After a lightning 10-day offensive, insurgent forces in Syria captured its capital, Damascus, and toppled the regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.
The insurgent navy operations command for the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group, or HTS, claimed on Sunday the president was not within the capital, writing: “We declare town of Damascus freed from the tyrant Bashar al-Assad.” Russia stated Sunday that Assad had left the nation.
The rebel group claimed credit score for taking up 4 Syrian cities in 24 hours — Homs, Daraa, Queinetra and Sweida — in a sequence of speedy advances by opposition fighters that had largely been met with little resistance from authorities forces.
Individuals react to the autumn of Syrian regime in Umayyad Sq. in Damascus, Syria, Dec. 8, 2024.
Ali Haj Suleiman/Getty Photographs
The collapse of Assad’s authorities ended a 24-year reign, the president having succeeded his father Hafez al-Assad in 2000. The Assad household had dominated Syria since 1971.
Assad oversaw Syria’s slide right into a brutal civil warfare in 2011. His safety forces sought to crush a mass protest motion demanding democratic reforms because the Arab Spring buffeted the area. The standoff devolved right into a bloody civil warfare that break up the nation on political, ethnic and spiritual traces.
This is what we find out about HTS:
What’s HTS?
The insurgent offensive over the previous 10 days has been waged by HTS and a group of Turkish-backed Syrian militias generally known as the Syrian Nationwide Military.
HTS, which has its roots in al-Qaeda, is taken into account a terrorist group by the US.
Fighters have fun in Damascus’ Omeyyad mosque after Islamist-led rebels declared that they’ve taken the Syrian capital in a lightning offensive, in Damascus, Syria, Dec. 8, 2024.
Rami Al Sayed/AFP through Getty Photographs
Who’s Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, chief of HTS?
HTS is led by Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, who in latest days has been making an attempt to distance himself from his jihadist previous.
Jolani was born in Saudi Arabia to Syrian dad and mom from the Israeli-controlled Golan Heights and was raised in Damascus.
Individuals pose for an image with the chief of Syria’s Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group that headed a lightning insurgent offensive snatching Damascus from authorities management, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani (C), earlier than his deal with them on the capital’s landmark Umayyad Mosque, Dec. 8, 2024.
Aref Tammawi/AFP through Getty Photographs
Jolani stated in an interview with PBS in 2021 that he fought for al-Qaeda in Iraq in the course of the American occupation. Jolani stated he was arrested by American forces and held for greater than 5 years in a number of detention services, together with the notorious Abu Ghraib and Camp Bucca prisons.
Jolani stated his ideology has since developed. HTS claims it has severed ties with al-Qaeda lately and sought to remake itself by specializing in selling civilian authorities and navy motion, in accordance with The Related Press.
Are Syrian rebels ISIS?
Amid the outbreak of the nation’s civil warfare in 2011, the chaos allowed ISIS to rise within the Iraq-Syria border area and seize swaths of territory within the Levant area. The battle additionally grew to become a proxy battleground, drawing in main world powers together with the U.S., Russia, Iran, Israel and the Gulf states.
Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad, seen in the course of the Signing of the excellent program of strategic and long-term cooperation between Iran and Syria, in Damascus, Syria, Might 03, 2023.
Matin Ghasemi/Getty Photographs
Assad retained nominal management of a lot of the nation with Russian, Iranian and Hezbollah help. However final month’s shock insurgent offensive revealed the weak spot of the regime, as fighters surged out of the rebel-held Idlib province within the northwest of the nation and rapidly seized a number of main cities on their solution to Damascus.
What do the Syrian rebels need, and what are they planning for Syria?
If HTS beneficial properties management of Syrian authorities establishments, it is unknown how they’ll search to control.
“Will they revert again extra to that when it was affiliated with al-Qaeda?” Javed Ali, affiliate professor on the College of Michigan’s Ford Faculty of Public Coverage, stated throughout an look on ABC Information Stay.
“Or will it look extra just like the Taliban in Afghanistan — which is Islamist, conservative, however not, for probably the most half, intent on threatening its neighbors or having its nation be used as a launchpad for assaults towards the West.”
ABC Information’ Victoria Beaule, Rashid Haddou, Morgan Winsor, Martha Raddatz, Jack Moore, Kirit Radia and Patrick Reevell contributed to this report.
