administration (HTS)

The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has recorded 147 murders since the beginning of the year, as well as several kidnappings, including the writer and opponent Rasha Nasser al-Ali.

The HTS Military Operations Administration is continuing its security campaigns in the central and coastal regions of Syria, particularly in Homs, where its interventions have resulted in summary executions, violence against residents and dozens of arrests.

Demonstrations have been held in several towns to demand the release of some of the 9,000 people arrested by HTS since December 8, denouncing the lack of evidence justifying their continued detention and the fact that some of them are being held despite having signed “reconciliation” agreements.

Numerous voluntary reconciliation initiatives have been refused by HTS, on the pretext that the candidates present themselves without surrendering their weapons. The $100 fine imposed on those who present themselves without their weapon encourages candidates to buy weapons in order to be admitted to the reconciliation centers.

International relations and economic recovery

The transitional government’s main focus is diplomatic relations and economic development, its top priority being to secure the lifting of sanctions that continue to plague the country in exchange for a forced liberalization of the Syrian economy.

The Minister of the Economy continues to meet with Syrian businessmen who have grown rich under Assad’s regime, claiming that “private property is sacred” and their money will not be confiscated. At the same time, Foreign Minister Al-Shaibani went to the World Economic Forum in Davos to plead for Syria’s conversion to a market economy, affirming the 5 major axes of reform (energy, telecoms, transport, education and health) and announcing the privatization of oil, cotton and furniture production.

While Germany calls on Russia to withdraw from Syria, the 49-year contract signed in 2019 between Syria and the Russian company Stroytransgaz for the management of the port of Tartous has been broken, allowing most taxes on incoming goods to be reduced by 60%. At the same time, Syrian, Turkish, Qatari and Jordanian airlines are organizing the resumption of flights between Damascus, Turkey, the Arabian Peninsula and Europe. The latter has announced the dispatch of 235 million euros in humanitarian aid.

With 195,200 refugees already back in Syria, the pressure on the economy is mounting. While overall food prices have fallen slightly, the price of a pack of bread has risen from 400 to 4,000 Syrian pounds, and the country’s need for additional bakeries is estimated at 160 on top of the existing 250. Currently, 5,000 tons of bread are produced every day.

Political and social transition, Investigating Assad’s crimes

While Al-Sharaa met with International Court of Justice prosecutor Karim Khan and the family of American journalist Austin Tice, missing since 2012, the families of the other 130,000 missing from the Assad regime continue to be ignored by the transitional government. The Hague-based International Commission for Missing Persons has counted 66 mass graves across the country, the main one at Al-Qutayfah (a former Russian military base) believed to contain nearly 100,000 bodies belonging to detainees executed at Saydnaya prison.

Regarding its efforts to expose Assad’s crimes, HTS preferred to communicate widely on the discovery and destruction of 100 million captagon pills and 15 tons of hashish seized from several sites previously under the control of the 4th Division of Bashar al-Assad’s brother, Maher.

Bashar al-Assad was also the target of a second international arrest warrant issued by the French justice system for the bombing of Deraa in 2017, following the one issued in 2023 for the chemical attacks in Adra, Douma and Eastern Ghouta in 2013. Will France ask Russia to hand over Bashar?

Conflict with the North-East Autonomous Administration

Tension between HTS and the North-Eastern Autonomous Administration (AANES) has escalated despite ongoing talks. After rejecting SDF commander Mazloum Abdi’s demand to be allowed to form a fully-fledged “bloc” within the new Syrian army and to return access to part of the region’s oil resources, Defense Minister Abu Qasra declared “we don’t want oil, we want [control over] institutions and borders” before declaring himself “ready to use force”. HTS has begun sending troops to Deir Ezzor, Raqqa and near the Tishrin dam, where fighting between the SDF and pro-Turkish militias continues. A total of 474 people have been killed in this confrontation since December 12, including 51 civilians, 348 pro-Turkish militiamen and 75 members of the SDF and affiliated groups.

In the ongoing discussions, the main challenges and points of dispute concern maintaining the fight against pouches of the Islamic State, which has regained strength, but also the management and evacuation of the Al-Hol and Al-Roj camps where 35,000 members and families of the Islamic State are still being held, including nearly 15,000 fighters. Following negotiations with the US command, France and the Iraqi government, AANES has released 150 Islamic State families held in Al-Hol and announced the voluntary return of a further 66 families to their homes in Syria, although it is not known whether HTS is part of this agreement. Iraq plans to repatriate 10,000 of its citizens under the same agreements.

Israeli colonization in the south-west

In the south of the country, Israel continues to advance into Syrian territory unhindered by anyone or anything, stealing an area of 235 square kilometers from Syria. After entering two new localities, the Israeli army set up 7 new checkpoints and military barracks, thus persisting with its “buffer zone” project, enabling it to exercise military control over 15 to 60 kilometers downstream from its previous border.

The Syrian Chronicle by Interstices – Fajawat, January 17, 2025

CHRONICLE WRITTEN IN COLLABORATION WITH FRENCH COLLECTIVE/MEDIA “CONTRE ATTAQUE

We can’t talk about Syria without mentioning Palestine. At a time when Israel is reluctantly accepting a ceasefire in Gaza, having repeatedly violated the one in effect in Lebanon, it seems that its colonial ambitions have simply shifted the front line towards Jenin in the West Bank and Quneitra in Syria.

In our last chronicles, we mentioned the complicit silence of Syria’s interim president al-Sharaa, but rather than complicity, it would seem more accurate to speak of a “non-hostile stance”: the transitional government and Syrian society simply cannot assume a new war with Israel and its allies. Especially after Israel destroyed 80% of Syria’s military arsenal in its massive bombardment campaign (over 600 rockets) of the country’s military sites in the hours following the fall of Bashar al-Assad.

But Israel shows no signs of stopping there. Since last week, Israeli tanks have invaded seven new Syrian villages and, after boasting of stealing military armaments in Syria, Israel bombed a convoy of the new Syrian authorities for the first time, killing two HTS security personnel and the mukhtar (mayor) of the village of Deir al-Bustan, where they had come to collect weapons in circulation as part of the country’s demilitarization operations. For the first time, the HTS foreign minister condemned Israeli aggression and called on the international community to put an end to Israel’s violations. But who can and will stop Israel?

Meanwhile, HTS brought together the Palestinian factions in Syria (PFLP-GC, Fatah-Intifada, Al-Sa’iqa, Jerusalem Brigade, Free Palestine Movement and Palestine Democratic Movement), in the presence of Hamas, to negotiate the terms of their surrender. HTS arrested several of their members on charges of committing crimes alongside the Assad regime, while their main leaders fled to Lebanon. At the same time, the Palestinian embassy in Damascus and most Palestinian civil and charitable organizations in Syria have been able to continue or resume their activities. As this chronicle is being finalized, a spontaneous popular demonstration against the Israeli invasion and in solidarity with Gaza is underway in Damascus, something that has never happened in fifty years under the Assad regime. For news on the Palestinians in Syria, visit  https://www.actionpal.org.uk/

With regard to the security situation in Syria under HTS control, it has to be said that numerous crimes against civilians are being committed, making it impossible to distinguish between individual acts of vengeance, the cleansing of former Assad regime elements and ordinary crime, which continues to develop against a harsh economic backdrop. In particular, drug trafficking to Jordan has resumed, with Jordan bombing several houses south of Suwayda on January 15 under the pretext of targeting drug traffickers.

The military command of the transitional government launched a new campaign of arrests in the Homs region, where six Alawite civilians were executed and their homes burnt down on January 14 by unidentified individuals. Violence and demonstrations also continued in the coastal region of Latakia, where the population accused HTS of committing crimes against civilians and demanded the expulsion of foreign fighters, notably those from the Islamic Party of Turkistan. In Jableh on January 14, a pro-Assad armed group kidnapped seven HTS members and published a video threatening to execute them, before being intercepted and their hostages released. HTS also arrested a local figure, leading to further demonstrations in Jableh on Friday. Finally, HTS is accused of violently searching the premises of the Kurdish “People’s House” in Zour Ava, Damascus, but no arrests were reported.

While the conflict between the pro-Turkish forces of the SNA and the Kurdish-Arab alliance of the SDF-YPG continues unabated at the Tishrin dam between Manbij and Kobane, horrifying news of crimes committed by SNA-affiliated militias, notably the Suleiman Shah (“Al-Amshat”) and Hamza Division (“Al-Hamzat”) groups, continues to be transmitted daily to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR). Among other crimes and petty theft, these groups are accused of robbery and looting, as well as kidnapping for ransom in the Afrin, Aleppo and Manbij regions, for sums ranging from $850 to $2,000 per hostage. The Suleiman Shah group is also responsible for recruiting hundreds of fighters sent to Niger, Libya and Nagorno-Karabakh to defend Turkey’s interests in exchange for a pitiful monthly pay of 1500 Turkish Liras.

On the political front, the transition process continues slowly, with signs as contradictory as ever. While freedom of expression and assembly is a reality, with many public demonstrations able to take place without hindrance, all Syrians’ senses remain on alert. Posters advocating male/female segregation and condemning blasphemy, for example, have been seen plastered on transport in Homs and Damascus, while a famous actor, Abdel Men’am Amayri, was accused of blasphemy and violently beaten in the street by HTS men. While these elements are not sufficient to draw hasty conclusions on the future evolution of Syrian society, they are nevertheless indications that all Syrians should consider serious enough to keep a close eye on Al-Sharaa and HTS during the crucial three-month period leading up to the opening of the National Transition Conference.

In an interview, al-Sharaa notably uttered words that don’t bode well, claiming that for HTS the revolution was accomplished and that “a revolutionary state of mind can overthrow a regime but cannot build a state”, betraying his desire to retain full control over the country’s political transformation, without necessarily letting pluralism get in the way of his ambitions. The Syrian revolution of 2011 seems to him to be part of a frivolous past that now needs to be left behind, as he never took part in the Syrian demonstrations at the time, too busy fighting for the Islamic State in Iraq…

The Syrian Chronicle by Interstices-Fajawat, January, 10, 2025

CHRONICLE WRITTEN IN COLLABORATION WITH FRENCH COLLECTIVE/MEDIA “CONTRE ATTAQUE

On the first day of the year 2025, the Syrian transitional government made its first diplomatic outing abroad, visiting the Saudi government and then its neighbors Qatar and the United Arab Emirates. HTS thus sent a clear and strong message to the whole world, making Saudi Arabia and Qatar, in addition to Turkey, its priority partners in the reconstruction of the country. The resources needed to rebuild Syria are estimated at almost 400 billion dollars. In the days that followed, Saudi Arabia sent several truckloads of humanitarian aid by air to Damascus, then a convoy of 60 aid trucks entered via the Jordanian border on January the 5th, while Qatar and Turkey sent two “powerships” to the Syrian coast (floating power plants) to supply Syria with 800 MW of electricity (+50%). Jordan is also ready to supply energy to its neighbor. The lack of electricity and its rationing by the Assad regime was one of the major problems facing Syrian society.

After announcing Syria’s reconnection to the market economy, we can expect the transitional government to apply ultra-liberal measures aimed at reducing the new state’s spending as much as possible and favoring private investment. This may explain the unannounced dismissal of hundreds of public-sector hospital workers in Tartous and Aleppo, as well as a state-owned shoe factory in Suwayda in recent days, leading to spontaneous angry demonstrations in all three provinces.

Suffice it to say that the period ahead promises to be a tense one, especially as the security operations launched in Tartous, Homs and Rural Damascus over the past week have not been as consensual and peaceful as might have been expected. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) has gathered extensive evidence and testimonies of violence committed by HTS forces during their sweep operations to arrest officers and agents of the deposed regime: aggressive raids, bullying and physical violence against hundreds of residents, as well as those arrested. For the operation in Homs, which lasted five days, HTS arrested 1,450 people, without knowing the reality of the charges brought against them. Above all, these operations gave self-proclaimed rebel groups or groups affiliated to HTS carte blanche to persecute and murder civilians. SOHR has counted 214 murders since December 8, including that of three farmers in Jableh (Latakia), which led to a demonstration of several thousand people demanding the expulsion of foreign fighters (in this case, Chechens and Pakistanis).

Syrian society urgently needs the implementation of transitional justice, accompanied by solid reconciliation processes. Fourteen mass graves have been discovered, with 1,582 bodies identified to date, and measures have finally been taken to guard Assad’s prisons and preserve their archives, at the insistence of the families of the disappeared. But these families are now joined by hundreds of others, who demonstrated in large numbers in Damascus on January 6 to demand information on the fate of almost 9,000 soldiers of the former regime arrested since its fall, including 2,000 sent back to Syria by the Iraqi authorities after fleeing. While several thousand Assad soldiers have passed through “reconciliation centers” over the past three weeks to hand in their weapons and be registered for possible prosecution, before being reincorporated into civilian society (under Assad, soldiers had their civilian identity cards confiscated and replaced by military identity cards), many are still being held without the transitional government being willing to give their names and places of detention. Finally, and this is perhaps the greatest irony of all, families in the Idleb region are also demonstrating to demand the release of their loved ones, imprisoned by HTS before the fall of the regime for their membership of Hizb ut-Tahrir, a Salafist group criticizing Joulani for abandoning the Islamic caliphate project (sic).

Other events are shaking up Syria’s new political life, particularly in the two southern regions of Syria. In Deraa the leader of the 8th Brigade, created by Russia from the region’s rebel groups under surrender agreements signed in 2018, refuses to disarm his men and join the new Syrian army. In Suwayda two of the main local factions have allied and also refused, through the province’s spiritual sheikh, to give up their weapons and join the new Syrian army without guarantees of a real democratic and secular transition at the end of the transition period. While this decision may come as a surprise to the Sunni-majority factions in Deraa, it is far less of a surprise to the Druze minority in Suwayda, whose survival has always depended on its means of self-defense and its ties of solidarity with the Druze of Mount Hermon (occupied by Israel since December 8) and Mount Lebanon (the Lebanese have been banned from entering Syria since January 3). The Druze cannot jeopardize their security in the face of a military apparatus entirely in the hands of former (not so former) jihadists[1]. Their defiance is therefore totally legitimate.

Still in the south of the country, Israel has seized new villages, as well as the important Mantara dam in the province of Quneitra, not hesitating to destroy houses and infrastructure, while exercising violence against residents. A French journalist, Sylvain Mercadier, and his Syrian fixer were arrested on January 8 and beaten while in custody, before being released. Israel claims it intends to hold out until the end of 2025, but there is ample evidence that it intends to occupy the territory permanently and wage a “water war” against the Syrians as well. At the time of writing, we have also learned of the detention of five Palestinian refugees by the Syrian branch of Fatah in Damascus as they took part in a demonstration in front of the Palestinian embassy to protest against the ongoing siege in Jenin. Not content with collaborating with the Assad regime, Palestinian political factions seem to enjoy impunity, aided by HTS’s silence on Israel.

The other obstacle to HTS’s hegemonic ambitions is represented by the Syrian Democratic Forces and their autonomous Kurdish allies in Rojava. The main reason for their non-allegiance is that the war continues between them and the pro-Turkish jihadist mercenaries of the SNA, supported by Turkish aircraft, artillery and drones. Since the end of December, the front line has crystallized around the Tishrin dam on the Euphrates, and the fighting has claimed the lives of 56 SDF fighters and 199 SNA members. Not to mention the many civilian casualties in jihadist-controlled areas, where persecution and arbitrary executions are commonplace, but also on the other side of the Euphrates due to daily bombardments. Beyond the fierce resistance of the SDF, the truly decisive factor is and will remain the position of the United States in the conflict. The US army has already reinforced its contingent in Kobane, and there is some talk of demilitarizing the area under agreements with France, involving the securing of the Turkish border by a Franco-American force. But it is clear that this will not be enough to put an end to the conflict as long as the regions north of Aleppo remain under the control of the SNA fanatics. On the HTS side, negotiations are still underway for a possible conciliation, as the autonomous administration of northeastern Syria has reaffirmed its desire to integrate into a unified national state.

Given these balances of power, as well as the diversity and regional specificities that characterize Syrian society, only a decentralized model of governance allowing greater local participation in decision-making can guarantee social peace. But only if HTS’s foreign sponsors accept this…

[1]  Recall that Al-Nosra jihadists had fought the Free Syrian Army’s Druse Battalion in 2014, while those of DAESH had massacred 258 residents of Suwayda in 2018.

The Syrian Chronicle by Interstices-Fajawat, January, 2, 2025

CHRONICLE WRITTEN IN COLLABORATION WITH FRENCH COLLECTIVE/MEDIA “CONTRE ATTAQUE

Our previous chronicle was published at a time when a large-scale military operation was being launched by HTS in Homs and Tartus regions to arrest a number of former officers and henchmen loyal to the deposed Assad regime. These militiamen, who had taken refuge in the predominantly Alawite coastal regions (the religious minority from which the Assad clan is descended), had in fact begun issuing threats and agitating the population against a backdrop of fake news, accusing HTS of having deliberately attacked and set fire to a sacred site for the Alawites in Aleppo. Although the holy site was indeed attacked on December 5 during the first assaults against the regime, HTS immediately condemned the action and promised to punish those responsible, which is quite different from what Assad’s nostalgic supporters claim, alleging that HTS was organizing ethnic cleansing of the Alawites. In fact, this cleansing has not taken place, even though images of violence have circulated, showing militiamen from the deposed regime being mistreated when arrested. At the same time, Alawite religious and civil leaders met with HTS officials and issued statements invalidating rumors of persecution.

These sectarian tensions make us forget that the majority of Syria’s Alawite population was also suffering under Assad’s dictatorship, and that an attempted insurrection started from the Alawite community in August 2023 (August 10th Movement: https://en.majalla.com/node/297431/politics/alawite-protest-movement-emerging-syrias-coastal-areas ; https://syriadirect.org/where-does-latakia-stand-on-suwaydas-movement/ ), immediately put down by the regime. For the past two weeks, we’ve also been struggling on social networks (when we clearly have other things to do) with Western and/or pro-Assad accounts spreading disinformation and rumors about the persecution and massacre of Christians in Syria, which is simply not true. It seems that part of the world doesn’t want to leave Syrians in peace and finds interest or pleasure in circulating images of atrocities, which deny our need to heal from decades of trauma. Our nightmares make their fantasies. To sort out what’s true from what’s not, and to deal with the rumors, we invite anyone to follow the @VeSyria / https://verify-sy.com/en account.

Still on the security front, Al-Shara’a continued to reward his lieutenants with responsibilities within the new military apparatus. A list of some 50 appointments to the new Ministry of Defense was made public, including at least seven foreign fighters, three of them Uighurs, one Turk, one Jordanian, one Egyptian and one Albanian. The Minister of Defense and the Head of Intelligence have also been appointed, all from HTS and the multiple Islamist factions that constitute it.

On the political front, the transitional authority has made progress. Last week, Ahmed Al-Shara’a (aka Al-Joulani) appointed the first woman to the government, Aisha Aldebs, as head of women’s affairs. What appeared to be an encouraging sign was immediately tarnished by her first, extremely conservative statements, which for the past week have sparked strong polemics in Syrian society, as well as virulent reactions in the media. In the aftermath, Al-Shara’a seems to have wanted to adjust the balance by appointing other women to positions of responsibility: Maysaa Sabrine, as Governor of the Syrian Central Bank, Diana Elias Al-Asmar (Christian) as Director of the Damascus University Children’s Hospital, and finally Mohsena Al-Maithawi (Druze), as Governor of the Suwayda region, which was a request from the Druze community. At the same time, freelance journalist Mohammed Al-Faisal was appointed spokesman for the transitional government.

Beyond this, Al-Shara’a also announced deadlines for the drafting of a new constitution and the holding of elections, stating that it would take between 3 and 4 years to guarantee the implementation of UN Resolution 2254 for a democratic transition in Syria. Given the catastrophic state of Syrian society and institutions, these timescales seem realistic, although there is still considerable concern about how the transitional government will manage public affairs over this long period. While Shara’a has rejected the federalist option and justified his choice of appointing only officials close to HTS, he has nevertheless reassured his interlocutors and detractors by promising the future dissolution of HTS within the framework of the National Conference for Dialogue due to begin on January 5. A preliminary meeting of the conference was held on December 28, but it was roundly criticized for the low participation of women (3 out of more than 100 people) and young people, as well as for the superficiality of the exchanges that took place. The way in which participants are chosen and invited remains vague. The Madaniyya network, made up of over 150 Syrian civil society organizations committed to the principles of the 2011 revolution, and which has already met with a number of foreign delegations, is waiting, for example, to be taken into consideration by the transitional government and the national conference for dialogue.

One of the blind spots in this transition is therefore still the condition of women, as well as that of the thousands of detainees and forcebley disappeared people plus their relatives, who have not been offered any concrete support or any prospect of justice or reparation. Many associations and human rights groups have begun to denounce the fact that prisons and their archives have not been put under protection over the past two weeks, and have been subject to destruction and theft. This obvious negligence raises questions about the new government’s real desire to dig deep into the secrets of the deposed regime. Silence, too, on the fate of the Syrian communes occupied by Israel and Turkey, as well as that of the Druze community of Suwayda, which has enjoyed de facto autonomy for several years now and has so far neither been invited nor solicited by the new central authority in Damascus. Silence again on Russian military bases, whose total withdrawal is not mentioned, despite the fact that Russia has spent the last ten years bombing and participating in the massacre of Syrian communities. Al-Shara’a, on the other hand, has declared its desire to respect Russian strategic interests in the region, a priori on a level with those of Israel and the United States.

In conclusion, one of the main “Gordian knots” in post-Assad Syria remains the fate of the Kurdish population, and more specifically that of the autonomist Rojava project. The Syrian Democratic Forces are struggling to contain the onslaught of pro-Turkish militias on the banks of the Euphrates, and have even driven them back to the outskirts of Manbij, while the autonomous administration of north-eastern Syria has entered into negotiations with HTS, even considering demilitarization and the reunion of the SDF within the new national army. But not without serious guarantees from the new government in Damascus…

The Syrian Chronicle by Interstices-Fajawat, December 26, 2024

CHRONICLE WRITTEN IN COLLABORATION WITH FRENCH COLLECTIVE/MEDIA “CONTRE ATTAQUE

Since the fall of the Assad regime, things have been moving fast.

Ahmed al-Shara’a (aka Al-Julani), leader of the rebel group Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) has immediately appointed a transitional government formed from the pre-existing Syrian Salvation Government in Idleb since 2017. The ministers are not military, but professionals in the fields entrusted to them. They are clearly not progressives, but rather conservative Islamists. However, no constitutional changes or decisions involving major societal changes without the consultation and agreement of the Syrians have yet been taken. At the end of its transitional mandate, the interim government is supposed to make way for a national conference representing all Syrian factions and minorities, to form the new Syrian state.

Shara’a has also appointed several warlords as provincial governors, which does not reassure everyone, but not all appointments have been made and readjustments are underway. In Suwayda, a southern province where over 90% of the population is Druze, a minority that cannot be suspected of Islamist sympathies, a regional council representing all local factions has proposed the nomination of a woman as governor, a first in the country’s history. In addition, a major meeting of the leaders of the various armed factions was held in Damascus to agree on the disarmament of all armed groups and the integration of their personnel into the future national army, on a voluntary basis. Shara’a announced the end of compulsory conscription.

Over the past two weeks, social networks have been pouring out conflicting reports of violence against minorities and extrajudicial executions on the Alawite-majority coast, but none of this has taken place in the areas liberated from the former regime by the HTS rebels. In Tartus and Latakia, on the contrary, Alawites welcomed the fall of the regime with the same enthusiasm as everywhere else. Nonetheless, many accounts claiming to be well-informed are spreading false information and unsourced, undated images on a daily basis to legitimize and incite inter-community tensions, despite the fact that the transitional authorities have done everything in their power to ensure that there are no reprisals or acts of violence against minorities.

Incidents took place, including the burning of a Christmas tree in Suqaylabiyah, on the outskirts of Hama, an act whose perpetrators were arrested by HTS, which undertook to repair the damage and declared Christmas an official Syrian holiday. Foreign fighters, in particular Uighurs, Chechens and Kazakhs, have been singled out and demonstrations have taken place (without incident) to demand their disarmament and expulsion from the country. These demonstrations come a week after a demonstration in the heart of Damascus in favor of secularism, which met with a wave of criticism because its main organizers were defenders of the Assad regime before its fall, but also because of the conspicuous absence of Syrian revolutionary flags. The necessary struggle for a new regime that guarantees secularism and the protection of minorities, including atheists, was thus discredited by this lamentable recuperation by personalities seeking to redeem themselves with Syrians. Moreover, the polemics surrounding this demonstration overshadowed another demonstration called in Homs by women’s groups in favor of secularism and the protection of freedoms.

In terms of international politics, the daily choreography of foreign delegations coming to speak with Syria’s new strongman is breathtaking. Each one seems to be keen to set conditions, demand its due or obtain guarantees, while Turkey appears to be the big winner in this regime change. Indeed, it has been quick to invest in the Syrian economy, announcing the imminent reopening of the air route between the two countries and the restoration of the railroads abandoned since 2012. There’s no doubt that this renewed interest in Syria on the part of foreign states is motivated by the lure of profit, insofar as Shara’a has announced the country’s reconnection with the market economy. Germany, in addition to being clearly in favor of the genocide of the Palestinians, was among the first states to suspend Syrian asylum applications and to rush to Erdogan’s side to congratulate him and remind us of what a first-rate partner he has been in terms of migration management… Rapacious.

For its part, Israel continues to militarily occupy villages in the provinces of Dera’a, Quneitra and rural Damascus: at present, nearly thirty villages have been annexed, affecting almost 50,000 Syrian residents. Israeli officials are delighted to have taken possession of Mount Hermon, which accounts for 30% of Syria’s water resources and 40% of those of Jordan. While Shara’a cautiously avoids criticizing Israel, the population did not wait to express its hostility towards the Israeli army, which opened fire and wounded several people before withdrawing from the village of Al-Suwaisa (Quneitra). Residents of the Druze village of Hader also publicly declared their refusal to be annexed by Israel, thereby responding to the rumors and fake news propagated by Zionists and Islamists falsely accusing the Druze of being pro-Israel.

Finally, the Kurdish question will also be decisive, depending on US decisions and the outcome of ongoing negotiations between Shara’a, the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the autonomous Rojava administration. On December 14, the truce in the Kobane and Manbij regions agreed two days earlier was immediately violated by Turkey, prompting the SDF to retaliate against the pro-Turkish militias of the Syrian National Army (SNA). Let’s not forget that if the war is not over, the fault lies largely with the colonial and imperialist aspirations of Erdogan, who is neither the liberator nor the friend of the Syrians. As for the SDF, over 60% of its members are Syrian Arabs, which does not make it a Kurdish force as some claim. The simplification of power relations and the ethnocultural characteristics of the regions east of the Euphrates are partly responsible for the indifference of many Syrians to what is currently happening there, and therefore for a form of denial regarding the crimes committed by the pro-Turkish forces.

The situation therefore remains extremely uncertain, even if we are generally confident about future developments, as a number of progressive, democratic and secular popular initiatives have already been launched, demonstrating that Syrian society will not allow itself to be imposed with a new military or religious dictatorship. Whatever may happen in the coming weeks, what has been happening in Syria over the past two weeks is an unprecedented demonstration of collective resilience.