Dilara Lorin, Neue Internationale 288, December 2024 / January 2025
Since the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Hezbollah, the civil war in Syria has flared up once again. An Islamist alliance of various armed forces is trying to undermine the rule of the dictator Assad. Haiʾat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS; Committee for the Liberation of the Levant), successor to the al-Nusra Front (later renamed Jabhat Fath al-Sham; Front for the Conquest of the Levant), has taken control of more and more areas from Idlib in recent days. On Saturday, its fighters advanced into Syria’s second-largest city, Aleppo.
Many civilians are relieved about the weakening of Assad’s army and power apparatus. The Assad regime’s aggression against Aleppo was brutal: with the support of the Russian Air Force, a large area of the city was reduced to rubble. When his forces recaptured the city, thousands were arrested and subjected to years of torture in overcrowded prisons. Tens of thousands have been killed, far more people have been displaced and have been living in tents in huge refugee camps under precarious conditions ever since.
What is the HTS?
The HTS was founded in 2017 in response to the peace talks between Turkey, Iran and Russia held in Astana (capital of Kazakhstan). These led to limited ceasefires and power-sharing, and a partial stabilization of the areas controlled by Assad. However, HTS leaders strongly oppose such negotiations as long as they do not include the resignation of dictator Assad. Although the group is accused in the media of a connection to al-Qaeda (Organization of the Jihad Base), HTS officially split from this organization in 2017/2018 and distanced itself from it. In public statements by the HTS leader, a commitment to nationalism is increasingly clear. HTS can be classified as an Islamist, jihadist group, but it is increasingly developing in the direction of a more nationalist orientation. The shift away from international jihadism, which does not recognize national borders, towards a more political interpretation of Islam is evident, among other things, in the fact that HTS spokespersons present themselves as legitimate political actors. They are demanding the removal of their organization from international terrorist lists in order to create a basis for negotiations.
Turkey
HTS is supported by Turkey, among others. It is quite possible that Turkey has even given the green light for this operation, as it can cleverly use the situation to assert its own interests. The border crossing from Idlib to the areas controlled by Turkish militias at Bab al-Hawa remains open and prevents Idlib from being completely isolated.
At the same time, Turkish militias are intensifying their attacks on the Kurdish autonomous region of Rojava. President Erdoğan is trying to use the current power vacuum to weaken the Kurds as much as possible. In addition, a possible cooperation with the HTS rebels offers Erdoğan a means of exerting pressure on Assad. The recent rapprochement between Ankara and Damascus suggests that he himself sees the HTS only as a means to an end and only supports it so that Assad makes him a better offer.
If such an agreement is reached, it is foreseeable that Assad will sacrifice the Kurds and that Turkey will be able to continue to pursue its goals. It is quite possible that a large part of the refugees in Turkey will be deported or driven to these areas. This would mean a return to a war and crisis zone, characterized by hunger, destroyed infrastructure and barely useable housing. In this way, Turkey could kill several birds with one stone: it would deport the refugees, get a free hand against Rojava and at the same time strengthen its own geostrategic position. Assad’s army has withdrawn and will probably try to refocus its forces in order to launch a counterattack against the insurgents in the near future.
Why is this happening now?
The fact that this operation has been carried out at this moment cannot be separated from major international developments. The forces that were able to keep Assad in power in a bloody way – Iran, including Hezbollah in particular, and Russia – are currently tied up elsewhere. Russia has increasingly withdrawn ground troops from Syria since the beginning of the war in Ukraine. Hezbollah, which has also contributed massively to the stabilization of Assad’s regime, has been severely weakened by the recent war between Israel and Lebanon. Assad has had difficulties stabilizing his military ranks since 2017. He is currently in Russia, which is probably one of the reasons why Aleppo is once again being reduced to rubble by air strikes.
HTS, which is currently moving south, will meet Assad’s forces in Homs at the latest. Homs, Syria’s third-largest city, is not only a strategically important base, but also the location of the country’s military academies.
Prospects
The current developments make two things particularly clear: firstly, the civil war in Syria never really ended, but continued to smoulder in secret and, secondly, a large part of the population longs for the overthrow of Assad. It is hardly surprising that the Druze sheikh from Suweida in southwestern Syria has shown solidarity with the rebels. The Druze communities have been protesting against the Assad regime for more than a year and demanding change. The legacy of the 2011 revolution in Syria is still alive, but its revival is more difficult than ever.
What position should revolutionaries take in the face of this flare-up of the Syrian civil war? Certainly, there is no reason to wish for Haiʾat Tahrir al-Sham to replace Assad with any kind of Islamic regime. But if their coalition forces corner the regime, it could give space for the people of Syria’s cities and returning refugees to resume the struggle for democracy and working class rights, to build on the experience of the Arab Spring and to combine the struggle against dictatorship with that for socialism.
But we are faced with various problems. While the Assad government is tied to Russian imperialism and Iran, the Syrian opposition is at least partly hoping for support from Turkey and the West. This also applies to Rojava, where US troops are still stationed. Of course, the Kurds of Rojava, who claim to be building a democratic and feminist society, ought to be on the side of those who want to overthrow the Assad dictatorship. And the Syrian rebels ought to support the Kurdish right to self-determination. In these respects, however, both have failed. This reveals the limitation of all forms of nationalism, even that of the currently, or recently, oppressed.
At the same time, it is also clear that those forces that pursued a socialist and proletarian perspective did not tackle a central task in every civil war, or only insufficiently: the development of their own armed forces, that is, self-defence forces and workers‘ militias, which themselves could have become a factor in the conflict.
These contradictions can only be overcome definitively and permanently by a leadership based on proletarian internationalism, for which equal democratic rights for oppressed nationalities, women, workers and all religions are steps towards a socialist Syria within the United Socialist States of the Middle East. These can only be achieved if all those who aspire to such a perspective set out to build a revolutionary workers‘ party, even underground and in the thick of the struggle.