Having worked on #Syria full-time since the crisis began nearly 14yrs ago, there really is no understating how remarkable the losses imposed on #Assad's regime have been over the past week.
A large reason for this lies with #HTS — a 🧵:
Militarily, #HTS has invested enormously since 2020 in enhancing combat capabilities, improving professionalism, tightening its structure & command/control etc.
From an 'officer' class, to special forces, night-time units & an entire drone force - it's changed the game.
The expansion of units like Asaib al-Hamra & introduction of Saraya al-Harari and Kataib Shaheen -- along with large-scale indigenous rocket & missile production -- has created a force that #Assad's regime has seriously struggled to defend against, let alone outmaneuver.
But just as significant as military capabilities is the groundwork #HTS has done to facilitate its advance -- particularly in years of engagement with tribes, minority notables & other social bodies that exist beyond greater #Idlib.
This has been crucial.
Having spent 4+ years engaged in sensitive community engagement with groups traditionally hostile to the likes of #HTS, the group has developed a knack for 'diplomacy.'
In recent days, it's put this experience to work on multiple fronts -- to significant effect.
In areas of northern #Hama for example, #HTS has negotiated intensively with Ismaili notables, with #Assad regime military commanders & with Sunni tribes -- most resulting in peaceful takeovers, safe exits & some [publicly unacknowledged] regime defections.
In Kurdish areas of #Aleppo, #HTS's line of communication with the #SDF/#YPG has, I'm told, been pragmatic, constructive & ultimately effective.
The SNA's brief attempts at negotiation on the other hand rapidly devolved into threats, then fighting.
In multiple areas of #Aleppo city long held by #Assad, local community elders have recently called on #HTS to deploy forces to their areas & intervene against #SNA abuses, threats & criminal behavior -- and to get working on repairs & service distribution.
Don't understate the significance of #HTS's recent statements & rhetoric towards Christians, Alawites, Kurds etc. That cannot merely be "PR" as it sets an irreversible precedent.
Jolani has spent years purging those who'd critique such steps. He's walking on stabler ground now.
#HTS has also invested heavily in its semi-technocratic "Salvation Government", which comprises 11 Ministries & many other public sector service bodies.
The SSG operates closely with external aid INGOs & the @UN has a permanent office liaising with the SSG in #Idlib.
@UN The SSG has sought to replicate the conventional acts of a sovereign government -- running a census, issuing ID cards, running & regulating banks, issuing numbered addresses & more.
Its response to #COVID-19 (masks, testing, clinics) was swifter than #Damascus.
@UN Some will dismiss #HTS & the SSG's early proto-governance steps in #Aleppo as superficial, but after 14yrs of debilitating humanitarian crisis & #Assad's corruption & economic decline -- 1st impressions could count for a lot in defining what comes next.
@UN In years past, #HTS (& Nusra before it) struggled to achieve genuine trust with the rest of #Syria's armed opposition -- but that's changed in recent years.
The impressively tight coordination with long-standing FSA-branded groups this past week is evidence of that.
@UN But beyond military coordination, the [so far] smooth transition from battle to consolidation to interim governance -- particularly in #Aleppo -- has seen #HTS devolve authority to more locally-rooted factions (see Jabha al-Shamiya, Zinki et. al.)
@UN The relatively sophisticated PR effort & swift pivot from military-to-governing is already having some effect. #Aleppo's hospitals remain fully staffed, the city police & defected soldiers are already signing up to join the SSG's Interior Ministry payroll.
@UN In many ways & with a heavy dose of irony, #HTS today is the realization of a vision first put forward by Ahrar al-Sham, whose 1st-generation leaders sought to pursue an evolution from Salafi-jihad to 'revolutionary nationalism."
Ahrar's decline was #HTS's doing.
@UN Ahrar al-Sham was the 1st such group to embrace the 'green' revolutionary flag, to adopt nationalist rhetoric, and to publicly critique the influence of 'external' (jihadist) actors.
Criticism from Nusra, then #JFS-#HTS was swift -- but it's the model that #HTS has embraced.
@UN The BIG test going forward is to what extent #HTS's strides in NW #Syria can earn it acceptance, trust or credibility from communities & actors deeper in #Syria.
#Hama will be a testing ground. And perhaps #Homs after that. This story isn't over yet.
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- Launched ground incursions into x18 localities in SW #Syria, as deep as 12km;
- Conducted x3 airstrikes;
- Threatened a military intervention toward #Damascus;
- Demanded all of south #Syria be demilitarized.
#Israel says it distrusts #Syria's interim gov't & has sought to instrumentalize minorities to justify its interventions -- particularly the #Druze.
Yet the most powerful #Druze actors have publicly rejected #Israel's "interference" & "stoking division."
24hrs before #Israel began publicly linking the #Druze to its actions in #Syria, the "#Suwayda Military Council" began an online PR campaign -- which many took to be too much of a coincidence.
Their flag was also similar in style to the #SDF in NE #Syria.
NEW -- #Israel is threatening military intervention in #Syria tonight amid rising tensions between interim gov't forces & #Druze militiamen in #Damascus' suburb of #Jaramana.
What's going on? A brief 🧵:
Last night, #Druze militiamen in #Jaramana outside #Damascus attacked a handful of interim gov't forces -- killing one, injuring another & temporarily taking him hostage.
An hour later, the militiamen attacked & ransacked a state police station nearby.
#Druze notables in #Jaramana intervened last night, securing the hostage release & promising the gov't General Security Service to handover the men responsible for the x2 attacks.
That didn't happen & tensions are rising tonight, amid occasional gunfire.
NEW - #Syria’s interim gov’t GSS has captured senior #ISIS commander Abu al-Harith al-Iraqi in a targeted raid.
His capture is linked to US intel sharing with #Damascus. Abu al-Harith has been behind a string of high-profile #ISIS plots in #Syria. A 🧵:
When in #Damascus, I was told of 8 #ISIS plots that had been foiled by #Syria’s Interior Ministry GSS force since Jan 1, 2025 — all tied directly or indirectly to U.S. intel tip-offs.
There’s an ongoing [US-#HTS] exchange on #ISIS.
Abu al-Harith was the planner & facilitator of the #ISIS plot to massacre Shia Muslims in #Damascus’ Sayyida Zeinab foiled in January by #Syria’s GSS, per a US intel tip-off.
He also coordinated the April ‘24 assassination of Abu Mariya al-Qahtani.
I just left #Syria after an extraordinary trip — one that until recently I never thought I’d make again. From #Aleppo, to #Idlib, #Latakia, #Tartus, #Salamiya, #Suwayda & #Damascus.
So many takeaways, but most of all: it's free & everyone is overjoyed. A 🧵:
In #SNA-held areas of northern #Aleppo, towns had emptied, as IDPs have steadily returned home since #Assad's fall on Dec 8.
Checkpoints remained, but #Damascus forces (formerly #HTS) had begun to arrive. Authorities were transitioning to central control.
As in #SNA areas, #Idlib showed signs of service provision, maintenance & civil order that was lacking in formerly #Assad-run areas. Cleaner streets, orderly road & traffic management, *much* more electricity & more advanced/resourced commercial activity.
NEW -- #Trump's global aid freeze has cut the salaries paid to many of the prison & camp guards responsible for securing 9,500 #ISIS militants & ~40,000 associated women/kids in northeast #Syria.
Many are no longer turning up for work.
For years, @CENTCOM has warned that #ISIS's "army in waiting" & its potential "next generation" lie in prisons & camps in NE #Syria.
The threat posed by a mass breakout cannot be understated, as #ISIS was already resurgent in 2024: syriaweekly.com/p/in-2024-isis…
@CENTCOM Did #Trump realize that "cutting aid" would mean opening a door for 1,000s of #ISIS militants to potentially be broken out in #Syria?
Of course not -- but that's the consequence of brash, ill-thought out actions intended for headlines, not policy.