In the past few weeks, Syria’s interim government has suffered a number of setbacks that raise questions about its generally well-regarded initial performance after the December 8, 2024 fall of the regime of President Bashar al-Assad. These recent developments, including spiraling violence in Latakia province and continuing failure to get international economic sanctions lifted, underscore the intense pressure it is under. On a more positive note, the government has scored a real coup in reaching an agreement with the Syrian Democratic Forces on absorbing those forces, which control northeastern Syria, into a Syrian national army.
Violence that erupted in Latakia province several days ago, in areas considered a bastion of the Alawite minority, constitute the latest – and most devastating – setback for the government. The Assads, former rulers of Syria, and key members of their regime, were Alawites. In the past week, up to 1,000 people have been killed, including large numbers of civilians, according to the British-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, although precise numbers remain unconfirmed. The Syrian Network for Human Rights, based in the country, provided significantly lower, but still horrific, casualty figures. Syrian government sources report some 300 of their security forces killed.
Spiraling Out of Control
Media accounts indicate the violence erupted March 7 when militia elements loyal to the deposed Assad regime ambushed a group of government security forces retreating from a town taken over by the pro-Assad forces, killing 16 people. That prompted a powerful response by militia elements loyal to the government and its Hayat Tahrir al-Sham-dominated leadership that eventually spiraled out of control. Syrian human rights organizations documented scores of executions of civilians. The gathering indications of an armed insurrection by the Assad loyalists in Qardaha, the former stronghold of the Assads, also apparently fueled the ferocity of the response by government-aligned forces. Government calls in recent weeks for pro-Assad elements to turn in their weapons also seem to have contributed to the volatile atmosphere that led up to the violence. As of March 10, observers reported the violence had crested and begun to subside in the coastal province although an incident in Damascus the night of March 9, in which unidentified gunmen attacked a government security position in the Mezze neighborhood, raised questions about whether the violence was completely contained.
For the first time since the fall of the Assad regime, the Syrian government has been seriously backfooted and had its above-expectations performance dragged down to earth. Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa issued a number of statements, initially calling for calm and national unity and urging his forces to proceed with restraint; as word of the violence spread, he sought to calm Syrians’ fears that the scale of the violence had somehow stunned the government and undermined its capacity to maintain control. He pledged to form an independent committee to investigate the violence and hold the perpetrators of crimes accountable. Sharaa subsequently insisted the eruption of violence should be understood as a provocation by former Assad regime elements, aided by foreign powers.
Gulf Countries Express Support, Call for Lifting Sanctions
Governments in the Gulf, as well as in the broader region, and regional bodies such as the Arab League and the Gulf Cooperation Council, issued statements affirming support for the Syrian government and blaming the violence on armed groups targeting government security forces. The United Nations called for restraint, protection of civilians, and accountability for perpetrators. The United States also emphasized accountability and expressed support for Syria’s ethnic and religious minorities. Israel was the lone government among Syria’s neighbors to offer harsh criticism of the government. Responding to the violence, Israeli Defense Minister Israel Katz called Sharaa “a jihadist terrorist of the al-Qaeda school who is committing horrifying acts against a civilian population.”
While by far the bloodiest outburst of violence since the fall of Assad, the violence in Latakia province was not the first such incident of sectarian-tinged violence in recent days. At the end of February, additional government forces were deployed to the Druze town of Jaramana, on the outskirts of Damascus, after clashes there left one security officer dead and nine people wounded. Israel sought to inject itself into the Syrian government’s clash with Druze elements, with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu quoted as saying, “If the regime harms the Druse – it will be harmed by us.” Syrian Druze leaders publicly rejected the Israeli offer of assistance.
Israel’s Plans for a Demilitarized South and Turbocharged Autonomy for Minorities
The Syrian government’s clashes with the Alawites and Druze have erupted as Israel has begun making clear to international partners and allies its opposition to the Sharaa government imposing its control over all parts of Syria and reestablishing Syrian sovereignty. Even as Damascus has made decisive diplomatic inroads with governments in the Gulf, the broader region, and Europe, Israel is intervening, rhetorically and kinetically, to urge and support a highly federalized vision for Syria based on powerful autonomies for Syria’s ethnic and religious minorities, particularly the Druze, concentrated in southern Syria, but also the Alawites in the west and Kurds in the northeast. This turbocharged autonomy for Syria’s minorities is paired with a weak central government. This model, which Israel is reportedly socializing in the international community, would in effect severely restrict Syrian sovereignty exercised by the Sharaa-led government. Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar proposed this vision for Syria at a meeting with European Union ministers in Brussels in late February and with U.S. officials in Washington and Jerusalem. Senior Israeli officials also insist all of southern Syria must remain “demilitarized,” a term they have defined to mean Sharaa government forces will not be allowed into the territory.
On the operational side, to reinforce the rhetoric and strategy documents, Israel has periodically bombed targets in southern Syria since the fall of Assad, hitting military sites in the town of Kisweh, 12 miles from Damascus, in late February. Israeli forces have also mounted raids in southern Syria to seize weapons. Some of the raids have occurred well beyond the buffer zone separating Syria from the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights. That buffer zone was established as part of the 1974 cease-fire agreement between the two countries.
Piecemeal Progress on Sanctions
In addition to the violence in the south and west in the past few weeks, the Syrian government has had only limited success in getting Western economic sanctions lifted, despite persuading the Saudis, Qataris, and regional groupings to call for lifting them. A relatively limited six-month exception, granted before the administration of President Joseph R. Biden Jr. left office, and broader action by EU foreign ministers in recent weeks easing sanctions on oil, gas, electricity, and transportation – in tandem with lifting asset freezes on five Syrian banks – have not gone nearly far enough. A catastrophic humanitarian situation, with 70% of Syrians in the country dependent on humanitarian assistance to survive, remains dominant. Gulf governments such as Qatar’s, which committed to funding a desperately needed salary increase for public employees, remain hesitant to move forward with essential but stopgap measures, fearful of running afoul of Caesar Syria Civilian Protection Act strictures and other U.S. sanctions. The sanctions also continue to choke off the hundreds of billions of dollars in foreign investment and reconstruction assistance needed to rebuild Syria. Syrian officials are making the rounds, most recently Foreign Minister Asaad Hassan al-Shibani at a meeting of neighboring governments in Amman and with GCC officials in Mecca, garnering support for lifting the sanctions, which Washington continues to ignore. More ominously for the new Syrian government, the recent violence in Latakia may provide U.S. policymakers with a useful rationale for keeping the sanctions in place, even as the original basis for the layered sanctions, the brutal Assad regime, no longer exists.
A Breakthrough Deal With the Kurds in the Northeast
In the midst of these late-breaking and ongoing setbacks, the government scored a remarkable success March 10, as Sharaa reached an agreement with Syrian Democratic Forces leader General Mazloum “Kobani” Abdi to integrate Abdi’s forces into Syrian state institutions. The two leaders signed the momentous agreement in Damascus, agreeing to the integration by the end of the year. The agreement will also integrate civilian institutions affiliated with the SDF, which control most of the local governments and civil society in the strategic northeast. The northeast’s critically important oil and gas fields, Qamishli airport in Hasaka province, and border crossings under SDF control since 2011, would also be integrated. Abdi described the agreement as “a real opportunity to build a new Syria.” Kurds, which represent approximately 10% of Syria’s population, are recognized in the agreement as an indigenous community and granted full political and constitutional rights, critically important recognition for a group periodically marginalized in Syria and subject under the father-son Assad regimes to efforts aimed at stripping large numbers of their Syrian nationality.
Implementation of the agreement will likely prove challenging, and there will almost certainly remain ambiguities in public in how far each side moved in making the concessions needed to reach a deal. But the agreement remains an impressive achievement for both sides. For the SDF, depending on the fine print, it likely allows them significant control in the northeast, with the Sharaa government too overwhelmed to contest at every juncture SDF control in the region. More of the language in the agreement and details of implementation to emerge over time are likely to indicate the Sharaa government will settle for overall command, strategic control of the border, and some formula for sharing oil revenue while also rolling back some SDF local control in non-Kurdish areas of the northeast, such as Deir al-Zour province. The agreement should help the SDF remove the target on its back, put there by Turkey as it grew increasingly angry with the SDF’s growing military prowess and political influence over the years as it fought with the United States against the Islamic State group. It also seems clear that Kurdish politics in Turkey – in particular the recent calls by imprisoned Kurdistan Workers’ Party leader Abdullah Ocalan, for his PKK movement to disarm and cease its armed struggle against Turkey – also played an indirect role in facilitating this agreement (and ensuring Turkey was supportive). The PKK subsequently declared a cease-fire.
The agreement resets the chessboard in Syria, overturned by the eruption of nasty violence in Latakia province and the simmering violence in the south, some of the latter including bombing and raids by Israeli forces. Regardless of the agreement, the Syrian government will need to investigate the Latakia violence and hold people accountable, and it will need to redouble its diplomatic efforts to have sanctions lifted. A good faith effort on the accountability front, reinforced with credible follow up on the recent national dialogue, pointing the way forward for constitutional reform, eventual elections, and a credible political transition for Syria, will buttress those diplomatic efforts to convince skeptical Western governments to move more quickly and robustly in the direction of lifting the stifling economic sanctions.
