Assad regime’s fall a setback for Iran, Russia. Who’s Muhammad al-Jawlani, architect behind his ouster

New Delhi: Bashar al-Assad, the leader of Syria, reportedly fled Damascus early Sunday, following a rapid assault by the insurgent group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham over the last two weeks, upending the regional order in West Asia in a major blow for Iran and Russia.

“Assad is gone. He has fled his country. His protector, Russia, Russia, Russia, led by Vladimir Putin, was not interested in protecting him any longer. There was no reason for Russia to be there in the first place. They lost all interest in Syria because of Ukraine, where close to 600,000 Russian soldiers lay wounded or dead, in a war that should never have started, and could go on forever…” said Donald J. Trump, US President-elect, in a statement on social media platform Truth Social.

Russia, which has a naval base in the port of Tartus, used its air power to hit rebel-held areas at the height of the civil war in 2016, which further helped defend the Assad regime. Following the efforts of all these actors, Assad and his government were able to claw back lost territory across the country, defeat various terrorist and rebel groupings, and brought about a stalemate of sorts over the last half decade in the country.

The Indian Ministry of External Affairs put out an advisory Saturday, urging Indians to avoid all travel to the country. There are around 90 Indians left in the country, along with others who have been working with United Nations programmes in the country, explained MEA spokesperson Randhir Jaiswal Friday.

The Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which was reduced to managing the Idlib province and parts around Aleppo, was formed following strategic disagreements between the al-Nusra Front and al-Qaeda in 2017. The group was designated a terrorist organisation by the US in 2018 for its connection to the Sunni islamist al-Nusra Front and by extension, al-Qaeda. Its leader Abu Muhammad al-Jawlani has a $10 million bounty placed by the US government.

Al-Jawlani in recent years has rechristened himself as a pragmatist, who is opposing the Assad regime, rather than leading a terrorist organisation, and has worked alongside the Syrian National Army, which is backed by Turkey to topple Assad.

Starting from the capture of Aleppo, from the end of November till Sunday, al-Jawlani’s group has captured a number of Syrian cities, including Hama, Daraa and now Damascus.

According to Reuters, Assad left Damascus in a plane Sunday, which was headed westwards, before taking a U-turn and then going dark. His whereabouts are currently unknown. Syria’s Prime Minister Mohammad Ghazi al-Jalali, in a video message, has promised to remain in Damascus and to work out a transitional roadmap with al-Jawlani, and has expressed his opinion that there should be free elections in the country.

Also Read: Hayat Tahrir al-Sham’s rise in Syria concerns everyone. It’s the era of indivisible security

Who is Muhammad al-Jawlani?

Born Ahmed Hussein al-Sharaa in 1982, al-Jawlani spent the first seven years of his life in Saudi Arabia before returning to Damascus—the city his grandfather had fled to following the capture of the Golan Heights by Israel in 1967.

In a 2021 interview to PBS, al-Jawlani said, “But at that time, I was strongly influenced by the Palestinian intifada [uprising], which was taking place in neighbouring Palestine in 2000 and 1999. I was still a young man; I was 18 or 19 years old. I started thinking at that time about how I can pursue my duty of defending the nation, which was being persecuted by the occupiers and invaders.”

He added in the interview that he was happy by the 9/11 attacks against the US for their continued support towards Israel, but regretted the death of innocents.

Before al-Jawlani attempted to change his image as a freedom fighter from Assad’s rule, he was the founder of the Al-Nusra Front after his release from the notorious Camp Bucca prison in Iraq, which is known for radicalising a number of individuals, including Muhammad Abu Bakhr al-Bagdadi, the former leader of the Islamic State in Levant (ISIL).

Al-Jawlani was lodged in Camp Bucca due to his role in the defence of Iraq during its invasion by the US in 2003. He landed in the country two weeks after the invasion, according to his interview to PBS.

During his time with the Al-Nusra Front, he refused to acknowledge ISIL, and instead swore loyalty to al-Qaeda. In July 2013, he was designated a terrorist by the United Nations Security Council for his affiliation with al-Qaeda.

In 2017, al-Jawlani split with the masterminds behind 9/11 and formed the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.

Setback for Moscow & Tehran

The rapid defeat of the Syrian army by the Islamist rebels comes in the wake of the multiple challenges faced by Assad’s two biggest backers over the past year.

Russia, which has been in a war with Ukraine since February 2022, has had to use its military resources in Eastern Europe, which has seen its footprint decline in Syria.

As president-elect Trump pointed out in his post, the cost of the war with Ukraine has been huge for Moscow in terms of equipment and manpower, with reports of nearly 5,00,000 Russians losing their lives in the war, according to numbers provided by the Ukrainian government. These numbers are unverifiable, but indicate the losses faced by Moscow.

Iran has been on the backfoot since its ally Hamas launched an attack against Israel on 7 October, 2023, which left around 1,200 Israelis dead and saw another 250 taken hostage. The war in Gaza has seen Israel target Iranian assets in the region, including in Syria, which has degraded its military position.

Earlier this year, Israel launched a strike on an Iranian diplomatic compound in Damascus, which saw the death of a number of senior IRGC commanders, for which Iran retaliated with a direct rocket attack at Tel Aviv for the first time in its history.

Israel has continued to strike at various targets across Syria in an effort to weaken Iran’s position in the country. The war in Gaza has seen the senior leadership of Hamas killed, along with 44,000 Palestinians, and has been ongoing for 14 months.

In September, Tel Aviv also took aim at Hezbollah, expanding its operations to Southern Lebanon and killed the long-time leader of the organisation, Hassan Nasrallah. Israel’s efforts in Lebanon have severely weakened Hezbollah, another key backer of the Assad regime.

According to the New York Times, the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham reached out to Iran earlier last week and promised to protect the Shiite minority in the country, in exchange for Tehran’s non-aggression. By the end of the week, Iran began evacuating its assets and diplomats from the country.

With the fall of Assad, Iran’s “axis of resistance” from Iraq to Yemen, via Syria and Southern Lebanon, has been severely weakened, especially as Damascus was a key point for Tehran’s support to Hezbollah.

Israel has moved its troops to the Golan Heights to protect its communities there, while Jordan and Lebanon have closed the border with Syria.

Also Read: It’s jihadists vs secularism in Syria again. Aleppo crisis is a dangerous new turning point