Radioscopy of the new Syria

Politique Internationale - One year after the fall of Bashar al-Assad's regime, could you briefly outline the forces at work in Syria?

Thomas Pierret - We can distinguish three entities. Firstly, the territories under the control of the Damascus government, which correspond more or less to the western two-thirds of Syria. Then we have the territories east of the Euphrates River, roughly a third of the country, which are controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a military coalition led by Kurdish militants, but which also includes a significant number of Arab fighters and other ethnic minorities, supported until now by the United States. The third entity is much smaller: this part of the province of Soueïda is in the hands of armed Druze groups under the authority of Sheikh Hikmat al-Hajari. Since the fighting in July, this region has been in a state of virtual secession from the central government. It has its own armed force, is developing state-type institutions and even a form of tax administration. This entity is openly protected by Israel, with no clear prospect of reintegration into the bosom of the central state.

We could mention a fourth region that also escapes the authority of the Damascus government: the Golan Heights, annexed by Israel in 1981, to which is added a "demilitarized zone" established in 1974 after the Yom Kippur War. This zone remains officially recognized as Syrian territory by Israel, but was militarily occupied on December 9, 2024, the day after the fall of Assad.

P. I. - Who are the powers behind these different forces? Does Iran, in particular, still have any influence?

T. P. - Iran has been largely out of the picture since the fall of Assad. For the time being, the new government has no relations with Teheran. Both because such relations would be highly unpopular in Syria, given Iran's policy of supporting Assad, and because al-Sharaa's government is seeking closer ties with states such as Saudi Arabia and the United States, which want it to keep its distance from the Islamic Republic. Iran is occasionally accused of supporting elements of the former regime operating on Syrian territory. These accusations seem a little excessive to me. In my opinion, it is not in Iran's interest to maintain a rearguard action, if only because these former regime forces no longer represent much in military terms. Today, Iran's presence in Syria seems essentially linked to arms smuggling activities for the Lebanese Hezbollah. Arms shipments from Syria to Lebanon are regularly intercepted by Syrian security forces. More marginally, last spring saw the emergence of a few cells close to the Lebanese Hezbollah, but which clearly did not present themselves as groups hostile to the central government. Rather, they were groups that wanted to maintain a form of struggle against Israel from Syrian soil.

P. I. - If you had to rank the external powers with the greatest influence in Syria, what would it be?

T. P. - I'd put Turkey at the top …