Fall of Syria’s Bashar al-Assad catches Middle East powers and the West off guard

Several foreign governments have put out cautious feelers to Hayat Tahrir al-Sham after it toppled Bashar al-Assad’s regime

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An image of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, riddled with bullets, on the facade of a government office after the opposition’s takeover of Hama, Syria. Photo: AP

Published: 2:41pm, 9 Dec 2024Updated: 9:08pm, 9 Dec 2024

The abruptness with which Syria’s brutal 54-year rule of the Assad dynasty collapsed on Sunday has shifted the balance of power in the Middle East so dramatically that none of the region’s power players were prepared, top officials have admitted.

Nor did any government in the neighbourhood or Washington and Moscow expect that the offensive launched two weeks ago by the Sunni Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) from northwest Syria would break the back of Iran’s Axis of Resistance in the Levant – not even HTS leader Abu Mohammed al-Jolani and his tacit backer Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.

Bashar al-Assad inherited the Syrian presidency in 2000, a month after the death of his father Hafez al-Assad, a former air force general, who had ruled the country for almost three decades after seizing power in 1970.

“Even more remarkable” than the speed of the Syrian opposition’s victory in toppling Assad “is that this revolution, which will reshape the region, was an uprising by Syrians themselves – not one imposed by a foreign government,” said Bronwen Maddox, the director and CEO of British think tank Chatham House.

Syrian rebels celebrate in Homs, Syria following the takeover of Damascus on Sunday. Photo: EPA-EFE

For Iran, Assad’s fall marked the loss of its land bridge to the eastern Mediterranean and a base for its proxies, particularly Lebanese Hezbollah, she said.