Live Updates: Images Suggest Russia Is Packing Up Equipment in Syria
Satellite images reveal military movements that could be a possible prelude to Moscow’s withdrawal. An American found in Damascus this week was handed over to U.S. forces.
The Russian military appeared to be packing up equipment at one of its most critical bases in Syria on Friday, in what could be a prelude to Moscow’s military withdrawal from an important strategic foothold in the Middle East.
The movements of Russian equipment came as jubilant crowds gathered in cities across Syria for the first Friday Prayers since rebels toppled President Bashar al-Assad.
People celebrating the collapse of a long authoritarian dynasty waved revolutionary flags and posed for photographs with friends as one of the largest crowds in memory filled the marble courtyard of the historic Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, where al-Assad security forces had long suppressed antigovernment demonstrations with brutal violence. Not all the chants were religious, reflecting the country’s newfound sense of liberty; in Damascus and in Idlib, a city that has long been rebel territory, people sang, “Raise your head high, you are a free Syrian!”
The largely celebratory mood in Damascus, the capital, belied the monumental challenges facing Syria’s new leaders as they try to bring order to a country wracked by sectarian divisions, the bloody legacy of the Assad era and the competing interests of an array of armed groups that fought in a 13-year civil war that human rights groups estimate killed hundreds of thousands of people.
Also on Friday, Travis Timmerman, an American citizen who was found outside Damascus earlier this week, was handed over to U.S. forces by Syrian opposition representatives. Mr. Timmerman, who said he had been imprisoned while Bashar al-Assad was in power, is now in Jordan, according to a U.S. official who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the matter.
Here are other developments:
Blinken in Turkey: Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken held talks with his Turkish counterpart, Hakan Fidan, in Ankara on Friday as the Biden administration and other governments try to shape the future of post-al-Assad Syria. Both officials said a key priority was ensuring that Islamic State militants weren’t able to regain influence in the country.
Torture charge: A federal grand jury in Los Angeles charged a former Syrian government official with torturing political dissidents at a prison in Damascus. It was the second time in a week that the Justice Department had announced charges against Syrian officials as it tries to hold accountable the top reaches of the Assad government for its abuses.
Missing American journalist: The F.B.I. released what is described as an age-enhanced photo of Austin Tice, an American journalist who was abducted in 2012 and believed held by the Syrian government.
Jacob Roubai contributed reporting from Damascus, Syria.
A Russian heavy transport plane is seen in satellite imagery captured on Dec. 13 with its nose cone lifted in preparation for loading.Credit...Maxar Technologies
Russian forces appeared to be packing up some military equipment at one of its most critical bases in Syria on Friday, in what could be a prelude to Moscow’s military withdrawal from the country in the wake of President Bashar al-Assad’s fall.
A New York Times analysis of satellite imagery of Syria’s Khmeimim air base near Latakia on Friday showed planes designed to transport heavy machinery prepared for loading, and Russian military equipment apparently being packed up nearby. Verified videos also showed at least one convoy of Russian military vehicles on the move on Friday.
The moves highlight the uncertainty of Moscow’s foothold in Syria after rebel forces ousted the Assad regime.
At the air base, two An-124 heavy transport planes are seen in Maxar satellite imagery with their nose cones lifted, being prepared for loading. The imagery also showed a Russian-made Ka-52 attack helicopter being dismantled, likely as preparation for transport. Components of a Russian-made S-400 air defense unit had also been moved near the planes.
Twovideos verified by The Times also show at least one convoy of Russian military vehicles moving north, near Damascus and Homs, in the direction of Khmeimim Air Base. The line of vehicles, stretching more than a half mile, was largely made up of cargo trucks, armored personnel carriers, mobility vehicles and SUVs. It is unclear from the videos if they arrived at the base, or whether a significant portion of Russian soldiers and equipment may be preparing to depart Syria.
The Russian Ministry of Defense did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
Under the Assad government that previously ruled Syria, Russia has for years maintained a military presence throughout the country, including the Tartus naval base and Khmeimim air base. The bases enable Russia to project its military power throughout the Mediterranean and into the Gulf.
Russia’s ties to Syria have roots in the Soviet Union’s support of Mr. al-Assad’s father, President Hafez al-Assad, in the 1970s.
Travis Timmerman, an American citizen who had been imprisoned while Bashar al-Assad was in power and found outside Damascus earlier this week, was handed over to U.S. forces by Syrian opposition forces on Friday. The exchange took place at the U.S. base at Al-Tanf, in southeastern Syria. Timmerman is now in Jordan, according to a U.S. official.
The F.B.I. released an age-enhanced picture of Austin Tice, an American journalist who was abducted in Syria in 2012. Tice’s whereabouts are unknown but the F.B.I. said the picture would reflect his current age of 43. The F.B.I. is also offering a reward of up to $1 million for information leading to his safe return.
A Syrian rebel fighter waving a revolutionary flag at a gathering in Idlib, Syria, on Friday.Credit...Ivor Prickett for The New York Times
After Friday Prayer in the heart of the city of Idlib in northwest Syria, couples, families and young men in camouflage — a few carrying Kalashnikovs — descended on a main square for their first real celebration since the ouster of the Assad regime last weekend.
The rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which leads the coalition of rebels now trying to form a new government, took control of much of the province of Idlib years ago. And on Fridays, after the weekly Muslim prayer service, the square was a place for protests against the Assad regime, calls for international intervention in the civil war and demands for prisoners to be set free.
This was the first Friday that the square was filled with nothing but joy.
A song rang out from one end: “Raise your head high, you’re a free Syrian.” At the other, a man sang to his lungs’ limit — joined by many in the teeming crowd who knew the lyrics well. “He who kills his people is a traitor.”
Between them was a sea of Syrian flags — with a green band rather than a red one, representing what was once the Syrian opposition, now the rulers of much of the country.
On the wall of a small park in the center of the square hung a plaque from the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham government: “Renovation of the Seven Seas Roundabout and the area around it — 2021.” It showed how the group has focused on bringing order and repairing infrastructure, and reminded residents who did it. The group has tried to prove itself not only on the battlefield, but in the halls of governance as well.
In cities that were until recently under the control of the Assad government, residents complained about how it didn’t do anything for its people, including repairing the destruction wrought by its warplanes. In rebel-held areas, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham paved roads, helped build malls and undertook a massive project to register homes, businesses and even tents, and give them addresses.
A billboard over the square reads “The Revolution Continues.” It was put up in March for the anniversary of the start of the Syrian uprising in 2011. But the message may be prescient for Syrians who are watching to see whether the rebels usher in a new era for their country or succumb to some of the same authoritarian impulses as the leaders they replaced.
Before Friday Prayer at the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, the prime minister of the temporary rebel administration, Mohammed al-Bashir, mounted the pulpit to deliver the sermon. Speaking formal Arabic with his voice cracking at times with emotion, he praised the rebel victories, mourned those who had been killed during the war and called on Syrians to build a new state based on freedom, dignity and justice. He also condemned the oppression of toppled President Bashar al-Assad’s regime and spoke of revenge against the “criminals” who had been part of it.
In Idlib, which has long been rebel territory, people descended on the main square celebrating Bashar al-Assad’s ouster. Once the site of protests against the regime, the square on Friday was filled with people singing and raising the flag that once represented the opposition — who are now the rulers of much of the country.
Rebel fighters found stockpiles of addictive pills, some hidden in fruit or furniture and ready for export as part of the Assad regime’s illegal drug operation.CreditCredit...Aris Messinis/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Rebel fighters in Syria said on Friday that they had found vast stockpiles of an illegal amphetamine called captagon in a Damascus warehouse.
Captagon was the cornerstone of a narcotics-trafficking ring that was run by relatives and associates of the deposed President Bashar al-Assad, eclipsing Syria’s legal exports and turning the country into a narcostate. But what is captagon, and how did Syria become the hub for its manufacture and distribution?
Image
Captagon pills hidden inside an electrical component found at a warehouse on the outskirts of Damascus, Syria, on Friday.Credit...Hussein Malla/Associated Press
What is captagon?
Captagon is the former trade name for fenethylline, a synthetic stimulant created in Germany in the early 1960s to treat attention deficit hyperactivity disorder, depression, and narcolepsy. Most countries banned it in the 1980s because it was found to be highly addictive, with dangerous side effects that include psychosis, severe anxiety and suicidal tendencies. The illicit version sold today, often referred to as “captagon” with a lowercase c, usually contains a mix of amphetamines, caffeine and various fillers that are easier and cheaper to obtain. Produced for pennies a pill in Syria, captagon can sell for anywhere from $3 to $20 a pop on the street.
Who uses it?
It is not widely used in the most of the world but is ubiquitous in the Middle East, where it is known as ‘Abu Hilalain,’ or ‘father of the two crescents’ for the logo of two interlocking Cs stamped on each pill.
Hundreds of millions of the tablets have been smuggled into Jordan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Gulf countries over the past several years, hidden in hollowed-out fruit, canned vegetables, flour shipments, water heaters, bakery ovens, cargo containers and other things.
Soldiers use it to boost endurance on the battlefield — leading to another nickname, “the drug of jihad.” But it is also a popular recreational drug, and is often used as a concentration aid for studying, according to a recently published study in a Saudi pharmaceutical journal.
What is the captagon market worth?
During the war, captagon became Syria’s most valuable export, far surpassing its legal products, according to a database compiled by The Times of global busts.
Estimates vary widely about the size of the overall market. According to the New Lines Institute, a New York-based policy group, global captagon sales are worth about $10 billion a year. Some 80 percent of the total was produced in Syria, which netted the Assad government about $2.4 billion a year.
How did the Assad government get involved?
Though captagon was manufactured and trafficked in Eastern Europe in the early 2000s, it didn’t really take off in the Middle East until 2006, when local authorities started reporting an uptick in seizures. When Syria descended into civil war in 2011, rebel groups got into the business to help fund their weapons purchases.
Syria had the needed components: experts to mix drugs, factories to make products to conceal the pills, access to Mediterranean shipping lanes and established smuggling routes to Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq.
By 2018, Mr. al-Assad’s government had largely consolidated control over production and trafficking to replenish its coffers, which had been decimated by economic sanctions. Captagon sales became an important source of hard currency for the regime.
An investigation by The New York Times found that much of the production and distribution was overseen by the Fourth Armored Division of the Syrian Army, an elite unit commanded by Maher al-Assad, the president’s younger brother and one of Syria’s most powerful men.
Major players also included businessmen with close ties to the government, the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah and other members of the president’s extended family.
Will Syria’s new leaders crack down?
The rebels who discovered the captagon factory this week in a quarry on the outskirts of Damascus burned some of the pills and dumped others into the sewer, according to video distributed by the AFP news agency.
But given the drug’s high street value, the easy availability of precursor chemicals and a deeply entrenched smuggling network, it will be difficult for the new government to eradicate.
Ahmed al-Shara, leader of the rebel offensive that orchestrated the fall of Mr. al-Assad, singled out the drug in his victory speech on Dec. 8.
“Syria has become the biggest producer of captagon on Earth,” he said, “and today, Syria is going to be purified by the grace of God.”
Additional reporting by Ben Hubbard and Hwaida Saad.
In addition to pledging emergency supplies, the European Union has also increased humanitarian funding for Syria to more than 160 million euros ($168 million) this year.Credit...Nicole Tung for The New York Times
The European Union will deliver more than 100 tons of food, medicine and health supplies to war-ravaged Syria, the European Commission said on Friday.
Ursula von der Leyen, president of the European Commission, said that the collapse of the Assad regime offered new hope, but also difficulties. Much of Syria’s governing administration has evaporated, there are competing armed factions vying for power, and after more than 13 years of war, the country faces widespread food shortages, crumbling infrastructure, the spread of disease and insufficient funds to provide basic services.
“This moment of change also carries risks and brings hardship,” Ms. von der Leyen said in a statement. “With the situation on the ground so volatile, our help to the people of Syria is ever more important.”
The emergency supplies will be taken from E.U. stockpiles in the United Arab Emirates and Denmark, and some will be flown in the coming days and distributed to Syria via Adana, Turkey. The European Union has also increased spending on humanitarian aid for Syria to more than 160 million euros ($168 million) this year, including food parcels for 61,500 people, emergency shelter kits and sanitation support.
One obstacle to helping stabilize and rebuild Syria is that the United States, the United Nations and others have long designated Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the rebel group that led the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad, as a terrorist organization. With that group now playing a central role in trying to govern Syria, international organizations and countries have limits on what aid they can provide to Syria.
Officials in the United States and elsewhere are evaluating whether to remove the terrorist label. That process can be lengthy, but the need in Syria is immediate.
In recent months, as war in Lebanon escalated, hundreds of thousands of Syrians who had sought refuge in Lebanon returned to Syria. Some of those who have gone back have found their homes damaged, destroyed or emptied out by looters.
Syria’s new leaders will need foreign aid to rebuild their country and may be more willing to meet demands by foreign countries as the government seeks to gain legitimacy and access that aid.
Examining papers strewed across the floor of Sednaya prison for information about missing relatives.Credit...Daniel Berehulak/The New York Times
The Red Cross is calling for action by Syria’s new rulers to preserve evidence of the fate of tens of thousands of people who disappeared under the Assad regime, as crowds search for missing relatives in newly liberated detention centers where many inmates were tortured and killed.
“We have been approached by tens of thousands of families who have come to us with what we call a tracing request,” said Stephan Sakalian, the head of the International Committee of the Red Cross’s Syria delegation.
“Let’s make no mistake: giving answers to people will take weeks, months and maybe years, given the amount of information to process,” he added.
The Red Cross has documented 35,000 cases of disappearance in Syria, but believes there are many more who were arrested without a trace or whose families had no chance to report their fate or contact the Red Cross, Mr. Sakalian told reporters, speaking from Damascus.
The organization has opened two hotlines this week for former prisoners and for families of the disappeared to help reunify families separated in Syria’s 13-year civil war.
The chaotic scenes as families of the disappeared hunted through prison cells and offices for their missing relatives underscored some of the immediate challenges. Mr. Sakalian and a Red Cross team visiting the infamous Sednaya prison northwest of Damascus this week found crowds milling around in rooms littered with documents and with no form of security in place.
The Red Cross was contacting interim authorities and armed groups to preserve documents in prisons, morgues, hospitals and any of the former regime’s security branches, as well as mass graves and burial sites. But it was facing “quite a high level of disorganization here and not always the necessary clarity on who to call,” Mr. Sakalian said.
The organization was offering to provide a repository for securing such documents. “What we need is a more structured and urgent discussion with the interim government,” he said. “At the present moment we didn’t find the proper level to address these issues in a structured way.”
In his video statement posted on Telegram, Ahmed al-Shara, the rebel leader commonly known as Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, called on people not to fire guns into the air as they celebrated. On Thursday, some people opened fire during celebrations in the city of Raqqa, causing casualties, according to the local Kurdish-led authorities.
Blinken Discusses Syria’s Future on Unannounced Visit to Iraq
Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said he talked with Iraq’s prime minister about the situation in Syria, including efforts to encourage Syria to transition to an inclusive, non-sectarian government.
We spent time talking about, understandably, the situation in Syria and the conviction of so many countries in the region and beyond, that as Syria transitions from the Assad dictatorship to hopefully a democracy, it does so in a way that of course, protects all of the minorities in Syria, that produces an inclusive, non-sectarian government and does not become in any way a platform for terrorism. We are determined to make sure that Daesh cannot re-emerge. The United States, Iraq together had tremendous success in taking away the territorial caliphate that Daesh had created years ago, and now, having put Daesh back in its box, we can’t let it out. And we’re determined to make sure that doesn’t happen.
Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken said he talked with Iraq’s prime minister about the situation in Syria, including efforts to encourage Syria to transition to an inclusive, non-sectarian government.CreditCredit...Andrew Caballero-Reynolds/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Secretary of State Antony J. Blinken made an unscheduled stop in Iraq on Friday as he toured the Middle East in an effort to promote stability in Syria after the ouster of Bashar al-Assad.
After an overnight stop in Ankara, Turkey, Mr. Blinken flew in a military transport plane to Baghdad for a meeting with Prime Minister Mohammed Shia al-Sudani of Iraq.
American officials have expressed concerned that the fall of Mr. al-Assad’s authoritarian regime could produce new instability across Syria that might threaten its neighbors. The outbreak of civil war in Syria in 2011 helped to fuel the rise of the Islamic State terrorist group, which conquered large swaths of Syria and Iraq.
The State Department said in a statement that, while in Baghdad, Mr. Blinken would highlight efforts to ensure an “inclusive transition” in Syria, with various religious, ethnic and political groups involved, as well as other regional security challenges.
He also intended to discuss the American commitment to the U.S.-Iraq strategic partnership and to Iraq’s security, stability and sovereignty, the department said. But it is unclear what will become of such commitments under President-elect Donald J. Trump, who is set to take office in little more than a month and has more isolationist views.
In remarks to reporters after his meeting with Mr. al-Sudani, Mr. Blinken said that Washington was trying to encourage Syria’s new government to respect human rights and protect minorities.
He added that it was also crucial that ISIS not gain fresh strength, which could again threaten both Syria and Iraq.
“We are determined to make sure that Daesh cannot re-emerge,” Mr. Blinken said, using an alternative name for ISIS. “The United States and Iraq together had tremendous success in taking away the territorial caliphate that Daesh had created years ago, and now, having put Daesh back in its box, we can’t let it out,” he added.
After a visit to Jordan, Mr. Blinken met in Ankara on Thursday night with Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan. On Friday morning, he met with the Turkish foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, who told reporters afterward that they had discussed how to ensure that both ISIS and the Kurdish militant group known as the P.K.K. are not “taking action, abusing the situation” in Syria.
The P.K.K. is a Kurdish nationalist group in Turkey, tied to Kurdish rebel forces within Syria, that the Turkish government considers an enemy. The U.S. has backed the Kurdish rebel forces, known as the Syrian Democratic Forces, to help fight Islamic State. That has caused friction with Turkey, and U.S. officials have sought to tamp down hostilities between Turkey and the S.D.F. that they worry could distract from efforts to contain ISIS.
That was a subject to which Mr. Blinken alluded only indirectly, saying he and Mr. Fidan had “discussed the imperative of continuing the efforts to keep ISIS down.”
“Our countries worked very hard and gave a lot over many years to ensure the elimination of the territorial caliphate of ISIS, to ensure that that threat doesn’t rear its head again,” he said. “And it’s imperative that we keep at those efforts.”
Jordan’s government announced that it would host a special meeting of foreign ministers from Arab countries and Turkey on Saturday, adding that Mr. Blinken would also attend.
As the world watches Syrians celebrate their liberation, the war in Gaza continues next door. At least 15 people were killed in a strike in Nuseirat in central Gaza overnight, according to Gaza’s Civil Defense emergency rescue group. The Israeli military said it had targeted a senior operative in the militant group Palestinian Islamic Jihad, but conceded the strike had set off “secondary explosions” from munitions that may have caused further destruction.
Video
CreditCredit...Mohammed Saber/EPA, via Shutterstock
Analysts say the rapid fall of the Assad government was partially a knock-on effect of the regional crisis that erupted following the Hamas-led attack on Israel on Oct. 7 that prompted the war in Gaza. Israel significantly weakened Hezbollah, the Iran-backed Lebanese armed group, undermining a bulwark of military muscle that had aided the regime in the past.
Joyful chants erupted in and around the historic Umayyad Mosque in Syria’s capital as large crowds gathered to pray and celebrate the country’s newfound sense of liberty.CreditCredit...Nicole Tung for The New York Times
Huge crowds came to Friday Prayer at the Umayyad Mosque, the oldest and best known in Damascus, and the mood was electric. People waved revolutionary flags, posed for photos with friends and chanted, “God is great!”
The towering prayer hall was so crowded that some men could not touch their foreheads to the carpet. Instead, they touched them to the backs of the people in front of them.
“We are here for joy, then to celebrate,” said one of the faithful, Ali Sweid, 40.
Many people said they had not come to the mosque in years because they were scared they could be arrested by the Assad security forces. The mosque had been the site of brutal violence in the past, as security forces quashed anti-government demonstrations that erupted against the Assad regime during the Arab Spring revolts in 2011.
“The guy at the door was with the intelligence service,” Mr. Sweid recalled. “So was the guy inside, and the guy who called for prayer, and the preacher.”
Image
Taking pictures inside the mosque.Credit...Nicole Tung for The New York Times
Image
Syrian rebel fighters walking past worshipers at Umayyad Mosque.Credit...Daniel Berehulak/The New York Times
On Friday, fighters in military uniforms — members of the rebel group that toppled Bashar al-Assad over the weekend — were mixed in with the faithful. Some sat on the carpet, their guns beside them or leaning against pillars nearby.
In the courtyard after the prayer, under the mosque’s famed mosaics, Abdullah Suleiman, a history professor at a Damascus university, said it was the largest crowd to pray at the mosque in memory, filling up the entire hall and the marble courtyard.
“It is a victory for the Syrian people who have been oppressed for 50 years,” he said, referring to the tenures of Bashar al-Assad and his father, Hafez. “For 50 years, we were deprived of these moments.”
“We hope for a state for all Syrians that does not exclude anyone or privilege anyone,” he said. “And the ballot box is the only way to accomplish that.”
Not all the chants were religious, reflecting the newfound sense of freedom in the capital. Outside the mosque, people chanted: “Hold your head high, you are a free Syrian!”
Image
People on their way to the mosque.Credit...Nicole Tung for The New York Times
Bahrain’s King Hamad bin Isa al-Khalifa has sent a letter to Ahmed al-Shara, the senior rebel leader in Damascus, addressing him as “His Excellency” and pledging cooperation, Bahrain’s state news agency reported. It is the first direct public communication from the leader of a Persian Gulf state to Syria’s new leadership, and reflects how regional countries are trying to shape relations with Damascus after al-Assad’s ouster.
Carlotta Gall reported from Istanbul and Antakya in Turkey. A senior international correspondent, she worked as bureau chief in Istanbul for five years from 2017.
Antigovernment fighters joined thousands of Syrians as they celebrated in the streets of Damascus on Monday.Credit...Daniel Berehulak/The New York Times
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.
“The target is of course Damascus,” he said last Friday. “Our hope is for this march in Syria to proceed without incidents.”
Two days later, the rebels delivered a personal vindication for Mr. Erdogan by storming into Damascus and taking control. Within a few days, Turkey was making plans to reopen its embassy, which has been closed for almost 13 years, and a senior Turkish official, Ibrahim Kalin, the head of the national intelligence agency, was seen in the Syrian capital in footage showed on Turkish television.
On Thursday, Turkey assigned a temporary chargé d’affaires to Damascus, a Turkish official said, asking for anonymity under diplomatic protocol. Appointing a chargé d’affaires rather than an ambassador is a way for Turkey to keep diplomatic channels open without getting into the debate of whether it is recognizing the largest rebel force, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which led the offensive and has already set up a transitional government in Damascus. Turkey has considered the group a terrorist organization since 2018.
Image
Recep Tayyip Erdogan and Bashar al-Assad in Istanbul in 2010. The Turkish leader cultivated ties with his Syrian counterpart early in his tenure.Credit...Pool photo by Ibrahim Usta
Mr. Erdogan’s relationship with Mr. al-Assad was not always tense. Early in the Turkish leader’s presidency, 20 years ago, Mr. Erdogan cultivated closer ties with Syria. It paid off then, and Mr. al-Assad made a historic trip to Ankara, the Turkish capital, in 2004, the first visit there by a Syrian president.
Trade flourished in the aftermath, with visa-free travel between Syria and Turkey, and the two presidents became firm friends. Mr. Erdogan and his wife even hosted the Syrian first couple for a vacation on the Turkish coast. Relations blossomed, and so did economic benefits for both countries.
The relationship turned sour with the Arab Spring protests of 2011. Mr. al-Assad chose to impose harsh repression against Mr. Erdogan’s advice, a former Turkish presidential aide said. Affronted, the Turkish leader helped arm part of the opposition over the course of Syria’s civil war, and excoriated his Syrian counterpart in speeches.
He took in more than three million Syrian refugees and committed Turkish troops to secure a buffer zone inside Syria for millions more displaced people who took refuge there. And he funded and trained a Turkish-backed rebel force, the Syrian National Army, which provided security for Turkish military bases in northern Syria and helped Ankara fight Kurdish forces that Turkey viewed as a threat.
Image
Syrians in Gaziantep, Turkey, waving opposition flags on Sunday while celebrating Mr. al-Assad’s fall.Credit...Ozan Kose/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Turkey also became the main interlocutor with H.T.S. The group is designated a terrorist organization by Turkey, the United States and European nations because of its history of Islamist extremism, but the Turks found a way to work with them and now have enormous leverage through that connection.
“Out of all the region’s major players, Ankara has the strongest channels of communication and history of working with the Islamist group now in charge in Damascus, positioning it to reap the benefits of the Assad regime’s demise,” Gonul Tol, the director of the Middle East Institute’s Turkish program, wrote in Foreign Affairs magazine on Thursday.
Turkey has provided indirect assistance to the group, Ms. Tol wrote, by shielding it from Syrian government attacks through the presence of Turkish troops in Idlib Province. It also channeled humanitarian aid and trade into the region, which helped H.T.S. gain legitimacy among the people of the region. “All this has given Turkey influence over H.T.S.,” she wrote.
A Syrian rebel commander, interviewed on Friday, said the rebels had set up a joint command to coordinate rebel group operations. Turkey was aware of the planning of the offensive and ongoing operations, he said.
Ms. Aydintasbas, who is in touch with Turkish officials in Ankara, said she believed Ankara would have given at least tacit approval for the offensive. “They never thought it would be widely successful,” she said.
Ms. Aydintasbas also credited Turkey, along with international aid organizations working in northwestern Syria, with pushing H.T.S., a former Qaeda affiliate, to moderate its extremism.
Turkey’s mentoring of the group could be seen in the early statements of the H.T.S. leader Ahmed al-Shara, who used the nom de guerre Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, as he reassured Syria’s minorities that there would be no repression and ordered restraint from his soldiers.
“There has been a lot of hand-holding,” Ms. Aydintasbas said of Turkey’s relationship with the group.
Turkey has also started to raise its voice internationally on behalf of Syria. In a statement, Turkey’s foreign ministry voiced strong support for Syria’s sovereignty, political unity and territorial integrity, and condemned Israel for breaking a longstanding disengagement agreement by “entering the Israel-Syria zone and its continuing advance into Syrian territory.”
Turkey has been conducting its own military operations, including airstrikes, in northern Syria against Kurdish militants whom it considers a terrorist threat to Turkey.
Image
Fighters of the Syrian Democratic Forces inspecting a destroyed truck after a Turkish airstrike near Qamishli, northeast of Syria, on Wednesday.Credit...Ahmed Mardnli/EPA, via Shutterstock
One of Turkey’s most powerful politicians has also floated an offer to release the long-imprisoned Kurdish militant leader, Abdallah Ocalan, if he agrees to renounce militancy and disband his armed movement, a gesture that suggested a new openness in the Turkish government to the possibility of revived peace talks between the longtime adversaries.
Turkey’s foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, has urged swift international assistance for Syria. “Syria has reached a stage where the Syrian people will shape the future of their own country,” he said after a meeting in Doha, Qatar, among Turkey, Russia and Iran, Mr. al-Assad’s other main backer. “Today, there is hope. The Syrian people cannot achieve this alone. The international community must support the Syrian people.”
Ms. Aydintasbas said the primary concern of Turkey and H.T.S. was “to prevent an utter state collapse, and so they have been doing all the right things, trying to preserve institutions and even the bureaucracy inside institutions, even ministries.”
Safak Timur contributed reporting from Istanbul, and Ruhullah Khapalwak from Vancouver, Canada.
Thousands gathered to celebrate the end of al-Assad’s rule in the coastal city of Latakia, in an area that was historically a stronghold of the Assad family’s Alawite minority sect. “The people of Syria are one, one, one!” the crowd chanted in one of the city’s main squares, waving the three-starred flag of the Syrian revolution. On a nearby stage, representatives of different religious groups gave remarks in an effort to convey national unity.
At the Umayyad Mosque, the most famous in Damascus, the mood was electric. People waved revolutionary flags, posed for photos with friends and chanted “God is great!” Fighters in military uniforms were in the crowd, some sitting on the carpet with their weapons beside them. Many people said they had not come to the mosque in years because they were scared they could be arrested by the Assad security forces.
Not all the chants were religious, reflecting the sense of freedom felt by much of the country since al-Assad’s departure. People outside the mosque chanted, “Hold your head high, you are a free Syrian!”
Video
CreditCredit...Alessandro Pavone for The New York Times
Suheil Hamawi has returned home to northern Lebanon after spending 33 years in a string of Syrian prisons, including the infamous Sadnaya. Hundreds of Lebanese were detained by the Assad regime during Syria’s decades-long occupation of the country, and many are still missing. “I feel like I can breathe again,” Hamawi said, staring out from his balcony at the ocean.
Hamawi spent the morning sipping coffee and video-calling relatives, their faces now unrecognizable to him after his decades away. “Do you remember my children?” said a cousin over the phone, sitting alongside her adult daughter. “When I left her, she was so small,” Hamawi said.
Israel’s government gave another indication that its forces were likely to remain — for now — in a newly captured buffer zone in Syrian territory. Israel Katz, the defense minister, said he had ordered the military to prepare for a “continued presence” on the peak of Mt. Hermon through the winter. In a 1974 cease-fire agreement, the summit was in a U.N.-patrolled buffer zone.
“Due to events in Syria, there is enormous security importance to our control of Mt. Hermon’s peak. We must do everything to preserve the Israel Defense Forces’ preparations there to allow troops to stay there in rough weather,” Katz said in a statement.
Ahmed al-Shara, the militant leader commonly known as Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, called for Syrians to “head out into the city squares to express their joy” at the end of the Assad family’s decades-long grip. “Then we will turn to building the country,” he said in a video posted on Telegram. His group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which now controls Syria’s capital, is still labeled a terrorist organization by the United States and the United Nations.
In live video from Reuters of the scene outside the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus, large crowds can be seen milling about, cheering and waving the three-starred flag of Syria’s rebels. “We must all stand together, stick together, work together,” a man’s voice booms over a megaphone from inside the mosque. “O God, make Syria a safe and stable country,” he adds later, praying that the end of Assad’s regime would “end the injustice.”
Secretary of State Antony Blinken has met with his Turkish counterpart, Hakan Fidan, in Ankara. In remarks to reporters afterward, Fidan said one of Turkey’s priorities is to prevent Islamic State and the Kurdish militant group known as the P.K.K. from dominating post-Assad Syria.
Blinken said there is broad agreement among partner nations that Syria’s interim government should be inclusive, protect the rights of minorities and women and reject extremism. He said it was imperative to “keep ISIS down.”
Syria’s Muslims were preparing for the first Friday prayers since the toppling of Bashar al-Assad earlier this week. Large crowds are gathering at the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus to participate, including leaders from the new transitional government.
People celebrating the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in front of the citadel in Aleppo, Syria.Credit...Ivor Prickett for The New York Times
In the days since the abrupt and unexpected obliteration of Iran as a dominant presence in Syria, the government has faced a fierce public backlash over the billions of dollars spent and the Iranian blood shed to back the Assad regime.
The criticism has come from unexpected corners, including conservatives, and is flowing freely on television channels and talk shows, and in social media posts and virtual town halls attended by thousands of Iranians. It also appears on the front pages of newspapers every day.
One former lawmaker, Heshmatollah Falahatpisheh, said in a social media post that Iranians should rejoice at the fall of Iran’s longstanding ally, President Bashar al-Assad of Syria. “No one will be able to waste Iran’s dollars for maintaining a spider web any more,” he said.
While opponents of the government have long bristled at the money Iran has sent all over the Middle East, the sentiment now seems to have spread. Even some who fought on their government’s behalf in Syria or lost family members in the civil war there are asking if it was worth it.
The Assad regime, some noted, was not the only loser to emerge from the uprising.
Ebrahim Motaghi, a professor of international relations at Tehran University, said on a talk show that Iran had been reduced from regional power to merely another country.
Some questioned the very foundation of Iran’s strategy over the past decades for making itself a dominant regional force that would confront Israel and its main backer, the United States: Tehran’s support for the array of militant groups across the Middle East that it called the axis of resistance.
In a front-page opinion piece in the newspaper Ham Mihan, a former Iranian representative to the intergovernmental Organization of Islamic Cooperation lashed out at his government. The defeat of Mr. al-Assad, wrote the cleric Mohammad Shariati Dehghan, exposed Iranian’s strategy as misguided and “built on weak foundations.”
Mr. Shariati Dehghan demanded a new approach that prioritized building alliances with countries instead of propping up militant groups, and redirecting money and resources back to the people of Iran.
Image
The Iranian Embassy in Damascus, Syria, was stormed and vandalized this week.Credit...Omar Haj Kadour/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
The brash public debate is nothing short of extraordinary, given that for years Iranian leaders portrayed their support for Syria and allied militant groups fighting Israel as a nonnegotiable principle of the Islamic revolution and critical for national security.
“The Syria debate is happening at all levels of society, not just in the media and social media, but in daily interactions everywhere,” one prominent analyst, Hassan Shemshadi, said in a telephone interview from Tehran. “People are asking: Why did we spend so much money there? What did we achieve? What is our justification now that it’s all gone?”
Mr. Shemshadi, who is close to the government and until last year served as the head of the Iran-Syria Joint Chamber of Commerce, said that while the shape of future Iranian and Syrian relations was now uncertain, a strategic partnership built over four decades was now clearly history.
Gone, too, he said, is the unfettered access to supply routes in Syria that Iran had long had to equip militants across the region with weapons and other material.
The reaction from official Iran has been muddled.
President Masoud Pezeshkian and Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi have sought to distance the nation from the events next door.
The Syrian people, the president and foreign minister said, have the right to determine their political future. The Iranian vice president for strategy, Mohammad Javad Zarif, said his country “stands ready to have good relations with the future government of Syria, and we have always stood at the side of Syrian people.”
But Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Khamenei, in his first public address about events in Syria, took a harsher tone on Wednesday. He blamed the United States and Israel for Mr. al-Assad’s downfall, referring to the rebels who toppled him as “aggressors” with competing motives who were serving their masters. He also alluded to Turkey’s support for some of the rebels in Syria.
Image
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran’s supreme leader, blamed the United States and Israel for Mr. al-Assad’s ouster.Credit...Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times
“By God’s blessing, the territories occupied in Syria will be freed by the brave young people of Syria,” Mr. Khamenei said. “Have no doubt that this will happen.” He predicted that the “resistance” would spread widely across the region, and Iran would grow stronger.
“God willing,” chanted the audience of several hundred men and women sitting on the floor in the visitor’s hall of his compound.
But Mr. Khamenei’s speech flew in the face of the reality on the ground in Syria, where the army quickly folded as the rebels advanced and Syrians — young and old, men and women — celebrated the downfall of a tyrannical ruler by dancing in the streets chanting, “Freedom.”
Even Hamas, the Gazan militants for whom Iran and its ally Hezbollah in Lebanon went out on a limb, issued a statement congratulating the Syrian rebels on their victory and declared it was standing with the Syrian people. Hamas had a brief falling out with Iran over a decade ago, when the Syrian uprising started, because each supported different sides.
Mr. Khamenei appeared outraged at the open criticism.The comments, he said, were “a crime” because they were sowing fear among the public. Within hours, Iran’s judiciary announced a criminal investigation into a list of prominent figures and news outlets that have been leading the criticism. The list included Mr. Falahatpisheh, the former lawmaker, who revealed that Syrian debt to Iran amounted to about $30 billion.
For over 40 years, Syria served, in effect, as Iran’s central command base in the region. Its access to territory, shipping ports and airports was so unimpeded that a senior military commander once described Syria as a province of Iran.
Iran controlled military bases, missile factories, tunnels and warehouses that served the supply chain for its network of militants. From Syria, Iran funneled weapons, cash and logistical support to Hezbollah in Lebanon, Hamas in Gaza and militants in the Israeli-occupied West Bank and Iraq.
Image
A banner in Tehran with a photo of the slain Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah. Credit...Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times
“Syria was a linchpin to Iran’s regional plan, the encircling of Israel in a ring of fire,” said Matthew Levitt, director of the counterterrorism program at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, a research organization. “The axis of resistance was a three-legged stool of Iran, Syria and Hezbollah, and it no longer stands. ”
Mr. Levitt said Iran also counted on Syria economically. Its purchases of Iranian crude and refined oil, despite U.S. sanctions on Iran, helped Tehran pay for its military operations in the region.
Five Iranian officials said that after Syria fell, many colleagues, reeling, privately disclosed that Iran had lost everything in just 11 days. The officials said the government was still “disorientated,” “befuddled” and trying to find a way forward with Syria.
The officials, including members of the elite Revolutionary Guards Corps who have spent time in Syria, insisted on anonymity because they were discussing sensitive matters. They said that Iranian leaders were now resigned to accepting any level of diplomatic presence, however small, that Syria’s new leaders allowed. Two of the officials said Iran was keen to avoid the embarrassment of being completely ousted from Syria, with diplomatic ties cut and its embassy there shuttered.
Image
Iranians breaking their Ramadan fast in April in Tehran near a giant poster of a general who was killed in an Israeli airstrike in Syria.Credit...Arash Khamooshi for The New York Times
Mr. Araghchi, the foreign minister, said in an interview with state television on Sunday that Iran would base its next steps on the actions of Syria’s transitional leaders. He confirmed that Iran and the rebels had already exchanged messages, with the Syrians agreeing to requests that they protect Shia religious shrines and Iranian diplomatic outposts.
“Iran wants to move toward a direction that would eventually normalize its relations with Syria, but it’s going to be very difficult,” Rahman Ghahremanpour, a political analyst based in Tehran, said in a telephone interview. “The first priority right now is to make sure Syria does not turn into a base against Iran and a launchpad to attack its interests in Iraq or Lebanon.”
Mr. Ghahremanpour said the public reckoning that had erupted over Iran’s conduct in Syria could not be contained, and any official sugarcoating would not soften the severe blow. Some families of fighters killed when Iran deployed forces to Syria to help keep Mr. al-Assad in power are now asking if their loved ones had died in vain.
Alireza Mokarami, an Iranian veteran who fought in Syria’s civil war and now runs a local news site, posted a scathing takedown of Iran’s “catastrophic failure” in Syria in a widely circulated essay.
“Why were you spending billions of dollars of oil revenues that belong to the Iranian people on Assad until the very end if he wasn’t even listening to you?” he asked. He added, “At least on the topic of Syria, stop lying and be honest with the people.”
For the moment, the prospects of replicating the ties Iran once had with the Syria appear dim.
After the Assad regime was overturned, Syrians stormed the Iranian Embassy in Damascus, tearing down pictures of Iranian leaders and bringing down its flag. And Ahmed al-Shara, the Islamist rebel leader who spearheaded the insurgency, chastised Iran publicly.
The Assad regime, he said, brought many ills to his country — among them turning Syria into “a farm for Iranian greed.”
Adra prison on the outskirts of Damascus, Syria, in 2010. The former Syrian official charged on Thursday, Samir Ousman al-Sheikh, 72, ran the prison, according to federal prosecutors.Credit...Khaled Al-Hariri/Reuters
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.
![[object Object]](https://static01.nyt.com/images/2024/12/13/multimedia/13syria-live-carousel-pm-03-wclp/13syria-live-carousel-pm-03-wclp-verticalTwoByThree735-v2.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp)
Tel Rifaat, SyriaMuhammed Horan, 10, drinking water as he stands in front of a mosque, badly damaged after years of fighting.![[object Object]](https://static01.nyt.com/images/2024/12/13/multimedia/13syria-live-carousel-pm-03-wclp/13syria-live-carousel-pm-03-wclp-threeByTwoMediumAt2X.jpg?quality=75&auto=webp)
Posts
No comments:
Post a Comment