In the aftermath of the astonishing collapse of the al-Assad dynasty, long-suffering Syrians should be allowed a moment of joy and celebration, says Daniel Corrou, S.J., even if what comes next remains anyone’s guess. Indeed, in Umayyad Square in Damascus, Syrians celebrated into a third day on Dec. 10 as insurgents who took control of the capital city just a few days before tried to contain what had become deafening rounds of celebratory gunfire.
Speaking from Beirut, Father Corrou, the regional director of Jesuit Refugee Service Middle East and North Africa, finds some reason for hope in the conciliatory gestures and public comments made so far by Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, the leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. That Sunni Islamist militia and its coalition forces stormed out of rebel-held Idlib province on Nov. 27, overcoming a Syrian army that had in the past been backstopped by Russian military and Iran-supported Hezbollah forces. Bereft now of that support, the army and the regime unraveled.
Conflicting reports about the intentions and conduct of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and its allied militias are emerging from newly rebel-seized cities and territories. But it is far too soon to say with confidence whether the ascendancy of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham will begin a period of peace and restoration or a time of new conflict as old scores are settled and factional or religious ideologies seek to rise to the top. Anyone expressing certainty about what is coming next for Syria’s Chrisitians, Alawites, Armenians, Druze, Turkmen and other religious and ethnic minorities should be treated with a degree of skepticism, Father Corrou suggests.
“The only sure thing we can say is we have absolutely no idea [what comes next],” Father Corrou says. “What we are seeing is that this new government has several years of experience in Idlib, [where it] was a moderating force. It was open to ethnic and religious minorities. It did governance reasonably well in a difficult situation.”
Cardinal Mario Zenari, the apostolic nuncio to Syria, spoke with Vatican News hours after rebels entered Damascus, from which the deposed President Bashar al-Assad apparently fled on Dec. 8.
“Thank God, this transition happened without bloodshed, without the carnage that was feared,” he said. “Now the path ahead is steep—those who have taken power have promised to respect everyone and to build a new Syria. We hope they will keep these promises, but of course, the road ahead remains very difficult.”
Vatican News also spoke with Bajhat Karakach, O.F.M., a Franciscan friar who serves as Aleppo’s Latin rite parish priest, asking why many Christians in Aleppo were celebrating the downfall of the regime.
“Like all Syrians,” he said, Christians had been “completely exhausted by living under the regime,” where there was “no development, no economic growth.” ”It’s not living, it’s surviving,” Father Karakach said.
More than a decade of military stalemate ended over the course of 12 days as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham forces chased retreating Syrian army units from Aleppo to Damascus. The military abandoned checkpoints and defensive positions just ahead of the rebel coalition before capitulating altogether, surrendering the capital city without a fight. The rebel group’s unanticipated success delivers Syria into a period of profound uncertainty and struggle.
“We now have data from what are maybe 10 days when [Hayat Tahrir al-Sham has] been in control of Aleppo, and we are seeing no persecution of religious or ethnic minorities,” Father Corrou says. There has been some looting and attacks on members of the deposed Assad regime, but Father Corrou describes conditions as relatively stable, with banks, bakeries and other businesses reopening this week.
Father Karakach told Vatican News that the Islamist rebels had in recent years shown increasing tolerance to Christians, including returning confiscated property. After Hayat Tahrir al-Sham took Aleppo and moved south, he said, they had been sending “very strong messages of tolerance” to all minority groups, including Christians.
Father Corrou reports that JRS educational, civic and humanitarian programs were suspended as the rebel forces conducted their impromptu offensive. He says those programs will be reopened this week as conditions return to something closer to calm.
Jesuits in communities across Syria are safe at their residences, Father Corrou says, and JRS team members, who come from many different religious and ethnic backgrounds, have been accounted for and are preparing to return to work. Some who fled in anticipation of greater disorder have already returned home, Father Corrou says.
An emergency government, joining members of the al-Assad regime with leaders of the Syrian Salvation Government, led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, that had managed civic affairs in Idlib, has been established and is attempting to restore services in cities and territories that have fallen to rebel forces. Across Syria, however, entire regions are under the control of other militias, including ISIS-related terror groups. How and if these disparate militias and political and religious interests can be corralled into the creation of a united and peaceful Syria will surely be a complex challenge. After more than five decades of a ruinous family dictatorship and nearly 14 years of civil war, the path ahead is fraught.
According to U.N. sources, almost 17 million Syrians are in need of humanitarian aid. Mr. Al-Assad’s decision to brutally crush a pro-democracy movement in 2011 triggered a civil war that led to 500,000 people being killed and more than 14 million displaced.
Many Syrians of course remain apprehensive about how religious minorities, particularly Shiites, Alawites and Christians, will be treated in a new political reality being established by a Sunni militia that is still listed as a terror organization by the U.S. State Department—Mr. al-Jolani has a $10 million U.S. bounty on his head—with roots in Al Qaeda and connections to ISIS. In a small but perhaps telling gesture, in his most recent communiques to the press, Mr. al-Jolani has abandoned his jihadist nom de guerre and returned to using his real name, Ahmed al-Sharaa.
Mr. al-Assad’s Alawite Muslim community, at about 10 percent of Syria’s people, ruled—often brutally—as a minority. Most of the rebel forces are comprised of members of the Sunni Muslim community, representing some 74 percent of the Syrian population. The palpable fear now is that the post-Assad period could disintegrate into a time of recrimination and retribution.
Father Corrou says that “the tyranny of the majority is always a threat” in the Middle East. But he points out that just as there were Alawites, Christians and Sunnis in the Assad government, there were Alawites, Chrisitans and Sunnis who actively resisted the regime.
Noting how quickly moments of communal joy turned to ash in previous historic upheavals of the Arab Spring and recalling the celebration in Cairo’s Tahrir Square after the ousting of the authoritarian Hosni Mubarak, Father Corrou nevertheless sees some signs for hope.
For now, however, he maintains some hope. “It may go bad quickly, but right now…the data on the ground from people that are there, is that [attacks on ethnic and religious minorities are] not happening.”
“The language that we’re hearing from the top, from Jolani on down, has been: ‘It’s about governance. It’s about a multi ethnic, multi religious society,’” says Father Corrou. “It’s talking about a form of Islamism that we haven’t seen before, not jihadi and not Islamist [extremism].” Hayat Tahrir al-Sham leader Mr. al-Jolani has been telling Syrians “that if [they] don’t like Islamist governance, then [they] haven’t seen it done correctly.”
Another sign of hope has been the mass release of political prisoners from the Assad regime’s notorious prisons. Family members long thought lost are being recovered, many after unimaginable suffering.
U.S. officials are hoping the opening of the prisons may uncover some information about the whereabouts or the fate of U.S. journalist Austin Tice, who was allegedly seized by Syrian government forces or associated militia while reporting from Syria in 2012. Father Corrou hopes that the Society of Jesus may similarly be able to discover the fate of Italian Jesuit Paolo Dall’Oglio, who was kidnapped in Syria in 2013.
Bashar al-Assad’s fall from power has of course not concluded the state of conflict in Syria. Disparate internal forces are actively now jockeying for new territory and influence. External powers, including Turkey, Iran and the Russian Federation, are seeking to take advantage of the power void to protect their interests or expand their influence.
The United States, which maintains a small presence of about 900 troops inside Syria, has launched strikes against ISIS sites. Israel has begun a broad bombing campaign aimed at preventing Syrian military air and naval capacity and abandoned weapons, including chemical and bio-weapons, from falling into the hands of Islamist militias. The Israel Defense Force has simultaneously launched a border incursion to deepen a territorial buffer zone with Syria in the Golan Heights.
Other flashpoints include control of cities and territory claimed by both militias supported by Turkey and Kurdish forces supported by the United States across northern Syria. Various smaller independent militias may end up squabbling over territorial and other spoils. Additionally waiting in the wings are Shiite militias in Iraq who threaten to intervene in the event of any significant offenses against Shiite, Alawite and other religious minorities in Syria.
Members of a Syrian administration in exile have already begun work on a new constitution that will detail ethnic and religious rights in a new Syria and those discussions will likely accelerate. Much about the future of Syria will become clear when that work is concluded.
It is a regional commonplace that Syria, with its rich history and colliding cultures and religions, is a barely manageable state—work that has been made more difficult because of the acrimony of its long civil war. “Governance is a lot more difficult than rebellion,” Father Corrou wryly notes.
As in other nations of the Holy Land and Middle East, the Christian presence in Syria, which dates back to the earliest days of the church, has suffered a steep decline. That Christian exodus has accelerated sharply since the beginning of the civil war.
Before that conflict, Syrian Christians represented about 10 percent of the total population—1.5 million people. Though official data is hard to come by because of the confusion engendered by the conflict and current estimates vary widely, Aid to the Church in Need believes that Christians now account for as few as 2.5 percent of the population—perhaps 300,000 people.
Many Christians have fled because of the conflict or because of direct threats from ISIS and other Islamist terror groups, but most have departed from Syria because of its economic and political mire and its ongoing lack of opportunity. That suggests the hope that any political or economic restoration could encourage a return of some members of this Christian diaspora.
The head of the U.S. Catholic bishops’ international justice committee called on the Biden administration and the international community to come to Syria’s aid during its latest trial. “In yet another dramatic development in the Middle East, after enduring more than a decade of bloody civil war, Syria is undergoing a national political transition that will surely impact the entire region,” said Bishop A. Elias Zaidan of the Maronite Eparchy of Our Lady of Lebanon, chair of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops’ Committee on International Justice and Peace.
In a statement released on Dec. 10, Bishop Zaidan said that the global community should support Syria as it “starts a new chapter in its rich history.”
The Weekly Dispatch takes a deep dive into breaking events and issues of significance around our world and our nation today, providing the background readers need to make better sense of the headlines speeding past us each week. For more news and analysis from around the world, visit Dispatches.
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