Sharaa's Rocky Road to Uniting Syria

"We are all victims, of all sects," said Michel Khoury, a Christian lawyer in Latakia. "We are all on a sinking ship, and no one will protect us except ourselves."

Not long after announcing that government forces had ceased their operations, Sharaa emphasized that Syria would not allow itself to fall back into new conflicts. "Syria will not permit foreign powers or domestic parties to drag it into chaos or civil war," said Sharaa.

He also stated that he would demand accountability from the parties involved in the armed violence. He considered that they had acted beyond their authority.

SDF commander Mazloum Abdi said the hunt for the Alawites was not separate from the existence of these factions. On the other hand, the authorities and some analysts suspect that the violence is part of an effort by Assad loyalists to destroy the reconciliation process built by Sharaa.

Issam al-Reis, an adviser at the Syrian Etana research institute, said the violence against the Alawites showed that each faction maintained its own chain of command. “Although there were plans to unite these factions under one umbrella (as the Syrian army), the facts on the ground show that they are all under their own umbrella,” he said.

During a decade of resistance against the Bashar Al-Assad regime, Syria was a “pot” of meetings for a number of opposition groups. One of the dominant and influential groups is Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.

The group, also known as the Liberation of Syria Organization, was founded by Abu Mohammed al-Jolani (or al-Jawlani), alias Sharaa in 2011. Initially, the group was called Jabhat al-Nusra or also known as the al-Nusra Front. The group is said to be modeled after Al Qaeda.

The CSIS Washington report said that the leader of the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi helped establish the al-Nusra Front. Over time, the group grew. Several militias such as Harakat Nour al-Din al-Zinki, Liwa al-Haq, Jaysh al-Sunna and Jabhat al-Din then joined the al-Nusra Front.

The United Nations said Baghdadi and Al Qaeda provided financial support, weapons, personnel, and input on war strategy and tactics to the al-Nusra Front. This relationship is what led the UN, the United States and their allies to designate the group as a terrorist group.

However, HTS's relationship with Al Qaeda and ISIS has been strained since ISIS members killed senior leader of Harakat Ahrar al-Sham al-Islamiyah (HASI), Abu Khalid al-Suri in February 2014. After the death of Abu Khalid, who was Al Qaeda's main liaison, Sharaa and his group began to adopt a number of policies that differentiated their ideology from that of ISIS and Al Qaeda.

In April 2014, the al-Nusra Front released a video explicitly condemning the ISIS method. Formally, the group's relationship with ISIS and Al Qaeda ended in the period 2016-2017. Marking this, the al-Nusra Front or Jabhat al-Nusra changed its name to Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.

After the relationship with ISIS ended, citing a report by Aaron Y Zelin, a researcher at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, HTS security forces, also known as the General Security Service (GSS), claimed to have carried out 59 covert operations to capture ISIS cell members in dozens of cities and villages in the Idlib region.

The largest operation took place in 2018. A total of 279 people were arrested and sentenced by HTS, 51 of whom were claimed by HTS to be top and influential ISIS officials.

Muaz al Abdullah, research manager of Armed Conflict Location & Event Data (ACLED) said, after the fall of the Assad regime, ISIS cells were able to take advantage of the security vacuum caused by the lack of solid control of the territory by the GSS formed by HTS. This situation reflects past battles, especially in Idlib, Daraa, and rural areas near the capital Damascus.

The British media report The Guardian, Monday (10/3/2025), said the two factions responsible for some of the armed violence in Latakia were militias led by Abu Amsha and Hamzat. They, the report said, are militias affiliated with the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army. These two factions are actually among the groups that Sharaa is trying to embrace to strengthen the Syrian military. Abu Amsha is projected to lead troops in Hama Province.

In addition to internal challenges, Sharaa and HTS are also not easy to manage external challenges. There are at least two countries, in the view of analysts, that have major interests in Syria.

The first is Israel. Quoted from the Arab News page, Israel, which has long occupied the Golan Heights, stated that it would protect the Druze minority group. The Druze community is the population of the Golan Heights.

On March 1, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu publicly ordered the IDF to be ready to protect the Druze. Netanyahu asked them to protect the Druze community in the Golan Heights, and if necessary, protect the Druze community living around Damascus.

David Mencer, a spokesman for the Israeli government, called the armed violence against the Alawite minority a reason for Tel Aviv to move to protect the Druze.

Eyad Abu Shakra, a Middle East analyst and managing editor of Al Awsat, said the plan was nothing more than a smokescreen. Israel allegedly wants to move deeper into Syrian territory.

The situation is certainly not in Sharaa's favor and HTS's. Losing a piece of territory to an Israeli invasion in the name of securing the Druze minority is something Sharaa does not want.

Therefore, Sharaa does not want to allow violence against minority groups to happen again, or even spread further. On the contrary, the violence is a momentum for Sharaa to accelerate the consolidation of power, especially within the Syrian security forces. The integration of the SDF (Syrian Democratic Forces) into state institutions, including the military, is what Sharaa needs right now.

Aba Zeid, a Syrian analyst, said the SDF-HTS deal was a diplomatic victory for Sharaa. In his view, there were at least several benefits for Sharaa. The first was the issue of inclusiveness that had been eroded by armed violence.

"I am sure that the current Syrian leadership is fully aware of the serious implications of all that has been outlined above. However, despite its sincere intentions, the steps it has taken on the ground so far have not been successful," Aba Zeid said.

Sharaa and the Syrian people's path to peace still faces many obstacles and a rocky road. (AP/AFP/Reuters)