Assad, Bashar al-

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    How Might the Rebels Govern Syria? Their Ruling History in Idlib Offers Clues

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    The Islamist rebels who ousted Syria’s dictator ran a pragmatic and disciplined administration in the territory they controlled. They also jailed their critics.Every fall, when farmers across the rolling, red dirt hills of Idlib Province in northern Syria harvest their olive crops, they routinely find at least one representative of the local tax authority stationed at any oil press.The tax collector takes at least 5 percent of the oil, and farmers grouse that there are no exceptions, even in lean harvest years.The collectors work for the civilian government established under Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the rebel movement that just spearheaded the swift overthrow of the 54-year Assad dynasty. The Islamist group has administered much of opposition-held Idlib Province since 2017.Measures like the olive oil tax, introduced in 2019, have prompted protests and even occasional armed clashes and arrests.Yet the Syrian Salvation Government, as the Idlib administration was known, persisted. It taxed goods entering its territory and generated revenue by selling fuel and running a telecom company. It also controlled the local economy through licensing regulation programs that looked a lot like a conventional government’s and proved that it was fairly adept at managing those finances to build up its military operations and provide civil services.The portrait of the rebel group detailed in this article was gleaned from interviews with experts, representatives of humanitarian or other organizations working in the territory under its control, local residents and reports by the United Nations or think tanks.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Israel Strikes Military Targets in Syria

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      The Israeli military hit weapons depots and air defenses, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Israel has said it aims to keep military equipment out of the hands of extremists after rebels seized power a week ago.Israel struck multiple Syrian weapons depots and air defenses overnight and into Sunday, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, in what appeared to be the latest in a series of airstrikes that Israel has said are aimed at keeping military hardware and infrastructure out of the hands of extremists after rebels seized power a week ago.In all, Israel struck its neighbor 75 times in attacks that began Saturday night near the Syrian capital, Damascus, and the cities of Hama and Homs, said the Observatory, a Britain-based monitoring organization that has long tracked the conflict in Syria.Israel has struck Syria more than 450 times since the collapse of the al-Assad regime a week ago, according to the Observatory, destroying Syria’s navy and dozens of ammunition depots, air bases and other military equipment.Israel’s military has also seized and occupied an expanse of territory in Syria over the de facto border between the two countries, giving no timeline for its departure apart from saying that it would stay until its security demands are met.There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military about its latest strikes in Syria.Neither the previous Syrian government of President Bashar al-Assad nor the new authorities in Damascus have attacked Israel, and Arab countries and France have called on Israel to withdraw and respect Syria’s sovereignty.Israeli officials, however, say that the raids are necessary to secure the border and to keep Syria’s weaponry from falling into the hands of extremists while the country remains unstable.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Hezbollah Loses Supply Route Through Syria, in Blow to It and Iran

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      The militant group’s leader admits that the toppling of Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad, cut off an important land route from Iran.The leader of the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah acknowledged on Saturday that its supply route through Syria had been cut off by rebels who toppled the government last weekend, dealing another blow to Hezbollah and its patron, Iran.Before its collapse, the Syrian government had provided a land corridor for Iran to supply weapons and materiel to Hezbollah in Lebanon, bolstering the militant group’s power and Iran’s influence as its main backer.“Hezbollah has lost the supply route coming through Syria at the current stage, but this is a small detail and may change with time,” the Hezbollah leader, Naim Qassem, said Saturday in a televised speech.He added that Hezbollah — which recently agreed to a cease-fire with Israel after months of war — would look for alternate means of getting supplies or see if its Syria route could be re-established under “a new regime.”He did not specifically mention the coalition of rebel forces that swept into Damascus, the Syrian capital, last weekend, or Syria’s deposed president, Bashar al-Assad, who had for years relied on help from Hezbollah and Iran in his country’s civil war.Hezbollah’s loss of its supply route through Syria, which remains fractured, is another setback for the militant group after a year of conflict with Israel and several months of all-out warfare. In a string of blows from September until late last month, when the cease-fire took effect in Lebanon, Israel detonated the group’s wireless devices, bombarded it with intense air raids, attacked its positions with a ground invasion and killed many of its commanders.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      With al-Assad Gone, Syrians Search Prisons for Traces of Their Loved Ones

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      Her brother was pulled from his car at a military checkpoint nearly a decade ago, her brother-in-law dragged from his house by the police. Two of her cousins were arrested near the airport in the Syrian capital, Damascus. She said she never had heard from any of them again.So after the fall of President Bashar al-Assad on Sunday, Ghusun Juma, 35, began a quest for answers that led her to an underground prison in one of Syria’s most notorious detention centers, a drab collection of buildings in southeastern Damascus.“I am looking to see if there is anything that belonged to my brother, his ID card, or something with his name on it,” she said, guiding herself through a dark, dank cell block with a cellphone flashlight. “I have been looking since the first day, but I haven’t found anything anywhere.”Mr. al-Assad’s ouster, and his troops’ abandonment of their bases as rebels stormed through Damascus, has exposed the black boxes of one of the Arab world’s most repressive regimes. While some Syrians have wandered through his luxurious palace, many more have combed through the vast network of detention centers whose repression helped keep him in power.An untold number of Syrians disappeared into the maw of that security apparatus over the decades. As the rebels broke into prisons and freed prisoners over the last few weeks, many Syrians hoped that their missing relatives would soon return home.Ghusun Juma, 35, right, searching underground cells at Branch 235, which was also known as Palestine Branch.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Turkey Emerges as a Big Winner in the Wake of al-Assad’s Ouster

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      In the messy aftermath of the fall of the Assad regime in Syria, many questions remain about the country’s future, but one thing is clear: Turkey has emerged as a winner, with more influence than ever over the rebels who now control most of Syria.Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, had long worked with and supported the Syrian rebels who marched on Damascus this month and forced President Bashar al-Assad to flee.That carefully cultivated relationship opens up “an incredibly big domain for economic and political influence,” said Asli Aydintasbas, a visiting fellow at Brookings Institution in Washington with a particular focus on Turkey.“Syria may not have a smooth transition, and there may be renewed fighting between factions,” she added. “But what is uncontestable is that Turkey’s influence will only grow, economically and politically.”In the process, Turkey appears to have also weakened the regional influence of Russia, which along with Iran was a key backer of the Syrian president, she said. It is unclear whether Russia will be able to retain the military bases it has on Syria’s Mediterranean coast.Initially, Turkey did not say much when the rebels swept across northern Syria, seizing two important cities in a few days. But when Mr. Erdogan finally did speak, he was quietly confident.We are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      U.S. Charges Ex-Syrian Prison Official With Torture

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      The indictment was the second time in a week that the Justice Department announced that it had charged top Syrian officials with human rights abuses.A federal grand jury in Los Angeles charged a former Syrian government official on Thursday with torturing political dissidents at a notorious prison in Damascus.The former official, Samir Ousman al-Sheikh, 72, ran Adra prison, according to federal prosecutors, where he was personally involved in torturing inmates in a bid to stifle opposition to its recently deposed authoritarian president, Bashar al-Assad.Prosecutors said Mr. al-Sheikh ordered prisoners to be taken to a part of the prison known as the “punishment wing,” where they were beaten while hanging from the ceiling. Guards would forcibly fold bodies in half, resulting in terrible pain and fractured spines.The indictment was the second time in a week that the Justice Department announced that it had charged top Syrian officials with human rights abuses. The moves underscore its efforts to hold to account the top reaches of the government for a brutal system of detention and torture that flourished under Mr. al-Assad.The charges against Mr. al-Sheikh on Thursday add to earlier charges in July that accused him of attempted naturalization fraud in his effort to seek U.S. citizenship, according to a criminal complaint. He was arrested attempting to fly to Beirut.The U.S. attorney for the Central District of California, Martin Estrada, cast the new charges against Mr. al-Sheikh in a grim light. “The allegations in this superseding indictment of grave human rights abuses are chilling,” he said.Mr. al-Sheikh was charged with three counts of torture and one count of conspiracy to commit torture.Mr. al-Sheikh immigrated to the United States in 2020 and applied for U.S. citizenship in 2023, lying on federal forms about the abuses, the authorities have said.Prosecutors said he was appointed governor of the province of Deir al-Zour by Mr. al-Assad in 2011. Mr. al-Assad’s authoritarian government crumbled over the weekend after rebels routed his forces and took control of swaths of the country.On Monday, federal prosecutors unsealed charges against two top-ranking Syrian intelligence officials, accusing them of war crimes. The pair, Jamil Hassan and Abdul Salam Mahmoud, oversaw a prison in Damascus during the Syrian civil war, prosecutors said.That indictment signaled the first time the United States had criminally charged top Syrian officials with human rights abuses used to silence dissent and spread fear through the country.Mr. Hassan was the head of the Air Force Intelligence Directorate, and Mr. Mahmoud served as a brigadier general in the Air Force’s intelligence unit. Their location is unknown. More

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      Who Set the Stage for al-Assad’s Ouster? There Are Different Answers in the U.S. and Israel.

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      President Biden says he weakened Russia, Iran and Hezbollah, laying the groundwork for Bashar al-Assad’s ouster. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu says the Syrian leader would still be in power had he listened to American advice.Bashar al-Assad had barely settled into his new quarters in Russia before the argument broke out over who can take the credit for ousting him, ending 53 years and two generations of brutal family rule over Syria.President Biden and his aides say they set the stage, because they worked relentlessly to weaken Syria’s main backers, including Russia, Iran and Hezbollah. There was a reason, Mr. Biden argued, that none of Mr. al-Assad’s allies were able or willing to come bail him out at the very moment he needed rescue.Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel and his aides tell a very different story, saying the only reason Mr. al-Assad fell was that Israel killed the head of Hezbollah, Hassan Nasrallah, which Mr. Netanyahu called “a turning point in the collapse of the axis.” Israeli officials have been quick to note that Mr. Netanyahu ordered that attack over the objections of the Biden administration, which feared that going after Mr. Nasrallah would risk a wider war.And Mr. Netanyahu inserted the knife a bit himself, saying that the key was his decision to ignore pressure “to stop the war before we accomplished all of our goals.” His message was clear: Had he listened to Mr. Biden’s warnings about avoiding a “wider war,’’ Mr. al-Assad would most likely still be lounging in his palace this week.Sorting out the truth here is not easy, and historians of the Middle East will most likely be arguing for years over what factors were at play, not least the Syrian rebel force itself, which had crucial support from Turkey. Certainly, if there was an American contribution to Mr. al-Assad’s fall, it took a while: In August 2011, President Barack Obama said it was time for Mr. al-Assad to “step aside,” and two years later, on his first visit to Israel as president, he stood with Mr. Netanyahu and declared that Mr. al-Assad had lost all legitimacy and “must go.”Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu of Israel at the United Nations in September.Dave Sanders for The New York TimesWe are having trouble retrieving the article content.Please enable JavaScript in your browser settings.Thank you for your patience while we verify access. If you are in Reader mode please exit and log into your Times account, or subscribe for all of The Times.Thank you for your patience while we verify access.Already a subscriber? Log in.Want all of The Times? Subscribe. More

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      Syria After al-Assad’s Overthrow: What’s Happening and What Comes Next

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      Rebels are asserting control in Damascus as Israel and other countries carry out military operations.Follow live updates here.As a rebel alliance tries to create a transitional government for Syria, armed factions and outside powers are still fighting to fill the void left by retreating government forces.Kurdish-led fighters in northern Syria who are backed by the United States said early Wednesday that they had agreed to a U.S.-brokered cease-fire in Manbij, a city where they have been battling to fend off forces backed by Turkey.And the Israeli military has launched hundreds ofairstrikes against military assets across Syria in recent days, saying it was trying to keep them out of the hands of Islamist extremists.Here’s a guide to understanding where things stand in Syria, and what may come next.Here’s what you need to know:Who’s in charge?Who is Ahmed al-Shara?What is Israel doing in Syria?What is Turkey doing?What is the U.S. doing?What are the internal factions in Syria?Who’s in charge?Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, whose name means Organization for the Liberation of the Levant, was the main rebel group leading the latest offensive, launching a surprise assault in late November from northwestern Syria that quickly led to the fall of President Bashar al-Assad. It is now leading the transition to a new Syrian government.Mohammed al-Bashir, a rebel leader affiliated with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, announced in a brief address on Syrian television on Tuesday that he was assuming the role of caretaker prime minister until March. 1. Mr. al-Bashir previously served as the head of the administration in rebel-held territory in the northwest.Approximate advance of the Israeli military into the buffer zone More

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      Israel Strikes Military Assets Across Syria to Keep Them From Rebels

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      The Israeli military appeared to have unleashed more airstrikes across Syria overnight into Tuesday in an attempt to destroy weapons, aircraft and military facilities before the rebels controlling much of the country could take possession of them.Photographs from Syria on Tuesday showed sunken boats at a shipyard, crumbled buildings and the charred remains of a science research center that had been linked to the country’s chemical weapons program, according to the news agencies that distributed the images.It was unclear what had caused the damage in the photographs, but Israeli officials said that their country was striking weapon stockpiles in Syria, including chemical weapons and long-range missiles and rockets, to prevent Syria’s new leaders from potentially attacking Israel in the future.Gideon Saar, Israel’s foreign minister, told reporters on Monday that the leaders of Syria’s rebels “are people with an extreme ideology of radical Islam.” Israeli forces are destroying the weapons “in order that they don’t fall in the hands of extremists,” he added.The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an independent group based in Britain that has tracked the civil war in Syria for years, said that it had documented 322 Israeli strikes in Syria since Sunday, when President Bashar al-Assad fled the country. It said the strikes had targeted “warehouses, aircraft squadrons, radars, military signal stations, and numerous weapons and ammunition depots,” including some as recently as Tuesday morning.The group also said that Israeli forces had pushed further into Syrian territory, past a buffer zone set up by the United Nations.Avichay Adraee, an Israeli military spokesman, said on social media on Tuesday that Israeli forces “are present inside the buffer zone and at defensive points close to the border in order to protect the Israeli border.” He added that reports that the military was “advancing or approaching Damascus are completely incorrect.”Israeli military vehicles entering the buffer zone with Syria from the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights on Tuesday.Jalaa Marey/Agence France-Presse — Getty ImagesThe region between Israel and Syria has been fought over for decades. Israel captured the Golan Heights during a war in 1967 and annexed most of it in 1981. Most of the world views this area as Israeli-occupied Syrian territory. Beyond the Golan Heights, into Syrian territory, there is a 155-square-mile demilitarized buffer zone that has been patrolled by U.N. troops since the Arab-Israeli war of 1973, also known as the Yom Kippur War.Israeli ground forces advanced into that zone on Saturday, their first overt entry since 1973. They took control of the summit of Mount Hermon in Syria, a strategic point to oversee the region, as well as other important locations to give them control of the area, Israeli officials said. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said on Monday that he had ordered the incursion to protect Israeli territory.“For the time being, we are there,” Mr. Saar said. “But we define these steps as limited and temporary.”Aaron Boxerman More