NAWA, Syria (AP) — As insurgents marched across Syria in a surprise offensive launched in the country’s northwest late last year, officials from several countries supporting either the rebels or the government Syrians met in Qatar to figure out what to do.
According to people briefed on the Dec. 7 meeting, officials from Turkey, Russia, Iran and a handful of Arab countries agreed that the insurgents would halt their advance in Homs, the last major city north of Damascus, and that internationally mediated talks would take place with Syrian leader Bashar Assad on a political transition.
But insurgent factions in southern Syria had other plans. They headed toward the capital and arrived before dawn at Damascus’ largest square. Insurgents from the north, led by the Islamist group Hayyat Tahrir al-Sham, arrived a few hours later. Assad, for his part, had fled.
HTS, the most organized group, has since established itself as Syria’s de facto ruler after coordinating with southern fighters during the lightning-fast offensive.
Since then, distrust among southern factions has highlighted questions about how the interim administration can bring together a mosaic of former rebel groups, each with their own leaders and ideology.
HTS leader Ahmad al-Sharaa called for a unified national army and security forces. Acting Defense Minister Murhaf Abu Qasra began meeting with armed groups. But some prominent leaders, such as southern rebel commander Ahmad al-Awda, refused to attend.
Interim government officials did not respond to questions.
Cradle of the revolution
The southern province of Daraa is widely considered the cradle of the 2011 Syrian uprising. When anti-government protests were suppressed by Assad’s security forces, “we were forced to carry weapons,” Mahmoud al-Bardan said , a rebel leader. there.
The rebel groups that formed in the south had different dynamics than in the north, less Islamist and more localized, said Aron Lund, a fellow at the Century International think tank. They also had different supports.
“In the north, Turkey and Qatar have strongly favored Islamist factions,” he said. “In the south, Jordanian and American involvement pushed the insurgency in a different direction. »
In 2018, Daraa factions reached a “reconciliation agreement” with Assad’s government under Russian mediation. Some former fighters left for Idlib, the destination of many fighters from areas reconquered by government forces, while others remained.
The deal left many Southern factions alive and armed, Lund said.
“We only returned the heavy weapons… the light weapons remained with us,” al-Bardan said.
When HTS-led rebel groups based in the north launched their surprise offensive last year in Aleppo, these weapons were used again. Factions in the southern provinces of Daraa, Sweida and Quneitra were reactivated, forming a joint operations room to coordinate with those in the north.
Defying international wishes
On December 7, “we heard from a number of parties that there could be an agreement that… no one would enter Damascus so that there could be an agreement on the exit of Bashar Assad or a phase of transition,” said Nassim Abu Ara. a leader of one of the south’s largest rebel factions, al-Awda’s 8th Brigade.
However, “we went into Damascus and turned the tables on these agreements,” he said.
Al-Bardan confirmed this version, saying the agreement “was binding on the northern factions” but not on those in the south.
“Even if they had ordered us to stop, we would not have done it,” he said, reflecting the eagerness of many fighters to eliminate Assad as quickly as possible.
Ammar Kahf, executive director of the Istanbul-based Omran Center for Strategic Studies, who was in Doha on December 7 and was briefed on the meetings, said there was an agreement among country officials that the rebels would cease their offensive in Homs and go to Geneva for negotiations on “transitional arrangements”.
But Kahf said it was not clear that any Syrian faction, including HTS, had agreed to the plan. Representatives of the countries present at the meeting did not respond to questions.
A statement issued by the foreign ministers of Turkey, Russia, Iran, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Jordan and Iraq after the December 7 meeting said they “stressed the need to stop military operations with a view to launching a comprehensive political process.” give details.
The first hours following the arrival of the armed groups in Damascus were chaotic. Observers said HTS-led forces attempted to restore order when they arrived. An Associated Press reporter saw an argument break out when HTS fighters tried to prevent members of another faction from taking ammunition abandoned by the army.
Abu Ara acknowledged that “there was some chaos”, but added: “we have to understand that these people were being pushed back and they suddenly experienced the joy of victory in this way.”
Waiting for a status
When AP journalists visited the western countryside of Daraa province this month, no visible presence of HTS forces was seen.
At a former Syrian army site, a fighter from the Free Syrian Army, the region’s main faction, stood guard in jeans and a camouflage shirt. Other local fighters showed a site where they stored tanks abandoned by the former army.
“Currently, these elements are the property of the new state and the army,” whenever they are formed, said one fighter, Issa Sabaq.
The process of forming these was bumpy.
On New Year’s Eve, factions in the predominantly Druze town of Sweida in southern Syria blocked the entry of a convoy of HTS security forces that arrived without warning.
Ahmed Aba Zeid, a Syrian researcher who has studied southern insurgent groups, said some factions took a wait-and-see approach before agreeing to disband and hand over their weapons to the state.
Local armed factions still constitute the de facto security forces in many regions.
Earlier this month, the new police chief of Daraa city, appointed by the HTS-led government, Badr Abdel Hamid, joined local officials in Nawa city to discuss plans to create of a police force in this city.
Hamid said there had been “constructive and positive cooperation” with factions in the region, adding that the process of extending “state influence” took time.
Abu Ara said the factions are waiting to understand their role. “Will it be a strong army, or an army of border guards, or is it intended to fight terrorism? he asked.
He nevertheless remains optimistic about the possibility of reaching an agreement.
“A lot of people are afraid that there will be confrontation, that there will be no integration or that there will be no agreement,” he said. “But we want to avoid this at all costs, because our country is very tired of war.”
