BOMBSHELL Shift In Syria Leave US In A Panic!

Right, so we’re now more than a month following the fall of the Assad regime and for the people of Syria it is no longer necessarily scenes of jubilation over then ending of a brutal regime, but now wondering if they have swapped one despotic government for another, that the prevailing thinking now is not about whether or not they’ll get change – certainly the HTS led government are different from the Assad regime – but the price they will all end up paying for the kind of change they’ve ended up with. It isn’t just the people of Syria wondering this either.
From the outside, those who supported HTS in overthrowing Assad are also now wondering if what they’ve got is a net gain, grave concerns over what they are seeing HTS doing, the government they are building and what it consists of, whether destabilising Syria is worth the price they could end up paying, but it’s a bit late for that when HTS were themselves a terrorist organisation and the guy now overseeing the change in Syria once had a $10m bounty on his head.
All of this is the sort of stuff that should have been considered before, but as ever with western interference in foreign lands, hindsight ends up being a wonderful thing.
Right, so there are a multitude of different reasons to be concerned about what is going on in Syria now, particularly if you are the US government, who seem to be in a bit of a flap about all of this and all of these various whys and wherefores are rooted in interference by one faction or another, invasion by one nation or another and given the collapse of the Assad regime was brought about largely by US design, certainly in support of Israel, the decision to do that and the consequences we’re now seeing, well, if they’re panicking about it, they brought it on themselves.
On one hand and most importantly is the impact being seen on the people of Syria who are now rather concerned that the Al Qaeda and Islamic State cast offs that are Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham, HTS, the new government in Syria by way of conquest and led by Ahmed Al-Sharaa, or Al-Jolani as he’s also known.
Elections were meant to come quickly, but these have now been delayed for four years and this has given cause for grave concern amongst the Syrian people since they and the rest of the world needed only look at Idlib province, where HTS have been in control since 2015, to see what that might look like and what the US and Israel were prepared to unleash by doing a deal with terrorists to simply disrupt Iranian influence and do Israel a solid.
Idlib has been described as a nucleus for all of Syria by Al Sharaa, so what has happened there may well be rolled out to some extent to the rest of Syria, if not completely. In Idlib, where women used to be able to reveal their hair freely, all the women must now wear head coverings, many wearing the niqab. HTS fighters casually walk around with AK-47s, sporting black armbands upon which is displayed the Shahada, an Islamic testimony of faith. This was also seen displayed on a white flag being flown in Idlib instead of the newly minted flag of Syria and the flying of a white flag with the Shahada on it is something also seen in Afghanistan these days, under the rule of the Taliban as they are there.
Where people have celebrated the end of an oppressive Assad regime that indulged in disappearing people, torturing them to death and execution, HTS in Idlib have been little different to that.
As far as religious denominations go, the Christians fled Idlib in 2015 when HTS and their allies in the Turkestan Islamic Party, Uzbeks and Uyghurs from China took over.
The local Druze inhabitants have also been persecuted, a notable massacre amongst their number in 2015 saw 20 people killed all for the sake of one Druze inhabitant refusing to give up his home to an HTS commander. Sound familiar? No wonder they want to get along with Israel so much.
There have also been reports this week of persecution of the Alawite population in Hama, a religious community being persecuted by HTS on the grounds that they are all seen as being pro Assad, which is a convenient excuse to scapegoat an entire community isn’t it? Isn’t that the sort of stuff Assad used to do?
The fear is this will be seen much more widely now HTS run the whole country despite claims by Al Sharaa to the contrary. For example, Christians in Aleppo were able to celebrate Christmas with no interference, despite the church grounds of St Elia Maronite church where they went for worship being guarded by HTS soldiers.
Of significant concern to the US and other western allied nations to Israel, having laid out this bit of groundwork, is the fact that the new HTS administration have now taken some of these foreign fighters, and placed them in positions of power within the Syrian government. The Cradle detailed some of these, an excerpt reading:
‘According to Reuters, the United States, France, and Germany, have expressed serious concerns to Syria's new HTS-led government regarding the appointment of foreign fighters to senior military positions.
US envoy Daniel Rubinstein addressed the issue directly with Syria's de facto leader, Ahmad al-Sharaa (Abu Mohammad al-Julani), during a meeting at the presidential palace in Damascus. Similarly, French Foreign Minister Jean-Noel Barrot and German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock raised these concerns in discussions with Sharaa on 3 January.
In late 2024, Syria's new administration made nearly 50 military appointments, including at least six foreign fighters from countries such as China, Turkey, Egypt, and Jordan. Notable appointees include Abdulaziz Dawood Khudaberdi, a Chinese Uyghur militant linked to the Turkestan Islamic Party, and Egyptian Alaa Mohamed Abdel-Baki, previously sentenced to life in prison in absentia in Egypt on "terrorism charges."
Syrian officials defend their decisions, stating that many of these foreign fighters have been in the country for over a decade, contributing significantly to the fight against former President Bashar al-Assad, and cannot be returned to their home countries where they may face persecution.’
As concerning as all of this might be though, Israel seem set on making matters even worse, by having a completely different view of what they would like Syria to look like.
Whilst the US will incessantly keep funding Israel of course, they are very much remaining in Syria, unwanted there as they are by HTS, but not to the point they wish to go to war with them, because they still want to be besties with the Netanyahu regime. Israel want Syria to be broken up into several independent what they are calling cantons, essentially states, much in the way the former Yugoslavia was split up into the likes of Bosnia and Croatia etc, Israel want to Balkanise Syria, removing it as a single power and a single threat to them, whilst also in their minds making sure Iran can’t ever support the likes of Hezbollah again as they’ve been able to in the past, notwithstanding the fact a destabilised Syria has allegedly made it even easier for them to do.
Now there is no reason for HTS to agree to that, they run everything now, but it could provide Israel with yet another excuse to stay in Syrian territory, which they say they plan on doing for the long term. So US backed Israel and US backed HTS potentially coming to a head. Another fine mess to come in due course it would appear.
Further discontent has come with the foiling of an attack by ISIS on the Sayyida Zainab shrine in southern Damascus, a regular target for ISIS under the Assad regime, but given the HTS regime contains elements of ISIS itself, you’d have thought ISIS would pack this in with a more acceptable leadership, but it seems they aren’t as tight as we might have assumed and this then casts another light and another headache on the US, as Turkey continues to attack their Kurdish allies in the north, an area where the Kurds guard the detention camps and prisons of thousands of ISIS fighters. It might have been an easy assumption to make that if they escaped, they might join HTS, but actually it seems it’s just as likely they take up arms against them as well should they be released and that presents a headache particularly for us here in the UK, as amongst those prisoners is a certain Shamima Begum, being set free will beg questions again of whether she should have been brought back to face justice here. The Syrian Democratic Forces, the Kurdish led US allies have in response to this asked the US to ensure that upon Trump coming to power that they won’t withdraw their forces from Syria. Should they do so, those ISIS captives will almost certainly be freed, Turkey being hell bent on defeating the Kurds no matter what and actually this has had me asking questions regarding US Turkish relations, because like us here in the UK, both Turkey and the US are manufacturers of parts for those blasted F-35 jets that Israel have and are committing so much damage with, yet surely they must be butting heads over this northern Syria situation, or is it going to be a case of the US drop the Kurds, for the sake of both them and Turkey being on the side of HTS? It’s a situation it’s not clear to see how that will turn out, especially when another angle to US support for the Kurds is that between them, they control the majority of Syria’s oil fields.
All in all, the Syrian people seem to be the ones set to suffer most of all. They’ve swapped one regime for another and depending on religion and where in Syria they are, will depend how they get treated. Democracy seems a pipedream with HTS bedding in for four years and with conflict all around them from US interests, Israel, Turkey and ISIS, it no wonder the Syrian people, much like foreign governments witnessing the mess their own interference has wrought are wondering if things are just as bad if not worse than they were before and could worsen still before things have a chance of getting better. What direction of travel do you think events will take here? Do let me know in the comments.
Elsewhere meanwhile, Israel’s ever growing headache in Gaza, the revived Hamas have managed a level of escalation in the last few days that has just floored Netanyahu and Co, the IDF’s incompetence frankly as it appears, most cack handed army in the world, leading to daily rocket attacks from Hamas as if Israel had not committed the razing and genocide of the Gaza Strip at all.
Get all the details of what appears to be an ever growing failure by Israel in this video recommendation here as your suggested next watch. Please do also hit like, share and subscribe if you haven’t already done so to make sure you don’t miss out on new daily content and it all helps to support the channel as well which is very much appreciated and I’ll hopefully catch you on the next vid. Cheers folks