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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.