Syria’s power struggle

MARY REICHARD, HOST: It’s Tuesday the 10th of December.

This is WORLD Radio. Thanks for listening! Good morning, I’m Mary Reichard.

NICK EICHER, HOST: And I’m Nick Eicher.

First up on The World and Everything in It out of the frying pan into the fire.

It’s been two days since the capital of Syria fell to rebel forces. Why did the regime fall, and who appears to be filling the void? Here’s WORLD correspondent Caleb Welde.

CALEB WELDE: Bashar al-Assad was the second Assad to rule Syria. His father took control of the country in 1971 via a coup the third coup of his career.

HUSSAIN: He outsmarted everybody else.

Hussein Abdul Hussain is a research fellow at the Foundation for the Defense of Democracies. He grew up in Lebanon during Assad senior’s reign.

HUSSAIN: He modeled Syria along the lines of North Korea, cult leader, father figure kind of thing.

Assad senior ruled until his death, when, allegedly, 99.7 percent of votes came in for his son, Bashar.

HUSSAIN: Now mind you, Bashar was not the one who was being groomed to succeed the father, Basil, the older brother was being groomed, but Basil died before his dad in a car accident, so Bashar found himself doing this all of a sudden.

Under Bashar, the regime has been torn apart by civil war. Food prices have climbed out of control. I spoke with this man last year in Syria.

AUDIO: Really, I'm not, I'm not making any exaggeration. I'm, I'm amazed how people manage to stay alive. Like, what do they eat?

Until now, Assad brutally squashed efforts to overthrow his government with the help of Iran and Russia.

HUSSAIN: But now that Israel decimated Iran and Russia has become busy in the Ukraine war, no one came to his rescue, and he just crumbled like that.

So can the rebels turn things around?

The faction in charge is known as “HTS,” short for, “Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham,” or, “The Levant Liberation Committee.” They’re actually a coalition formed in 2017 by a former Al Qaeda member named Ahmed Hussein al-Shar’a. He later changed his name to Abu Mohammad al-Julani.

“Julani” refers to the Golan Heights where his parents fled their home during the Israeli-Arab Six Day War.

AP: Israel claims to have destroyed the bulk of Arab air forces, in less than three hours.

When the U.S. invaded Iraq in 2003, Julani joined Al-Qaeda. In 2005, he was arrested by U.S. forces in Iraq and detained in a prison camp for five years. He spent his time writing about how he thought best to fight Jihad in Syria. When the Americans released Julani, he sent his fifty-page strategy to Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi the leader of “Islamic State” in Iraq. The ISIS leader met with Julani and agreed to expand operations into Syria. He even agreed to fund the twenty-nine year old fifty thousand U.S. dollars a month.

PBS: Julani and his men– all wearing suicide belts, in case they were caught, crossed into Syria a few months later.

PBS released a full-length documentary about Julani three years ago.

PBS: Julani spent several months recruiting and forming Jabat-Al Nusyra.

Julani distanced himself from ISIS shortly after he arrived in Syria and publically severed ties with Al-Qaeda in 2016. That’s when he rebranded again to “HTS.” But the difference in 2017 was Julani had ten thousand men following him.

PBS: Julani began his attacks on Assad by sending young fighters on suicide missions.

One source of income was hostage taking. Dozens of survivors report beatings, torture, and executions.

But now Julani seems to be trying to rebrand himself again. Last week he specifically reassured Christians and Kurdish minorities. Julani sat down with CNN last week just after HTS had taken the city of Hama.

CNN: People listening to this are going to wonder why they should believe you. You are still a specially designated global terrorist by the United States with a ten million bounty on your head. Your group is a prescribed terrorist organization by the United States, by the UN by the EU and others,

JULANI: I say to people, don't judge by words, but by actions. I believe the reality speaks for itself.

Hussein Abdul Hussain says he has his doubts but he’s waiting to see if Julani really has moderated and left behind his Islamic extremism.

HUSSEIN: So far the few days that have passed by, I think you know, his things have been better when compared to other Arab Spring or Iraq War change, no looting, no burning, no breaking. But moving forward, I wish, I hope, that things continue going in this direction.

When the Taliban took over in Afghanistan in 2021, they made similar promises but if their track record since is any indication, Syria is in for challenging days ahead.

For WORLD, I’m Caleb Welde

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