The new Syrian government led by former Al-Qaeda leader Ahmad al-Sharaa (Abu Mohammad al-Julani is carrying out raids and arrests against members of Bashar al-Assad’s fallen government amid reports of sectarian killings of minorities by forces associated with the new government.
The state-run Syrian news agency SANA reported on Saturday that “a number of remnants of the Assad militias” had been arrested and their weapons and ammunition confiscated in Syria’s coastal Latakia region.
Security forces have also been pursuing members of the former government in the regions of Tartous, Homs, and Hama in recent days.
The media office of Syria’s interim interior ministry said the campaign was only launched after members of the former government had failed “to hand over their weapons and settle their affairs” within a specific time frame.
Videos and reports circulating on social media indicate that former soldiers and civilians are also being expelled from their homes or abducted and executed by HTS militants for simply being Alawite.
The HTS-led Military Operations Command in Syria has set up “reconciliation centers” for ex-Assad government personnel to surrender weapons and receive temporary IDs, but reports indicate that numerous individuals have been abducted and found dead, even after having given up their weapons.
Rami Abdulrahman, director of the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), said he received reports that government security forces were carrying out random arrests of supporters of the former Syrian government under Bashar al-Assad.
“We need transitional justice, not revenge justice,” he said in a phone interview on Saturday. “The new Syria should be a state of justice, democracy, equality, and law.”
SOHR has also documented at least 85 murder crimes across Syria that have led to 144 fatalities.
At the same time, Christian sources report that large numbers of Christians are fleeing the ancient Christian town of Maaloula, where Aramaic, the ancient language of Jesus, is still spoken.
The World Council of Arameans (WCA) reports that Maaloula’s Christian population has dwindled from 1,000 to fewer than 200 since the new government took power and now “faces an alarming escalation of threats, gunfire attacks, and expulsion.”
WCA reported that militants from the Sultan Suleiman Shah Brigade of the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army (SNA), led by Abu Amsha, are “raiding homes, intimidating families, and issuing orders for Christians to leave Maaloula, applying relentless pressure to force the last Arameans to abandon their homeland.”
The WCA added that extremist militants attacked a Christian man’s farm near Maaloula. After the man returned fire in self-defense and killed one attacker, extremists are now demanding his surrender and openly calling for the ethnic cleansing of Maaloula’s remaining Aramean Christian population.
On 18 December, the Washington Post reported that some HTS members were carrying out sectarian revenge attacks.
“Over the past week, Washington Post reporters saw evidence of extrajudicial killings in Damascus and Hama province, and verified two videos showing fighters executing alleged members of Syria’s state security forces,” the paper wrote.
In one video verified by the Post, a “militant kicks the bloodied face of an apparently lifeless man on the floor. Another man with his hands and feet bound is kicked in the face behind him.”
Another video verified by The Post “shows a fighter in military garb conducting a roadside execution of two men.
“These are pigs; officers from Assad forces were trying to escape,” the fighter says to the camera.
Syria's Alawite community: Once feared, now living in fear?
‘Foreign jihadists’ in Syria leader’s pick for army officers: monitor, experts
By AFP
December 30, 2024
Fighters affiliated with Syria's new administration at a military parade in Damascus - Copyright AFP/File Omar HAJ KADOUR
Tony Gamal-Gabriel
Syria’s de facto leader Ahmed al-Sharaa has tapped dozens of former rebels for high-ranking army positions, several of whom are foreign fighters, a war monitor and experts said on Monday.
The new authorities in Damascus, from the ranks of Islamist-led rebels who until several weeks ago had fought to overthrow longtime ruler Bashar al-Assad, now face the daunting task of rebuilding state institutions.
The Syrian army has effectively collapsed, much like other institutions set up by the Assad clan and their notorious security apparatuses.
The new leadership last week unveiled an accord to dissolve the myriad of armed groups operating in Syria and integrate them into the defence ministry, and has now named some prospective army officers.
A decree published late Sunday on the Telegram account of Sharaa’s General Command listed 49 people to be made commanders, in the first such announcement since the fall of the Assad government on December 8.
It said the appointments were part of efforts aimed at “the development and modernisation of the military… in order to guarantee security and stability”.
The names include former rebels, some from Sharaa’s Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), as well as ex-army officers who had deserted to join the opposition in the early days of Syria’s civil war.
Haid Haid, consulting fellow at Britain-based think tank Chatham House, said that “the top seven highest ranks of those promoted seem to be all from HTS.”
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor said many of those appointed were close to Sharaa, including at least six foreigners either from HTS or aligned with it.
– ‘Broader participation’ –
Haid said that “HTS has been able to position its members, as well as those who are close to it, to be the ones leading the defence ministry, the future army, as well as the ones leading the restructuring of this army.”
HTS is rooted in the Syrian branch of jihadist group Al-Qaeda and proscribed a terrorist organisation by numerous governments, but has sought to soften its image in recent years.
In its Idlib stronghold, HTS has long battled jihadists from the Islamic State group which was territorially defeated in Syria in 2019.
In Sunday’s decree, two men were given the rank of general, five were made brigadier generals and around 40 made colonels.
One of the generals is HTS’s military chief Murhaf Abu Qasra, who has been tipped to become defence minister in the transitional government.
Rami Abdel Rahman, who heads the Syrian Observatory, told AFP that “most of those who have been promoted are people within Ahmed al-Sharaa’s inner circle”.
In an interview Sunday with Saudi-owned Al Arabiya television, Sharaa admitted that so far government positions went solely HTS members of people close to the group.
However, the leader promised “broader participation” in the future.
The majority of Syrians named in the military decree come from HTS, with the rest from “allied factions”, according to the Britain-based Observatory which has a network of sources inside Syria.
The monitor said it had identified six “foreign jihadists” among those promoted, including an Albanian, a Jordanian, a Tajik, a Turk and a Uyghur who is a member of jihadist group the Turkistan Islamic Party.
Aymenn al-Tamimi, an expert on jihadist groups and the Syrian conflict, said he too had identified foreigners on the list.
He mentioned a Uyghur, a Jordanian and a Turk who “headed the block of Turkish fighters under HTS, and is now a brigadier general”.
– ‘New Syrian order’ –
Tamimi said that the inclusion of foreign fighters appears to be in line with HTS’s doctrine.
“One of the founding principles of (Hayat) Tahrir al-Sham is that the group would not betray or surrender muhajirin to their home countries,” he said, using the Arabic term for foreign fighters.
“But at the same time, it could be a problem if they’re just left there to their own devices,” said Tamimi.
“So integrating them into the new Syrian order is the best strategy that meets both ends.”
The war in Syria, which began with the Assad government’s brutal crackdown on democracy protests in 2011, has drawn in foreign armies and international jihadists — who often took up arms against each other, like HTS and the Islamic State group.
The conflict has killed more than 500,000 people, displaced millions and divided Syria into areas of influence administered by warring sides with varying levels of foreign backing.
For Haid, the promotions announced Sunday were made “unilaterally and without consultations with others”.
Sharaa, a transitional figure, “is now giving himself the authority not only to promote his own people but also to promote non-Syrians,” said Haid.
He argued that Syrians should have a say in “whether non-Syrians who participated in the fight against the regime should be given the nationality, and if so what would be the criteria for that”.
For the first time, Syrians ‘not afraid’ to talk politics
By AFP
December 30, 2024
Cafes in Damascus are becoming hubs of political discussion after the fall of long-time president Bashar al-Assad - Copyright AFP Oliver Bunic
Jonathan SAWAYA
For decades, any Syrian daring to broach political topics got used to speaking in hushed tones and with a watchful eye trained for a listener among the crowd.
“There were spies everywhere,” Mohannad al-Katee said in Al-Rawda cafe in Damascus, adding almost in disbelief: “It’s the first time that I sit in a cafe and I can talk about politics.
“It was a dream for Syrians,” said Katee, 42, a researcher in political and social history.
Until now, he like thousands of others had grown accustomed to watching for the proverbial flies on the walls of Damascus’s renowned cafes.
Today, those same cafes are alive and buzzing with the voices of patrons speaking freely about their country for the first time.
Such discussions “were banned under the previous regime, then there was a relative opening during the Damascus Spring”, Katee said.
He was referring to the year 2000, when Bashar al-Assad took over from his late father Hafez and slightly loosened the reins on political life in Syria.
Initially, the young Assad had opened up an unprecedented space, allowing for political salons to flourish alongside calls for reform in a country that had long grown accustomed to fear and silence.
“But it didn’t last,” said Katee.
A few months after his succession, Assad rolled back those gains, putting an end to the short-lived “Damascus Spring”.
In the subsequent years, according to Katee, informants were ubiquitous, from “the hookah waiter to the man at the till, it could have been anyone”.
– ‘The walls have ears’ –
Politically active since 1998, he fled to Saudi Arabia in 2012, a year after the outbreak of Arab Spring protests whose violent repression led to the eruption of the nearly 14-year civil war.
“Political life consisted of secret meetings,” he said. “We were always taught that the walls have ears.”
Today, “Syrians can never go back to obscurantism and dictatorship, to accepting single-party rule,” he said.
A little further on, in the Havana cafe once known as a meeting point for intellectuals and activists in a distant past, Fuad Obeid is chatting with a friend.
Himself a former owner of a cafe he had to shut down, the 64-year-old said: “The intelligence services spent their time at my place. They drank for free as though they owned the place.”
For over 50 years, the Assads maintained their vice grip on society, in large part through the countless informants that walked among the population.
On Saturday, Syria’s new intelligence chief, Anas Khattab, announced that the service’s various branches would be dissolved.
Obeid said: “I used to keep a low profile so they wouldn’t know I was the owner. I told customers not to talk politics for fear of reprisals.”
Now, he noted, in Havana cafe as in others, the difference is like “night and day”.
– ‘Truly free’ –
Back in Al-Rawda, discussions are in full swing over hookahs and games of backgammon.
The owner Ahmad Kozorosh still can’t believe his eyes, having himself witnessed numerous arrests in his own cafe over the years.
“I am now seeing almost exclusively new faces,” he said. “People who had been sentenced to death, imprisoned.”
To celebrate the new era, he is holding weekly symposiums in the cafe, and will even launch a new political party to be named after it.
Real estate agent Nesrine Shouban, 42, had spent three years in prison for carrying US dollars, a punishable offence in Assad’s Syria.
Alongside thousands of others who found freedom when the doors of prisons were flung open, she was released on December 8 from the notorious Adra prison.
“They had dangled in front of us the possibility of an amnesty” from Assad’s administration, she said. “Thankfully, the amnesty came from God.”
“At cafes, we didn’t dare say anything. We were even afraid that our phones were bugged,” she said.
Now, for the first time, she said she felt “truly free”.
Despite concerns over the radical Islamist background of Syria’s new rulers, a breath of freedom has washed over the country for the first time, with public demonstrations being organised — an unthinkable prospect just one month earlier.
“We are not afraid anymore,” said Shouban. “If Jolani makes mistakes, we will denounce them,” she added, referring to Syria’s new leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammad al-Jolani.
“In all cases, it can’t be worse than Bashar al-Assad.”
“There is now a space… to try to rebuild
popular civil resistance”
Interview with Joseph Daher
Monday 30 December 2024, by Joseph Daher
How does the fall of Bashar al-Assad fit in with the Arab Spring?
The fall of Bashar al-Assad is part of the continuity of the revolutionary processes that began in the Middle East and North Africa in 2011, because the despotic Syrian regime has many of the same characteristics as other authoritarian states in the region, i.e. an absence of a democratic framework and a neoliberal political economy that has led to the growing impoverishment of the masses, in a climate of corruption and growing social inequality. Over 90% of the Syrian population lives below the poverty line, and Syria’s wealth was concentrated in the presidential palace and businessmen affiliated to Bashar al-Assad and his family.
As a reminder, in Syria, large sections of the population took to the streets with the same demands as those raised by other revolts in 2011: freedom, social justice and equality. The vast majority of the democratic organisations and social forces behind the Syrian popular uprising in March 2011 were bloodily repressed. First and foremost by the Syrian regime, but also by various Islamic fundamentalist armed organisations. The same applies to local alternative political institutions or entities set up by the demonstrators, such as coordination committees and local councils, providing services to the local population. There are nonetheless a few civilian groups, albeit mostly linked to NGO-type organisations, throughout Syria, and particularly in north-western Syria, but their dynamics are different from those at the start of the uprising.
In this context, there are many challenges ahead, but at least hope has returned. After the historic announcement of the fall of the Assad dynasty, which has ruled Syria since 1970, we saw videos of popular demonstrations all over the country, in Damascus, Tartus, Homs, Hama, Aleppo, Qamichli, Souïeda, etc. of all religious denominations and ethnicities, destroying statues and symbols of the Assad family. The slogans of the early days of the popular uprising were sung again: ‘Syria wants freedom’ and ‘the Syrian people are one and united’. And, of course, there is great joy at the release of political prisoners, in particular from Saidnaya prison, known as the ‘human massacre’ and which could have held 10,000 to 20,000 prisoners.
What is your assessment of the nature of the forces at work?
HTS (Hayat Tahrir al-Sham) is now the dominant player in the regions of Idlib and the main cities - Aleppo, Hama, Homs and Damascus and Deir ez-Zor. HTS has embarked on a relatively significant political evolution since its break with al-Qaeda in 2016 and has demonstrated a great capacity for adaptation and pragmatism according to the existing material conditions in order to maintain and extend its power. HTS has also clearly demonstrated in recent years a desire to present itself as a rational force vis-Ã -vis regional and international powers in order to normalise their dominance. This continues today, with some initial success.
Nevertheless, HTS remains an authoritarian organisation, with an Islamic fundamentalist ideology, and still has foreign fighters in its ranks. In recent years, numerous popular demonstrations have taken place in Idlib to denounce its regime and its violations of political freedoms and human rights, including the assassination and torture of opponents.
HTS is now seeking to consolidate its power over the above-mentioned areas and central government. In particular, it has appointed a Prime Minister from the National Salvation Government. HTS’s civilian administration has been running Idlib for the past few years, with a conservative Islamic government made up entirely of men from or close to its ranks. The new Prime Minister will in any case hold office until 1 March 2025, pending the launch of the constitutional process.
HTS enjoys relative autonomy from Turkey, unlike the SNA (Syrian National Army), which is controlled by Ankara and serves its interests. In recent military campaigns, the SNA is once again primarily serving Turkish objectives by targeting areas controlled by the Kurdish-led SDF (Syrian Democratic Forces), which have large Kurdish populations. The SLA, for example, captured the town of Tall Rifaat and the Shahba region in northern Aleppo, as well as the town of Manbij, previously under the governance of the SDF, resulting in the forced displacement of more than 150,000 civilians and numerous human rights violations against the Kurds, including murders and kidnappings.
For their part, the SDF, despite their overtures to HTS, are under ever-increasing threat from Turkey, whose influence has grown in Syria following the fall of the Assad regime. Turkey has two main objectives. Firstly, it wants to force Syrian refugees in Turkey to return to Syria. Secondly, to deny Kurdish aspirations for autonomy and, more specifically, to undermine the Kurdish-led administration in north-eastern Syria, the Autonomous Administration of Northern and Eastern Syria (AANES), which would set a precedent for Kurdish self-determination in Turkey, a threat to the regime as it is currently constituted.
There are also various armed opposition groups in southern Syria, separate from HTS and the SNA, which played a role in capturing the capital Damascus before the fall of the regime, while HTS’s control of the Syrian coastal regions, notably Latakia and Tartus, is not complete.
What does the future hold for Syria?
Everything will depend on the ability of democratic and progressive groups to organise themselves in the face of both internal threats from authoritarian armed organisations such as HTS and the SNA, and external threats from Turkey, Israel, the Gulf monarchies, Western powers and others. The fact that HTC and SNA forces are stretched is a potential advantage for organising at local level. Only the self-organisation of the popular classes fighting for democratic and progressive demands will create this space and pave the way for real liberation. To achieve this, many obstacles must be overcome, from war fatigue and repression to poverty and social dislocation. To advance these demands, this progressive democratic bloc will have to build and rebuild popular organisations, from trade unions to feminist organisations, community organisations and national structures to bring them together. This will require collaboration between democratic and progressive actors across society. In addition, one of the other key tasks will be to tackle the country’s main ethnic divide, that between Arabs and Kurds.
There is now a space, with its contradictions and challenges, for Syrians to try to rebuild popular civil resistance from below and from alternative power structures. And that is already a great hope compared with the past.
19 December 2024
Translated by International Viewpoint from l’Anticapitaliste.
International Viewpoint is published under the responsibility of the Bureau of the Fourth International. Signed articles do not necessarily reflect editorial policy. Articles can be reprinted with acknowledgement, and a live link if possible.
Six Scenarios for Syria
The situation of Syria is like the chaos of Libya but there are many more actors (local and external) operating, making it difficult to foresee what will happen.
It is naive to assume that the current regime in Syria will remain in place — as it is — going forward.
Syria is now in a state of uneasy transition and the political-military situation will remain in flux as long as the conflicts between the various armed and civic groups are not resolved.
We have seen during the age of the Arab uprisings that the collapse of a regime does not necessarily produce a stable or a democratic government. In Tunisia, the democratic transition was concluded when the current president decided to exclude the Islamists from power and to rule as a despot.
In Egypt, the UAE and Saudi regimes helped install a military government headed by Gen. Abdel Fattah al-Sisi to end the elected rule of the Muslim brotherhood. The conflicts in these countries are not purely the outcome of internal developments, but often reflect regional conflicts, conspiracies and competition.
Turkey and Qatar support the rule of the Muslim Brotherhood, while Saudi Arabia and UAE support their ouster and exclusion from government. This will be central in understanding what comes next in Syria.
Israel and the U.S. are close to the Saudi-UAE camps but are also close to Qatar; and the Muslim Brotherhood seems to work well with the U.S. and even avoid pushing a radical line against Israel.
President Mohamed Morsi of Egypt did not attempt to abrogate the peace treaty with Israel and even allowed the continuation of the military-intelligence coordination with Israel.
Furthermore, after a meeting at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy (WINEP) in Washington, Rashid Ghanoushi, head of the Islamists of Tunisia, complied with U.S. wishes and froze a push in the Tunisian parliament to criminalize normalization with Israel.
Syria is a more complex political and military situation for several reasons.
The U.S. maintains an occupation of sizable territory in Syria. Whenever the U.S. keeps troops in a country that operates outside the control of the local government, that the country (or a chunk of it at least) is under U.S. occupation.
In Iraq, the U.S. maintains a few thousand troops, but it continues to wield tremendous influence over the government and rejects parliamentary calls for the withdrawal of those troops.
We learned in recent weeks that the size of the U.S. military force in Syria is double what the public has been told, and the presence even of a small military contingent requires a sizable military suppor force in the region.
The U.S. is not only fighting ISIS (while the U.S. does not give a timetable or a roadmap for its unending fight against ISIS) but it also provides support for militias that are under its control in Syria.
The U.S. preaches state monopoly of the use of force in the Middle East except where U.S. surrogate militias operate in a country.
Turkish & Israeli Roles
Turkey has a strong military presence in Syria and — like the U.S. — can easily influence developments on the ground, making things easier or more difficult for whatever government that may arise in Syria. Turkey’s military and intelligence intervention was key to the ouster of Bashar Al-Assad.
Israel has expanded its occupation of Syrian territory and has been conducting hundreds of bombing raids inside the country after the collapse of the regime. Like the other actors, Israel wants to shape the orientation and policy of the future government and seeks to prevent a radical or democratic regime from emerging.
The regional conflict has not been decisively resolved yet.
So far, the Turkish-Qatari-Israeli-U.S. axis has scored major successes in Syria (thanks to their support or indulgence of the former Al-Qa`idah militia which now runs the country) but Russia and Iran may still try to either take revenge or enhance their regional power status.
Russia lost a major strategic military presence inside the country, while Iran lost the direct link to Hizbullah, which passed through Syria.
More than in the cases of Tunisia and Egypt, there are many militias operating in Syria, and they all have external sponsors. Outside powers will be involved in the formation of the new government in Syria.
The situation of Syria is like the chaos of Libya but there are many more actors (local and external) operating there.
The Six Scenarios
While it is not clear how the local and regional conflicts will affect the emergence of a new and potentially stable government in Syria, it is possible to consider these scenarios.
1. Libyan Model
Syria may very well follow the example of Libya. Like Libya, the regional conflicts between those who support the Islamists and those who abhor them may play out for many years to come.
The Obama administration promised with great excitement a new democracy in Libya and an end to tyrannical rule after the NATO assault in 2011.
In Syria, the various Islamist militias have a history of bloodshed that may not end just because Hay’at Tahrir Sham (HTS) has taken control of the central government — at least formally.
The size of the new government’s militia is not large and it may face military challenges from various fronts. If Syria were to follow the scenario of Libya, it would mean that Russia, Turkey, Qatar, UAE and the U.S. will all be involved. It would also bring in Israel, which harbors keen interest in establishing a client regime in Damascus.
The massive Israeli bombing of Syria since Assad’s fall was intended to demolish Syria’s military infrastructure and intimidate the new government. HTS quickly signaled it has no agenda against Israel, and does not concern itself—not even verbally—with the aim of liberating Syrian territory from Israeli occupation.
The potential for disintegration and fragmentation is particularly high because Syria is far less homogeneous (ethnically and religiously) than Libya. The crackdown by the new government against Alawites has triggered outrage and calls for self-defense in the Alawite region.
2. Military Coup
The UAE and Saudi Arabia may very well arrange for a military coup to install a client military despot, like Sisi in Egypt.
The UAE was instrumental in the Egyptian coup of 2013 and its media have been alone in expressing alarm regarding the new regime in Damascus. After all, the UAE’s ruler was in close contact with Assad to the very end and was steering him away from Iran and the “axis of resistance.”
In fact, since Assad’s rapprochement with the UAE began he had been restricting the movement and activities of Iranian and Hizbullah military officers. This coup scenario would work to establish a regional alliance of republican despotic regimes tied to the Saudis and the Emiratis.
Of the two, the UAE has thus far been more successful in imposing its political and military will in Somalia, Yemen (south), Libya, Sudan (with the RSF) and Egypt.
An installed military regime could easily be integrated into the Abraham accords once the Saudis reach agreement with Israel on a peace treaty. The problem with this scenario is that the UAE is the chief opponent of the Muslim Brotherhood in the region that wields influence in Syria.
That would mean imposing brute force against them just like in Egypt, which had been the Brotherhood’s base before and after the fall of Hosni Mubarak.
3. Democracy
The new government would heed the call of many Syrians and begin a transitional period in which free elections are held and a new constitution is drafted. That would lead to the formation of a democratic government, something that Syria has not experienced since the 1950s when the democratic order was very flawed and subject to outside intervention and manipulation.
This democratic scenario would alarm both Israel and the U.S. who are keenly aware that people— left to their own devices – -would not necessarily serve Western and Israeli interests. Despotic rule is always preferable to the West and Israel. The U.S. hasn’t yet lifted its cruel sanctions against the Syrian people (though it did lift the $10 million bounty on the HTS leader’s head) because Washington can use it to blackmail any future Syrian government.
4. HTS Dictatorial Rule
The HTS would monopolize political power and rule alone disregarding demands for wider representation. Such a scenario would alarm religious minorities and women given the ideological origins of the new rulers. The U.S. and Israel may favor this scenario if the alternative is an uncontrollable democracy near Palestine.
5. Syria Breaks Up
Syria could lose its territorial integrity and become a patch of semi-independent, sectarian enclaves where the Druze would govern their own province, and the Alawites and Kurds would do the same ad so on. This scenario would be too alarming for Turkey, which is willing to use military force to crush an independent Kurdish statelet inside Syria.
The West and Israel would favor such an outcome; after all, Joe Biden and Antony Blinken advocated dividing Iraq into three enclaves after the American invasion of 2003. If this scenario arises, Northern Lebanon (Tripoli and Akkar) may ask to join the Sunni enclave.
6. Restoration
The least likely scenario entails the restoration of the old regime with the assistance of Iran and Hizbullah. Members of the “axis of resistance” are furious at Assad for abandoning power so quickly; they are also outraged over revelations of his close coordination with the UAE to distance Syria from Iran.
Iran and Hizbullah have been weakened and won’t risk their forces to defend the ousted regime if Assad indicated he wanted to return. Their intervention in Syria on his behalf would trigger Israel targeting them.
It is most difficult to predict the political future of Syria. It has never been an easy country to govern and the nightmarish experience of living under the Assad regime for decades embittered many Syrians.
But the ideology the new rulers of Syria brings is too alien to a society that is diverse and has a history of secularist tendencies. There are many claimants to power inside the country, and a multiplicity of outside powers who want a piece of Syria (figuratively or literally).
Whatever happens, the next phase will not be peaceful.
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