REGIME change in any country, achieved not through parliamentary elections, introduces considerable instability in the region. This is worrisome to its neighbours, like what happened in Bangladesh. It is more so in Syria, a classic example of “ungoverned territory” or “failed state”, as defined by American think tank RAND in 2007.
The characteristics of a “failed state” are low-level administrative penetration into its territory, a lack of monopoly on the use of force by permitting illegal armed groups, the absence of effective controls on its land and sea borders, thus allowing influence by undesirable foreign elements. Syria has been welcoming foreign terrorists for years, much before the start of the Syrian Civil War, which began in 2011.
From the 1960s, Syria allowed terrorists like Abu Nidal, Nazar Mansur Hindawi and George Habash to freely operate from its land. On December 18, 1985, Abu Nidal claimed to a French paper, ‘Jeune Afrique’, that he was helping French covert group Action Directe, Basque separatist group ETA, Irish Republican Army and Baader-Meinhof gang. Abu Nidal was expelled from Syria only in 1987, under US pressure.
Consequently, the Syrian government could not help other states, even if they wanted, in hostage rescue from their territory. The Washington Post (July 18, 1986) reported Syrian Vice-President Abdul Halim Khaddam admitting to American and French leaders, with whom he had good relations, that he could not help rescue American and French hostages kidnapped by local extremists as “they were being held in a region outside Syrian control”. In 2005, Khaddam exiled himself to Paris due to differences with Bashar al-Assad.
Even with this inconstancy, Syria tried to take care of Western sensitivities while offering sanctuary to terrorists, as in the case of notorious mercenary Carlos the Jackal (Ilich Ramírez Sánchez) by forcing him to be inactive when Hungary expelled him in 1985. However, it expelled him in 1991 when he showed signs of joining Iraq’s covert operations against America as Syria had opposed Saddam Hussein’s invasion of Kuwait.
Syria’s alignment with American security policy continued during the post-9/11 period, although in that process it received considerable flak from human rights organisations. Diplomatically, Syria openly opposed Saddam. To quote noted Middle East scholar Shibley Telhami of Brookings, Syria “surprised many by supporting UN Resolution 1441 demanding immediate Iraqi compliance with previous UN resolutions”.
Covertly, Syria helped the CIA deal with terrorists suspected to be involved in the 9/11 attacks. The Canadian Justice Dennis O’Connor Commission report (2004-05) on the “extraordinary rendition” of Maher Arar, a Canadian citizen of Syrian origin, to Syria on the CIA’s initiative and his harsh interrogation and incarceration by Syrian agencies for one year is an example of covert intelligence cooperation between the two countries.
All these factors should be kept in mind while assessing the long-term stability of the new government under Ahmed al-Sharaa alias Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). He was once the chief of ‘al-Nusra’, an al-Qaeda front. True, American officials are expressing a new comfort level, as is evident from the statements of US diplomats Barbara A Leaf and Roger D Carstens on December 20, which has led to the scrapping of a $10-million reward for al-Sharaa’s arrest.
Apart from the possibility of future clashes with Turkey over the Kurds, who are supported by America, the new al-Sharaa government must ensure that the Islamic State (ISIS) does not make a comeback, not just in Syria but also the entire region. There is a view that some hardliners within the HTS are not yet reconciled in supporting the leadership’s “more moderate and pragmatic approach”. This is because some of the Chechen, Balkan and Central Asian jihadists are still among the HTS’s rank and file. It is quite possible that ISIS “could seek to poach these militants and bring them into their fold”.
The Soufan Centre, which has been mostly correct in the past in its assessments about the ISIS in that region, has flagged some scenarios in its brief dated December 18, 2024. It says: “The current environment in Syria is tailor-made for the Islamic State to exploit in an effort to help facilitate its comeback and resurgence, not just in the country but across the region”.
Firstly, it says that ISIS attacks in Syria alone had “tripled from last year” to about 700 for 2024. The ISIS has also improved “in sophistication, increased in lethality and become more dispersed geographically”. Secondly, it would take advantage of the intra-coalition (anti-Assad) fights between Turkey-backed Syrian National Army (SNA) and Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a Kurdish militia backed by America.
Soufan says the Kurds came under attack in Kobani and Manbij, aided by Turkish drones and other military assets. It adds that in northern Syria, a tenuous ceasefire between the SNA and the Kurds is holding on. There are fears that the Kurds might lose Kobani, a “geographically and symbolically important” area. The SDF is also facing major challenges in Deir ez-Zor, with Sunni Arabs protesting against its rule in Raqqa and Al-Hasakah.
If Kurdish troops (SDF) are removed from guarding the prisons and detention centres, there is a strong possibility of the ISIS trying to strike, as it did between January 20 and 30, 2022, at Al-Hasakah prison. This was a spectacular attack by the ISIS after it lost territories in Syria in 2019. During this attack, 200 to 300 ISIS fighters broke into the security ring of 9,000 SDF soldiers, supported by the US and UK’s air forces, and freed 400 prisoners using suicide bombers and weapons. This fight had given a great propaganda edge to the ISIS.
Soufan predicts that it will be to the advantage of the ISIS if the US decides to withdraw its forces, as announced by President-elect Donald Trump. In that case, the responsibility of propping up the al-Sharaa government will rest with Ankara. This view is endorsed by BBC’s Orla Guerin.
Views are personal
