The change of the regime in Syria. Will it be for the best or for the worse?

In Syria fell the regime of Assad, the heritage of his reign is a huge amount of people dead and the country in ruins. Bashar al-Assad took power following his father’s death in 2000. Initially, he was seen as a potential reformer due to his Western education and promises of modernization. However, his rule has been marked by increasing authoritarianism and brutality. In 2011 he harshly condemned peaceful protests during the Arab Spring era. After this the civil war started that devastated the country. In result of the suppression of the opposition, around half million of Syrian people died. More than 7 million escaped the country. Hundreds of people died due to the chemical attacks of Assad’s army. On the territory occupied by the rebels during the siege of Aleppo the army of the regime have been making attacks on schools and hospitals making the conflict between the government and the opposition even more brutal, showing that Asaad will not spare anyone. Russia and Iran have been supporting the side of Assad and Russian planes have been supporting pro-governmental side in bombing civilian houses in Aleppo and the provinces of Idlib and Hama. International community through the years has been criticising war atrocities of Assad’s regime. The use of chemical weapons, arrests, torture, death penalties of civilians as well as repressions against human rights defenders and political activists, the destruction of cultural and religious heritage. However, the end of a two-decade regime came all over a sudden this year.

On December 8,2024 armed opponents of the regime took Damascus and have proclaimed an absolute control over the capital and main cities of the country. Anti-governmental forces did not meet any resistance from the Assad’s government. Due to them, the 24-year reign of Assad is over now. However, the location of the former president is unknown. The Ministery of Foreign Affairs of Russia announced that Assad has resigned and left Syria. On December 9, 2024, Dmitri Peskov announced that Assad had been granted an asylum in the Russian Federation.
In the social media the videos of Asaad’s presidential palace from the inside have been published. Local people are taking everything they can from there. Due to the official data of the United Nations, more than 90% of Syrian people are living under the poverty line from the beginning of the war in 2011, that is why it is not a surprise that they are robbing the government that took everything from them.

The government of Syria has officially announced that it’s ready to hand over the power to any authorities chosen by Syrian people. Russian authorities have been calling the new government “terrorists”, however, currently they are changing their rethoric  to “opposition of Syria”. The main claim to Assad, after the fall of his government, from the Russian authorities was that he has “trusted Russia too little, relied mostly on Iran”.
The leader of the rebel groups that stormed the city of Damascus is Abu Mohammad Al-Julani, who governs the “Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham” group. The group was established as a filial of “Al-Kaida”. Al-Julani was born in Ryad in 1982, where his father was working as an engineer for the oil industry. In 1989 his family returned to Syria. Abu Mohammad Al-Julani reportedly studied media and journalism at Damascus University but did not graduate. In 2003 Al-Julani joined the “Al-Kaida” in Iraq. Three years later he has been arrested by American forces and has spent 5 years in prison. After the release, he formed the filial of “Al-Kaida” in Syria. However, after the 2016 he started to distance himself ideologically from “Al-Kaida”. Al-Julani has been a prominent figure in the Syrian Civil War and is often associated with jihadist and Islamist extremist factions. Nowadays he declares that his main goal is “Hayʼat Tahrir al-Sham”, to liberate Syria from the authoritarian government of Bashar Assad and to expel Iranian military from the country. From the 2021 Al-Julani tries in every way to improve the image of himself and his group for the West. However, he is still wanted by the American authorities as a “specially designated global terrorist.”

Although Al-Julani has made efforts to distance himself from the global jihadist agenda of groups like ISIS, it does not mean that his radical jihadist principles from the past will not show themselves in the future.
Recently the rebels have released the prisoners from the Saydnaya Prison. From the beginning of the civil war in 2011 more than 1/4 of all antigovernmental representatives of Assad’s regime has been placed there. More than 10,000 of them have been secretly sentenced to death by the representatives of the regime.
not all of the prisoners were political prisoners and some of them were people, who committed serious crimes. Consequentially, by releasing them all, rebels only speeded the chaos in the capital that can worsen the situation inside the country.

After the official announcement of the fall of Assad’s regime, the Israeli Air Force launched a series of air strikes on Syrian military facilities out of fear that the weapons stored there could fall into hands of soldiers of radical groups.
While international arena is celebrating the end of Asaad era, some Syrians are preparing for even tougher times in Syrian history. Lots of them are fearing that former-jihadist group can form similar to Taliban government in the country for which it took so long to go to the cherished freedom from authoritarian shackles. 

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