Anti-government fighters tear up a poster for Syrian President Bachar al Assad as they take over the northern Syrian city of Tal Rifaat on December 1, 2024. | Picture by Rami al SAYED / AFP
BEIRUT, Lebanon — Syrian rebels have toppled President Bashar al-Assad after a lightning offensive which in underneath two weeks has seen main cities slip from authorities’s fingers, culminating in rebels capturing the capital Damascus on Sunday.
Aron Lund, a fellow on the Century Worldwide suppose tank, advised AFP this week that “the primary issue” within the rebels’ success was “regime weak spot and lowered worldwide help to Assad”.
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Islamist insurgent chief Abu Mohammed al-Jolani’s “work on build up establishments and centralising a lot of the rebel underneath his personal management can also be a giant a part of the story”, he added.
Syria’s grinding civil warfare started with a crackdown on anti-government protests in 2011. The entrance traces had remained largely unchanged for the previous 4 years, till the rebels launched their huge offensive.
AFP seems to be at a number of the causes behind Assad’s sudden demise.
Military hollowed out
Assad’s military is little greater than a hole shell amid a warfare that has killed greater than half one million folks and devastated the nation’s financial system, infrastructure and trade.
Within the warfare’s early years, specialists stated a mix of casualties, defections and draft-dodging noticed the navy lose round half of its 300,000-strong power.
In line with the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights warfare monitor, the military put up little vital resistance in some areas after the rebels launched their offensive on November 27.
It reported troopers repeatedly evacuating positions throughout the nation.
“Since 2011, Syria’s military has confronted attrition in manpower, gear and morale,” stated David Rigoulet-Roze of the French Institute for Worldwide and Strategic Affairs.
Underpaid troopers had reportedly looted assets to outlive, and plenty of younger males have evaded conscription, he advised AFP.
On Wednesday, Assad ordered a 50 p.c elevate in profession troopers’ pay, however with Syria’s financial system in tatters, troopers’ salaries are nearly nugatory.
The military has not formally commented since Damascus fell to the rebels.
Deserted by allies
Assad has closely relied on navy, political and diplomatic help from key allies Russia and Iran.
With their assist, he had clawed again territory misplaced after the battle erupted in 2011 with the repression of anti-government protests, and Russia’s 2015 intervention with air energy modified the tide of the warfare in Assad’s favour.
However final month’s insurgent offensive got here as Russia stays mired in its warfare in Ukraine, and its air strikes this time failed to carry again the Islamist-led rebels who swept up swathes of territory together with main cities Aleppo, Hama, Homs and eventually Damascus.
Assad’s different key ally Iran has lengthy supplied navy advisers to Syria’s armed forces and supported pro-government armed teams on the bottom.
However Iran and its allied teams have suffered setbacks in combating with Israel because the Gaza warfare erupted and hostilities ensued between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah in neighbouring Lebanon.
Nick Heras, an analyst on the New Strains Institute, advised AFP earlier than rebels took Damascus that “in the end, the Assad authorities’s means to outlive will rely on the extent to which Iran and Russia see Assad as helpful to their methods within the area”.
“If both or each of these allies resolve they’ll advance their pursuits with out Assad, then his days in energy are numbered,” he added.
Hezbollah weakened
Lebanese militant group Hezbollah has overtly backed Damascus on the bottom since 2013, sending hundreds of fighters throughout the border to bolster the military.
However the rebels launched their offensive final month on the identical day {that a} ceasefire went into impact between Israel and Hezbollah, after greater than a yr of hostilities in Lebanon.
Hezbollah shifted lots of its fighters from Syria to south Lebanon to face off with Israel, weakening its presence within the neighbouring nation.
A supply near Hezbollah had advised AFP that lots of of the group’s fighters had been killed within the battle with Israel, with out offering a exact determine.
The combating additionally decimated Hezbollah’s management, with the group’s longtime chief Hassan Nasrallah, his presumed successor and a string of senior commanders killed in Israeli air strikes.
On Sunday, one other supply near Hezbollah stated the group was pulling its forces from the outskirts of the capital and the Homs space close to the border.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu stated Assad’s overthrow was “a direct results of the blows now we have inflicted on Iran and Hezbollah, Assad’s major supporters”.
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