Syria’s Fall: The Discreet Role of Turikye and Qatar

The threads that explain the incredible speed with which the regime of Bashir El Assad collapsed, in a matter of days after having occupied Aleppo, Syria’s second largest city, on November 20, are gradually being revealed. Damascus fell into the hands of HTS (Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham) practically without a single shot being fired. The army soldiers threw their weapons on the ground and abandoned tanks and artillery pieces in the streets.

Why was this victory of the fundamentalist leader, Mohamed Al Julani, so swift? It was known that he had belonged to Al-Qaida and was a fundamentalist radical, but the military capacity of his movement was unknown. US intelligence, the NSA and the CIA, claim that the rebel leader had long been in contact with the Emir of Qatar, Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad Al Thani, and that the latter promised him significant financial aid to recruit new HTS militants, arm them and train them.

Qatar closed its Damascus embassy in 2011.[1] The Qatari government recognized the National Coalition of Syrian Revolutionary and Opposition Forces and gave it the Syrian embassy in Doha.[2] The relationship between both countries has changed significantly over the past few years, largely as a result of the civil war in Syria.

In 1995, Bashir El Assad visited Saudi Arabia to express his anger at the Emir of Qatar and to try to obtain help from the Saudis. A request that was not accepted in Riyadh.

The role played by Qatar in the fall of Al-Assad has therefore been much more important than might have been assumed. Not only was there a rivalry between the Syrian leader and Emir Al-Thani, but the leaders of the Emirate were willing to offer all the help required by the rebels, despite their fundamentalist affiliation. Qatar made a gamble that paid off much more than it expected, and Al Julani was able to build a group of several thousand supporters with which he defeated the unpopular regime of the Al Assad clan. It could be described as a peaceful coup d’état. This time Qatar has not been a mediator but an active interlocutor.

Turkiye’s role has been even more visible. For years, Ottoman leaders have been trying to get Damascus to exile or neutralize the 10,000 Kurds living in Syria. President Recep Erdogan has always considered them to be terrorists affiliated with the PKK (Kurdish Workers’ Party), which is the main opposition force. Ankara has held them responsible for violent actions on its territory.

The new regime installed in Damascus has appointed the politician, Mohamed Al Bashir, as Prime Minister, with a provisional mandate until the end of next March. Al Bashir has assured that the rebels are committed to ensuring that the transition takes place “with calm and stability” and has asked the United States to recognize it diplomatically as soon as possible.

Al-Julani has also contacted the leaders of the Iranian Islamic Republic to give them guarantees that they will maintain good relations and, under no circumstances, will they participate in activities opposing the regime of the Ayatollahs. The head of the HTS is trying to create a framework in which Qatar, Turkiye, the PKK and ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria) can enter. But this, at the moment, seems more like a dream than a possible appeasement operation.

Qatar and Turkiye have emerged as winners, but the future of the Kurdish minority remains unresolved, which is of particular concern to Ankara, and as for the direction the rebels will take, it is risky to imagine at this point in which direction they will go. What seems more likely is that Syria will sooner or later become the scene of another chaos created by rivalries between fundamentalists.