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Further conflict seems inevitable in Syria two months after the collapse of the Assad regime and the rise of the al-Qaeda-linked Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).
Reporting from Jason Ditz at Antiwar demonstrates that Israel, HTS, the Kurdish militia known as the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), Turkiye, and a Turkish-backed militant group confusingly called the Syrian National Army (SNA) are all set for violent border fights and land grabbing, suggesting the peace that many in Europe vainly hoped may return to Syria is yet far away.
Turkish President Recep Erdogan has demanded that HTS, having mostly consolidated control over the previous government-held positions, attack and eliminate the SDF immediately. Turkiye and Erdogan, along with their proxy force the SNA, have been supportive and sympathetic of the HTS government, led by al-Qaeda fighter Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, but the strongman is now demanding that Damascus eliminate the Kurdish pseudo-state that has developed under the protection of the US in the northeast of the country.
Erdogan has said that if HTS fails to dismantle the SDF—in particular a group within it known as the YPG which Turkiye considers a terrorist group, the Turkish army will invade in a cross-border operation similar to the one attempted in 2020. Heavy fighting between the Kurdish SDF and the SNA has already killed hundreds. The epicenter of the conflict is the Tishreen Dam on the Euphrates River, a major hydroelectric implant that provides electricity to thousands in Kurdish-controlled Syria.
At the same time, Tel Aviv, which had been at first nominally supportive of the HTS takeover of Damascus—even going so far as to take credit for it—has conducted air strikes on a military convoy belonging to HTS; the first such attack since the fall of Assad when Israeli air and missile strikes pummeled the remnants of Assad’s military.
Syrian land grab
“New reports citing unnamed senior Israeli officials express ‘shock’ at Western nations embracing the Islamist leaders of post-Assad Syria, and accuse them of turning a blind eye to hypothetical future risks Syria could pose,” Ditz reported on January 10th.
This, those officials said, is now looked at as a justification to institute “long-term” occupation of areas in the Quneitra Governant beyond the Golan Heights that IDF troops seized during the downfall of Assad.
“Israel invaded the demilitarized zone between the Golan Heights and the rest of Syria almost immediately upon the regime change. While Israeli troops have steadily moved deeper and deeper into southern Syria’s Quneitra and Daraa Province, it is only now that a potential permanent occupation of these areas is being talked about,” Ditz reported.
One village in Daraa Governant was occupied by the IDF and given 4 hours for over 1,000 inhabitants to leave. The expanded security bubble has been aggressively denounced by security bubble-blower in the north, Erdogan, which called on Israel to keep her “hands off Syria”.
“The aggressive actions of the forces attacking Syrian territory, Israel, in particular, must come to an end as soon as possible,” he said during a meeting of his party in Ankara, adding it would result in “unfavorable outcomes for everyone”.
Though neither IDF officials nor Israeli politicians have spoken directly about confronting or weakening the HTS regime in Damascus, Zionist Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich has said Israel will and should, “bit by bit,” seize Syrian lands with the aim of taking Damascus.
Turkish leaders, and recently Erdogan in particular, have strongly denounced Israel’s siege on Gaza, calling it genocide and comparing Benjamin Netanyahu to Adolf Hitler. Times of Israel reports that Erdogan has said Turkiye would be willing to intervene militarily if Israel failed to wrap up its brutal campaign of ethnic cleansing that has left 46,000 dead.
Normally separated by Syria and Lebanon, the collapse of the Assad regime marks the first time their armies would be engaged in offensive operations within the same national boundary. WaL
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PICTURED ABOVE: Members of the Turkish-backed SNA during Turkiye’s military operation in northern Syria, 2019. PC: VOA, Orhan Erkılıç.
