14 years after Syrian uprising, Syria balances between inclusion and power grab

In the years after 2011, Assad and Russia bombed down entire city districts, displaced millions of people and killed hundreds of thousands. Now people were singing those same songs in the main square in Damascus where it all began. The symbolism of this cannot be underestimated. We saw people crying with joy.

'I stood here at the first demonstration in 2011, after which I was mistreated in prison for 46 days and fled to Belgium,' says Syrian-Belgian researcher Yahia Hakoum, who has been back in Syria for a month. 'Now I was standing there again and just walking peacefully through the city afterwards.'

Violence against civilians

But in the run-up to the party, Syria was briefly on the brink. Members of the Assad regime's old security forces had retreated to villages where many Alawites live, a minority group within Islam to which Assad also belongs. They united into militias, directed from Iran, and coordinated simultaneous attacks on positions of the new Syrian army in the coastal region at different locations.

'They executed them civilians,' says Hakoum. 'But then a column of SUVs as long as 150 kilometres, packed with armed anti-Assad militants, moved towards the coast. When they arrived, they too started randomly shooting civilians, mostly Alawites. Some are acting out of a blood-and-honour mentality.' A Syrian human rights organisation speaks of 'more than 1,000 deaths in a few days'.

Before this flare-up of violence, new interim president Ahmad al-Sharaa's credibility had soared among Syrians and the international community. Al-Sharaa had seemingly succeeded in controlling the hundreds of armed groups and bringing them under one command. But on March 6, he could not prevent armed groups from operating outside the new Syrian army.

On Sunday 9 March, he finally appeared with a long-awaited speech. In it, he said a commission would investigate the events of 6 March, and promised that those responsible for violence against civilians would be punished. In the following days, a few arrests were made against violent extremists "in their own ranks". The commission of enquiry will have a month to present its report to the president.

The stakes are high. The condition for the lifting of EU sanctions on Syria was that the new government would ensure stability while respecting the human rights of all Syrians.

In addition, diplomatic ties with EU leaders were strengthened, and yesterday the EU together with Syria's neighbours pledged $6 billion in aid at the ninth 'Brussels Conference on Supporting the future of Syria and the region'. Al-Sharaa cannot afford to lose any of this.

Sanctions are among the biggest obstacles to urgent investment, rebuilding bombed-out residential areas and reviving Syria's wrecked economy. Prices have risen so much and the value of money has fallen so much that ordinary families no longer know how to survive. Therefore, al-Sharaa must do everything possible to restore calm across the country.

Russia and Iran

Russia also has an interest in stability. The Kremlin, which kept Assad in power for years, took the decision to stop supporting Assad in early December 2024. Now negotiations are ongoing with the al-Sharaa government over Russian military bases in the coastal region. There is a chance those will just stay there. Russia does not want to risk that.

Iran, on the other hand, was the biggest loser of the fall of Assad's regime, and remains an enemy of the new Syria. One of the commanders who led the uprising in the coastal region long fought for a militia working with the Iranian regime.

Israel

Israel is also an enemy. It wants to prevent the emergence of a strong Islamist alliance between Syria and Turkey. Israel does so by setting itself up as a 'protector' of religious and ethnic populations, such as the Druze in the south and the Kurds in the north.

We are currently staying in Jaramanah, a large neighbourhood in Damascus where many Druze live. Druze leaders set up their own militia here, which installed checkpoints around the neighbourhood. A gunfight ensued on Friday 28 February, leaving three wounded and one dead after an hour, a soldier from the new interim government.

'Things got very heated for a while, but it was a local incident,' says Mofeed Korbaj, who negotiated a de-escalation with the government for the Druze community in Jaramanah. 'The police station officers who had fled during the gunfight were back on post a day later. But the first minor conflict was enough for Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu to say that the Druze in Syria are in danger. 'An outright lie.'

Netanyahu ordered the Israeli army 'to stand ready to protect the Druze in Jaramanah', and airstrikes on so-called army targets in southern Syria followed. 'But what is he actually thinking?' exclaimed Korbaj indignantly. 'He has nothing to do with us. We are Syrians and will never accept Israel meddling in our problems.'

In an interview with MO*, Sheikh Dr Abu Ahed Haitham Katebeh, the supreme religious leader of the Jaramanah Druze, also pointed to Israel as one of the countries 'who want to divide Syria along all sides'.

Ali Abu Shakra, son of another sheikh, was slightly more positive. 'Israel gave Syria's Druze permission to work in Israel. We will be able to see the Syrian Druze of the Golan Heights, our friends and families. Moreover, Israel has a strong army. As long as there are extremists in the Syrian government, there is no harm in keeping that in reserve. But if we are free here, of course we don't need Israel.'

Turkey

On Thursday 27 February, Kurdish militia PKK leader Abdullah Öcalan called from prison in Turkey for his movement to lay down its arms. The news hit like a bomb. It marks the provisional end of a decades-long armed conflict.

Mazloum Abdi, the leader of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), ideologically and organisationally linked to the PKK, reacted ambiguously. He reiterated his respect for Öcalan's leadership, but also said the Syrian situation is different from Turkey's. The SDF protects a Kurdish self-government in northeastern Syria, the largest area the PKK ever co-ruled. Abdi does not want to lose that. Just under a week later, he said he would welcome Israel's support.

Meanwhile, rumours were buzzing in Syria that the SDF was "a problem that needs to be addressed", and that a military operation against them was imminent. After the pro-Assad uprising on the coast and the subsequent revenge attacks against the Alawites, this would be a disaster.

Negotiations between the SDF and the al-Sharaa government in Damascus have long been at a standstill. To have leverage during those talks, the Kurds made alliances. Indeed, in addition to his rapprochement with Israel, Abdi had also hosted his Kurdish rival Massoud Barzani from Iraqi Kurdistan on 16 January. That they had united and reconciled strengthened Abdi's negotiating position with al-Sharaa.

Historic agreement on Syria's unity

Until Monday, March 10, al-Sharaa and Mazloum Abdi suddenly signed an agreement in principle. The division of Syrian territory between north-eastern Syria (SDF) and the rest of the country would be lifted, Kurdish forces would be integrated into the Syrian army, and the state of war would end.

Integrating the Kurdish forces of the SDF into the regular Syrian army is good for Turkey for two reasons. First, a strengthened and inclusive Syrian army means a stronger Syria. Israel thus loses its grip on the Kurds, and Turkey wins a diplomatic battle. Second, Kurdish forces incorporated into the Syrian army will also defend the country. Yet Turkey, which co-sponsored the accord, continued to bomb SDF positions after it.

The accord, of course, includes a number of concessions to the SDF. In it, Kurds are considered an "indigenous Syrian community". That means their language and culture are recognised as Syrian. In addition, the agreement stipulates that 'all Syrians, regardless of ethnic or religious background, are allowed to participate in Syrian politics based on their competences'.

The political leaders of the autonomous administration of north-eastern Syria can be given positions within Syrian state structures. This allows them to champion the cultural and economic interests of the Kurds in the north, such as oil and gas fields and border crossings.

This agreement is not only historic for the Kurds. 'For me, this is more important than the fall of Assad. It lays the foundation for peaceful coexistence between different groups of Syrians,' sums up Abdelkader, a taxi driver from Damascus. The militarily strong Kurds will also provide a balance of power that can curb al-Sharaa's authoritarian ambitions.

Images of the two leaders signing the agreement and shaking hands went viral on social media. In Syrian cities, bangs echoed. Not from gun barrels this time, but from fireworks and celebrations. Even in Tartous, just a few days earlier the scene of horrific violence, people celebrated.

It seems that the threat of violence, which would plunge the whole country into chaos, led the enemies to band together to prioritise the stability and unity of the country.

Creeping authoritarian power grab?

But barely four days later, on Friday, March 14, came another unsettling news. President al-Sharaa allegedly "decided that Syria's president must always be a Muslim". This would go directly against the principle that political positions are awarded on the basis of competence and not ethnic or religious background. The Kurdish self-rule government in north-eastern Syria already let it be known that it did not agree.

We spoke to both Druze and Kurds who again fear al-Sharaa is pushing the Sunni majority forward. Arab Sunni residential areas have suffered badly from Assad and Russia's brutal bombing. Now it is their turn, and they have the power, goes the reasoning.

In Jobar, a bombed-out district of Damascus once home to 400,000 people, a local organisation organised a fasting meal among the apocalyptic rubble a few kilometres from the centre. Mothers of fallen anti-Assad rebels were honoured there. They returned for the first time to what remained of their homes. That was as good as nothing. 'Since the fall of Assad, my fallen son's life is finally worth something,' said one of the mothers.

But Yahia Hakoum tempers over al-Sharaa's decision. 'Al-Sharaa signed a temporary constitution. It was just a reintroduction of the 1950s constitution, which has that provision about the president being a Muslim.'

'More importantly, a five-year transition period without elections begins. We are still waiting for a new inclusive constituent assembly to put a new constitution to the people. Syrians would do better to keep putting pressure on the government instead of becoming fatalistic and fearful.'

Pressure is needed. Currently, the transitional government is made up entirely of Islamist ministers who governed Idlib before Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. There is no question of an inclusive government, in which all Syrian communities are represented . 'If the new government is inclusive, it will be a decisive step forward. Otherwise things can go wrong quickly,' says Mofeed Korbaj of the Druze community.

United States

The agreement between al-Sharaa and Abdi's SDF was brokered by the United States, which has a strong stake in its success. After all, the Americans have a military base in northeast Syria, and the SDF is holding thousands of ISIS fighters there after cooperating with the US-led international anti-ISIS coalition.

If al-Sharaa's central government and the SDF work together to contain ISIS, the US can withdraw in safe conditions. That is a priority for US President Trump. About the rest of Syria, you will hear little from the US administration. It could be that Iran has wanted to take advantage of this US vacuum by supporting the attacks by Assad supporters.

In recent months, the country went from shock, to euphoria, back to doubts about a creeping authoritarian power grab. Moreover, there are fears about the choice of Syria's neighbours and major powers. Will they pursue their interests through negotiations, or through violence and divide-and-conquer tactics? Because that choice will determine whether Syria goes forwards or backwards. Meanwhile, Syrians are groaning under an unprecedented economic crisis. The country's future is highly uncertain.