Now in charge of a newly hopeful but still wary nation, HTS is confronted with vexing challenges. The group will need to consolidate control over a patchwork of rebel forces and demonstrate political inclusivity, which will be key to getting relief from international sanctions. Most critically, the rebels must allay public fears that they will seek to replace Assadism with their own form of absolute rule.
For now, the group’s political plan revolves around exporting its government from Idlib — the northern province where it built up organizational power in recent years — to Damascus. It is too soon to tell how HTS’s model of local administration will translate on a national scale, as it expands its area of control from a small, conservative Sunni Muslim enclave to a vast swath of territory home to many sects and ethnicities.
Even in Damascus, the newcomers are still mostly unknown. At a store selling freshly printed Syrian revolutionary flags Wednesday, shopkeeper Fadi al-Mously couldn’t name the country’s new prime minister, Mohammed al-Bashir, appointed by HTS this week.
Whoever he is, “we don’t want him,” Mously said. “We want elections.”….
Iran ain’t happy….
Things ain’t going their way across the Middle East…….
His remarks, while steeped in the Islamic Republic’s rhetorical tradition of condemnations of Israel and its Western allies, verged at moments into rare confluence with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s characterizations of Assad’s fall. In an address earlier this week, Netanyahu said the collapse of the Assad regime was “a direct result of the blows” Israeli forces “have dealt to Hamas, Hezbollah and Iran.”….
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Assad’s fall is a historic blow to Iran, severing supply lines to Hezbollah, the armed Lebanese group that was once the most powerful member of the “axis of resistance,” a loose alliance of militias backed by Tehran. After spending billions of dollars over decades to support armed groups from Gaza to Yemen, Iran has watched as the strongest and highest-profile members of its alliance sustained heavy losses this year.
Hezbollah’s leadership has been decimated by a deadly Israeli war in Lebanon that killed thousands and forced hundreds of thousands from their homes. In Gaza, more than a year of war with Israel has reduced Hamas from the territory’s dominant force to a crippled insurgency….
Dec 11, 2024 – ISW Press
Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS) leader Abu Mohammed al Jolani is attempting to consolidate HTS’s political and military control in a post-interim Syrian government.
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