The sound of another massive explosion in Damascus. This is the second one we’ve heard.
Earlier reports (see previous post) said Israel had struck a major security complex in the Kafr Sousa district along with a research centre where it had previously said Iranian scientists developed missiles, but we haven’t been able to verify that.
We did see a big fire that seemed to set off smaller explosions.
Reuters is citing two regional security sources as saying that Israel has conducted three airstrikes against a major security complex in Damascus’s Kafr Sousa district, along with a research centre where Israel previously said Iranian scientists developed missiles.
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a UK-based war monitor, says Israel carried out at least three airstrikes on Syria today, including on a research centre near Damascus.
The Israeli military has not commented.
The end of the Assad rule will reshape the balance of power in the region. Iran, again, is seeing its influence suffer a significant blow. Syria under Assad was part of the connection between the Iranians and Hezbollah, the militia and political movement Iran supports in Lebanon. It was key for the transfer of weapons and ammunition to the group.
Hezbollah itself has been severely weakened after its war with Israel. In the most violent phase of the civil war, Iran sent advisers to Syria and Hezbollah deployed its fighters to help Assad crush the opposition. Russia, too, used its formidable air power. This time, however, they did not come to Assad’s rescue – and he was unable to survive on his own.
Iran has also seen the Houthis in Yemen being targeted in airstrikes. All these factions, plus militias in Iraq and Hamas in Gaza, form what Tehran describes as the Axis of Resistance, which has now been severely damaged.
This new picture will be celebrated in Israel, where Iran is viewed as an existential threat.
Many believe that this offensive could not have happened without the blessing of Turkey. For some time, President Erdogan had pressed Assad to engage in negotiations to find a diplomatic solution to the conflict that could allow the return of Syrian refugees. At least three million of them are in Turkey, and this is a sensitive issue locally. But Assad had refused to do so.
Turkey, which supports some of the rebels in Syria, has denied backing HTS, the Islamist group that led the insurgency.
HTS is sending conciliatory and diplomatic messages. But the dramatic changes could lead to a dangerous power vacuum and eventually result in chaos and even more violence.
The leader of Hayat Tahrir-al Shams, Abu Mohammad al-Jowlani, triumphantly announced “the capture of Damascus”.
Now he’s using his real name, Ahmed al-Sharaa, rather than his nom de guerre as a sign of his sudden rise to a much greater national role.
He’s certain to play a decisive part in defining Syria’s new order after this sudden stunning end to a half century of repressive rule by the Assad family. But the leader of an organisation proscribed by the UN as well as western governments is not the only pivotal player on Syria’s fast shifting scene.
As the Islamist Hayat Tahrir-al Shams (HTS) pushed forward with astonishing speed, facing scant resistance, it sparked a rush by rebel forces in other regions of Syria as well as a surge of armed local groups keen to play a part in their own areas.
“Fighting the Assad regime was the glue that kept this de facto coalition together”, says Thomas Juneau, Middle East expert at the University of Ottawa’s Graduate School of Public and International Affairs, who is also in Doha.
“Now that Assad has fled, continued unity among the groups that toppled him will be a challenge,” he says.
