Photo: People celebrate the collapse of Bashar al-Assad’s rule in Sweida, the heartland of Syria’s Druze minority. the people of Sweida greeted the fall of the Al-Assad regime with celebrations, along with those in other major Syrian towns and cities from Damascus to Hama, Homs and Latakia, despite this enthusiasm, fears remain over partition in Syria until a formula for collective and inclusive coexistence is laid out and universally accepted. LOUAI BESHARA
The spectre of partition has hovered over Syria for years, and the country’s current territorial divisions are the result of bids by regional and international powers to establish de facto realities on the ground in order to pursue their interests while paying lip service to the country’s territorial integrity.
With the fall of former Syrian president Bashar Al-Assad, Syria appears to be heading towards reunification under the triple-star flag of the opposition militias that advanced southwards to take control of Damascus, the coastal region, and most other parts of the country apart from the northeast where the Kurds have established an autonomous administration.
However, this trend has still not allayed fears of partitionist agendas that could leave Syria partitioned into three if not more statelets.
The caretaker government is taking pains to broadcast reassuring, unifying messages, encompassing not just geographical but also ethnic and religious divisions. It hopes to bring all segments of the population on board in a collective, comprehensive project of national reconstruction. As important as such signals are, they have not laid to rest questions and doubts, which may persist until a formula for collective and inclusive coexistence is laid out and universally accepted.
Syria’s de facto partition is not just a matter of memory. It reached a peak in 2014-2018, when the country was divided into five parts.
These included a regime-controlled area that took in Damascus, Hama, Suwayda, parts of Homs province, and the coastal region; the south, including Daraa and Quneitra, which had been under the control over the Free Syrian Army until the Russian-Turkish de-escalation agreement brought it back under the regime’s authority; the northwest (Idlib and Afrin), which is controlled by radical Islamist militias led by Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) that now controls the country; the northeast, controlled by the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF); and a large chunk of territory straddling Syria and Iraq controlled by the Islamic State (IS) group.
In the case of the latter, combined efforts by Russian-backed regime forces and US-backed Kurdish forces defeated IS, splitting the territories it held between the Kurds and the regime.
As a result, on the eve of Al-Assad’s fall, Syria was effectively divided into three parts. Today, it is divided into two, with a question mark hovering over the fate of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES).
Turkey has emerged the biggest winner from the overthrow of Al-Assad and the installation of the HTS-led Islamist factions in power. However, it will not accept the continued presence of a Kurdish-led autonomous region in the northeast.
Ankara has been working to eliminate the Kurdish presence there for years, launching several military operations towards that end. The recent skirmishes between the Turkish-supported Syrian National Army (SNA) and the SDF in Manbij and the vicinity are reminders that the area is still in Ankara’s crosshairs.
In a nod to the current mood in Syria, official statements from Turkey are drawing a distinction between the Syrian Kurdish people and the SDF and its component People’s Protection Units (YPG) and their political wing the Democratic Union Party (PYD).
Ankara calls these organisations the PKK (Kurdistan Workers Party), which it has designated as a terrorist organisation. Turkish officials have called on SDF leaders to leave their positions in northeastern Syria and surrender their weapons. It has been eyeing that area to create a large “buffer zone” inside Syria.
On the other hand, there have been reports that SDF rule is not popular in parts of the northeast, in part because of coercive military conscription. Arab tribes in Raqqa and Deir ez-Zor have revolted against SDF rule in these provinces, calling for Arab self-rule.
It is unlikely that Kurdish forces will bow to Ankara’s dictates so easily, even if Kurdish leaders have called for dialogue. Perhaps they are exploring the option of an international alliance that would enhance their prospects of preserving their area of autonomous rule.
Up to now, the US has backed the Kurds, which formed the leading ground force in the coalition to fight IS. This support has held Turkish ambitions at bay, but when US President-elect Donald Trump takes office in January, he may be amenable to a deal with Ankara at the expense of the Kurds.
In that event, the Kurds might consider playing a last card out of desperation, leveraging their relations with Israel to create a new de facto border for their territory. Conceivably, this might extend from the Syrian-Iraqi border in the east to the border with Jordan and the border with the Occupied Syrian Golan in the south.
However, they might encounter a problem in the north with the defection of the Arab contingents of the SDF in Deir ez-Zor to join the new authorities in Damascus. It should also be born in mind that the AANES sits atop the most fertile agricultural land in Syria, not to mention Syria’s oil fields.
It is difficult to imagine that the new authorities in Damascus will not do everything in their power to regain control over these resources.
OTHER AREAS: In the south of the country, Israeli Occupation Forces (IOF) have seized control of the international demilitarised zone (DMZ) and have occupied the Syrian side of Mount Hermon, forcibly displacing the inhabitants of villages there.
Many fear that Israel plans to annex more Syrian villages in the area, which are primarily inhabited by Druze. Videos circulating on social media show participants in a meeting of Druze leaders from several villages calling for the lifting of the siege on these villages, even if they have to be temporarily annexed to Israel.
This has heightened fears of Israeli designs to create an even larger enclave inside Syria. It is noteworthy that the Druze residents of the Occupied Golan have rejected Israeli citizenship for decades, despite the inconveniences of this, preferring instead to send their children to Syria for their education.
Meanwhile, the people of Suwayda, also predominantly Druze, greeted the fall of the Al-Assad regime with celebrations, along with those in other major Syrian towns and cities from Damascus to Hama, Homs and Latakia.
People in Suwayda had joined the anti-Al-Assad protest movement in August 2023 and had persevered with their demonstration for months. When the opposition forces began their advance towards Damascus in late November, a large group of Suwayda youth seized control of the security headquarters in the province, expelling Al-Assad’s forces.
The caretaker government in Damascus is currently coordinating with Druze political and spiritual leaders to improve living conditions in the province during the transitional phase.
The dominant discourse among the Druze at present is focused on how to unite the country and work together on reconstruction. There are no echoes of the secessionist rhetoric that was inspired by the anti-opposition fearmongering that was a mainstay of the Al-Assad regime’s propaganda to perpetuate itself in power.
In Latakia and Tartus on the Mediterranean, where Syria’s Alawite minority is concentrated, this fearmongering propaganda was complemented by the regime’s rhetoric of “useful Syria,” in other words those territories that could be managed easily, along with the capital, because, as Al-Assad said, it was “more homogeneous,” meaning that it consisted of religious minorities such as Alawites, Druze, Shia, and Christian communities.
As they were “useful,” from the former regime’s perspective, these areas were more deserving of government services and resources. Fears of sectarian revenge were widespread as the opposition forces advanced into the predominantly Alawite areas. However, these have largely been allayed due to the caretaker government’s reassuring messages.
But it would be premature and naïve to believe that the Al-Assad regime vanished the moment its leader boarded an airplane for Moscow on 7 December. While people in Latakia and elsewhere in the coastal provinces are celebrating and welcoming the opposition forces, it should also be born in mind that these areas are home to many former Syrian regime military and intelligence officers, pro-regime militia leaders, as well as Captagon production and smuggling rings.
These people will not easily accept a government run by Islamists, especially one that might set in motion a hunt for those responsible for the former regime’s prisons and the torture committed in them.
These areas are full of weapons, and this raises the possibility that former regime elements might try to regroup and attempt to assert their influence in them in disruptive ways. Latakia is a strategic port and can thus serve as the focal point for the influx of money and supplies from abroad.
Activity there has declined, and the local economy has suffered as a result of the crippling Western sanctions that have ravaged Syria for years. However, the port is still too vital a facility for the government in Damascus to ignore, especially during the reconstruction phase.
It will undoubtedly work to bring the port of Latakia and the coastal region as a whole under its authority.
As for the northwest, this is where the HTS-led Islamist opposition, which now controls the country, was based for years. Its orientation, together with that of its Turkish backer, has now shifted from the politics of polarisation and division to the politics of unity and collective collaboration, as this better serves its interests.
But, those provinces, which have managed their own affairs for years, may not now be willing to surrender their autonomy to the central government, especially one that might be rigid and dogmatic.
Undoubtedly, the question of centralised versus decentralised government in Syria will be a central topic of debate in the coming period, especially once the process of drafting a new constitution for the country begins.
This will be when the Syrian people will need to grapple with a range of thorny and interrelated issues, from ethnic and religious rights and the role of religion in government to the organisation of the state and local government and the management and division of resources.
Ahram.org