The Current - Who are the rebels who reignited Syria’s civil war?

Episode Date: December 4, 2024

Syria’s civil war has suddenly flared up again, with the rebel Islamist group Hayat Tahir al-Sham launching sweeping attacks and taking control of Aleppo. We look at how President Bashar al-Assad’s regime is responding, and what’s happening to the civilians stuck in the middle.

In 2017, it felt like drugs were everywhere in the news, so I started a podcast called On Drugs. We covered a lot of ground over two seasons, but there are still so many more stories to tell. I'm Jeff Turner, and I'm back with Season 3 of On Drugs. And this time, it's going to get personal. I don't know who Sober Jeff is. I don't even know if I like that guy.

On Drugs is available now wherever you get your podcasts. This is a CBC Podcast. Hello, I'm Matt Galloway, and this is The Current Podcast. It was a quick and stunning victory. Syrian rebels launched sweeping assaults against the forces of President Bashar al-Assad in northwestern Syria, taking control of the city of Aleppo. In the last week, the Islamic group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, has been the dominant group to challenge pro-Assad forces. Russia and Syria continue to respond with airstrikes in the region, and a once-stalled civil war has been awakened. The White Helmets are a volunteer organization that operates in opposition-controlled parts of Syria. Ismail Al-Abdullah is a volunteer with White Helmets in Syria.

Ismail, hello. Hello. You have been in Aleppo regularly. How are people feeling, and what are the streets like in that city right now? The situation in Aleppo city is somehow quiet because yesterday and today no bombings, no bombings in Aleppo city, just two earthquakes somehow in a place an area far from the crowded people

in Aleppo city. People today and yesterday afternoon, they walked in the street, not like the days before. The days before, they stayed in their homes. They didn't leave. Somehow quiet. Nothing that scary about the security situation. I mean, it was scary in the days earlier, certainly, because there have been ongoing airstrikes in that region since last week. Yeah, at the beginning, in four days or five days, there were many airstrikes hit Aleppo city.

In the west entrance of Aleppo city, there was an airstrike and killed more than 15 people. And the university hospital also was targeted by an airstrike. There were 10 people at the hospital were killed. Other airstrikes hit Mahatat Baghdad, was hit Al-Hamdaniya, was hit also by airstrikes. Many neighborhoods were hit.

Who's in control of the city right now? To be honest, we don't know. We don't know exactly who, because if you see the streets, if you see somehow the streets are empty and there's military bases here and there. So in control, different names, there are different factions, different names. So we don't know who in charge exactly. How do people feel in Aleppo about this group, HTS, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham? This is a group that was set up as an offshoot of Al-Qaeda. They've since split from Al-Qaeda, but they, I mean, one of their goals is to set up an Islamic state in many ways in Syria. How do people feel about this group and the presence of this group there? Most of the civilians, and I'm one of them, and my colleagues are from Aleppo.

We know this over the past years, back to 2016, Aleppo was under siege and bombing, and many people were killed, and this lasted for three or four years since 2011 until we were displaced. And now the same thing, under some bombings here and there. And what we are afraid of or scared of, this bombing will continue.

And this is not just from who is in charge of the city. You know, all civilians, we can see they are sick of the situation, the whole situation of bombing, displacement, targeting hospitals, backeries, no electricity. Somehow, most of the people, no electricity in the city, no communication. They cannot communicate with each other. They cannot communicate with the outside community. If they want to evacuate, they want to know other place to stay, to have some place, some quiet place to rest. So the whole situation, all civilians, including everyone, they're tired of the situation. What are you able to do with the White Helmets to help those people? I mean,

the civilians who, as you said, they're just trying to live their lives and they're tired of this continuing. We're doing our best, to be honest. Our services right now, we are in the streets, clearing the rubble, removing everything that, not the trash in the streets, helping people if they need an ambulance, we transport them to the hospital nearby, Aleppo City in the north countryside, if there is someone who needs to be transported, maybe to the border,

we transport families who want to evacuate, then we respond to the border, we transport families who want to evacuate, that we respond to the bombing, giving them instruction, educating them about the UXO ordinance that they not touch it. Because so many people who want to return to places that may be contaminated with UXO. We lost four civilians two days ago, three days ago in Khan Sheikhoun, just because they want to place contaminated with mines and the mine exploded and four people were killed. So our services, we're doing our best to help them,

to have them back and not to lose anyone anymore. What do you want the world to know about what's happening there? Much of the world, as the civil war grew quiet, in many ways stopped paying attention to what was going on in Syria. And now this has flared up again. What do you want the world to know? I already said that. Really, it's not like we are saying this out of knowing.

The people, civilians, families are really tired of this over and over again. Not an end for this. And now the most thing that all the civilians are afraid of, that maybe the bombing will go to another level maybe they will use chemical weapons as the regime Syrian regime used it in Khashoggi

and this is according to the OBCW and United Nations not us, not anyone from Syrian community said that United Nations said not us, not anyone from Syrian community said that. The United Nations said that. This is what the Syphilias are afraid of.

They pay more high price for nothing. Ismail, thank you for talking to us. Take care of yourselves and stay safe. Thank you. Ismail Al-Abdullah is a volunteer with the White Helmets in Aleppo. He was in Syria. In 2017, it felt like drugs were everywhere in the news. So I started a podcast called On Drugs. We covered a lot of ground over two seasons, but there are still so many more stories to tell. I'm Jeff Turner, and I'm back

with season three of On Drugs. And this time it's going to get personal. I don't know who Sober Jeff is. I don't even know if I like that guy. On Drugs is available now wherever you get your podcasts. Kareem Shaheen is the Middle East editor with New Lines Magazine. It's a magazine that publishes long-form stories with a focus on the Middle East. He's in Montreal. Kareem, hello to you. Hello to you, Matt. Thank you for having me. Thank you for being here. Help us understand why has this civil war sparked to life again now? Yeah, I mean, the civil war has obviously been going on since 2011 when ordinary Syrians sort of rose up against Bashar al-Assad, you know, demanding democracy. They were met with guns. And so

many of them turned into armed rebels. And over the course of the war, you know, 300,000 people have been killed. Half the country has been displaced. And many of them, you know, fled to Europe, where, you know, they changed the political landscape in Europe and in the West and ushered in this new era of anti-immigrant far-right resurgence all over the world. And over the past three or four years, the conflict has been static. The lines have been stable. They haven't changed much. I've been personally covering Syria for about 10 years now. But the past three or four years, people have sort of turned away because of that stalemate. Of course, it wasn't much of a stalemate for Syrians on the ground.

Dozens of people were dying every week. But the lines were not changing, and the lines were not changing because President Bashar al-Assad's backers, which are Iran and Russia, have been focused elsewhere. Russia has had the war in Ukraine to contend with. Iran has had to deal with Israel attacking its proxies over the past year or so. And that's what led to the offensive being so successful, you know. Who is this militant group, HTS Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, that controls most of Aleppo, in light of what you have just said? Who is this organization?

Yeah, so they're a fascinating group. So they were founded in 2012, initially as a splinter group of the Islamic State in Iraq, which was, you know, obviously a terrible terrorist group that had carried out many attacks in Iraq against civilians. They were sent to Syria to sort of establish a cell there after the civil war started under the leadership of the current leader, Abu Muhammad al-Jolani. Jolani eventually split off from ISIS. He wanted to establish his own group that did not adhere to the group's methods and pledged allegiance to Al-Qaeda, the global terrorist network.

After a while, you know, they rebranded, you know, into a group called Jabhat Fatah al-Qaeda, the global terrorist network. After a while, you know, they rebranded, you know, into a group called Jabhat Fath Hasham, JFS, which severed ties with Al-Qaeda. And since then, it's rebranded again into Hayat Tahrir Hasham, HTS, you know, and have, you know, by all accounts, seem to have, in fact, severed their relationship with al-Qaeda and turned into essentially a religious national liberation movement. What do they believe? I mean, initially, at the very least, the belief was to establish some sort of Islamic caliphate in Syria. What do they believe now? Well, the group itself still believes in the primacy of Islamic law in the country, still believes in, you know, the primacy of Islamic law in the country, except what they're focused on is a countrywide, you know, jihad and effort, rather than the transnational jihadism of

your, you know, the war of terror, the war on terror was launched to combat. Now, you know, they're, you could probably compare the closest parallel to them is maybe the Taliban, where, you know, they're a religious group. but they are working with other rebel groups. Their cause is primarily nationalist. You know, they've had a history, of course, of abuses, you know, of imposing, you know, excessive Islamic edicts, you know, kidnapping or assassinating civil society workers. But over the past year or so, over the past couple of years, in fact, they've been trying to reform this image. They've been conducting outreach to minority groups in Syria,

particularly Christians and Druze. They've been reopening churches. And this was a core component of the message that they had when they entered Aleppo. Aleppo is the city with the largest Christian presence in Syria. That presence has obviously decreased since the start of the civil war from about 200,000 to about 20,000 now. But, you know, they've gone in saying, you know, we acknowledge that Christians are a part and parcel of Syria. We want to protect them and to protect their rights. They've saying, you know, we acknowledge that Christians are a part and parcel of Syria. We want to protect them and to protect their rights. They've allowed, you know, Sunday Mass to go on.

And they've focused on providing municipal services in the city so far. How trustworthy do you think people should view those statements and this idea of moderation? I mean, in the past, we've seen ISIS-Al-Qaeda affiliated groups roll into areas, take over, and then rule with extreme violence. And that moderation disappears in a heartbeat. Yeah, so I have in-laws in Aleppo, and they're Christian, and I've been talking to them over the past few days about the situation, about what's going on. And for them, their main concern is that they do not want to be treated as second-class citizens. They obviously want to be able to go to church and they want to be able to go to mass and they want to be able to celebrate Christmas, which by all accounts HCS is allowing for now. status civilians, you know, that don't have a say in how the society is run, where they're treated as second class citizens, you know, pretty much as they were under the Ottoman caliphate, you know,

100 years ago. So they really want to be able to participate and to have a say in how their society is governed, and how their cities run. As for, you know, the future, it's obviously impossible to tell, because these groups have, as you said, been untrustworthy in the past. Yes, they have reformed, they've changed what their outward message is, but we need to wait and see. I think the important part for us here in the West is to consider how we're going to think about these groups. I mean, the HDS is essentially an outgrowth of the war on terror. The war on terror was launched to combat transnational jihadism. And it's true that, you know, it prevented another September 11th style attack on the mainland of the United States. But what it's led to instead is the emergence of these

jihadist groups that are focused on the nationalist liberation struggle, like the Taliban and like HTS. And in the West, we're going to need to decide how we deal with this new form of jihadism and how we decide to combat it if we do. How do you think the West should deal with this? I mean, there's already been a ferocious response from Assad's forces, but also the backing or with the backing at the very least of allies like Russia and Iran. So how should the West deal with this? Yeah, it's going to be a key challenge, I think, for the next few years. I mean, right now, the way that we've dealt with the Taliban is that we've acknowledged their existence and we've decided to, you know, pull out of the country. And, you know, Russia is meeting with Taliban officials now.

Perhaps that's what the future holds for HDS. We don't know. But what we do know is that these rebel groups, whether it's HDS or the Kurdish militias, you know, they control over half of Syria. And so it's going to be impossible to really negotiate a political solution, a solution that addresses sort of the core problems in Syria and the core challenges without at least trying to understand these groups and perhaps to talk to them eventually down the line. What should we make of the support of Russia and Iran? To your point earlier, those countries were distracted with other conflicts. They are certainly dialed into what's happening now in this part of Syria. What happens to that support? I mean, I think what it shows is that this regime could not survive without them. The Russians and the Iranians were key to taking Aleppo in the first place back in 2016. You know, and even then, at the height of rebel power, they only controlled half the city. But, you know, the Russian Air Force has been bogged down in Ukraine for the past couple of

years. For Iran, you know, the main militia that was helping Assad, Hezbollah, has been in a, you know, on and off war with Israel for the past year. They've had their entire top echelon decimated by Israel. You know, there's a ceasefire right now, but it's barely holding. And so they're very much engaged on that front. And so they don't have the capacity or the ability to prop up the regime as they did a few years ago. And so the cavalry hasn't come back yet. In the middle of this, and whether it's the cavalry that they're looking for or not, you heard from Ismail, civilians are caught in the middle of this and they're exhausted, but also terrified that the bombing and the attacks that in many ways shaped that civil war for so many years are going

to return. Yeah. And that's honestly, that's the main concern that I'm hearing from civilians on the ground too, is that, you know, they're saddened by the fact that, you know, they can't leave the city even if they wanted to. But the main issue right now is that the Assad regime has fled. You know, its forces completely collapsed and they immediately withdrew and ran away. And now what they're doing is they're threatening to bomb the city again. You know, they've already bombed it a few times. So not only did they flee, you know, against this rebel advance, but they're resorting to the same old tactics in the past of just bombing civilian centers, which is something that they did, you know, for years. Aleppo itself was subjected to a campaign of, you know, the infamous barrel bombs.

barrel bombs. These were, you know, barrels filled with TNT and explosives that were so inaccurate that the government had to drop it way behind enemy lines. And it killed, you know, tens of thousands of civilians and displaced thousands of civilians in Aleppo itself. And so the fear right now that they have is a return of this bombing campaign, you know, after the regime has fled, instead of, you know, some sort of attempt to grapple with the new political reality and to try to come to the table for a political solution. Karim, this is very complicated. Appreciate you untangling it for us. Thank you very much.

It's a pleasure. Thank you for having me. Karim Shaheen is the Middle East editor with New Lines magazine. He was in Montreal. For more CBC podcasts, go to cbc.ca slash podcasts.