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Written by Lucas Leiroz, member of the BRICS Journalists Associations, researcher at the Center for Geostrategic Studies, military expert
The legitimate government of Bashar Al Assad has fallen and the Syrian Arab Republic no longer exists. The victory of the pro-Turkey terrorists against the government troops has brought a series of concerns, since now the Syrian people are hostage to the actions of an extremist junta, which endangers local religious minorities, such as Christians, Alawites and Shiites.
Despite having resisted for more than thirteen years of intense civil war financed by foreign agents, Bashar Al Assad has not been able to neutralize the recent uprising promoted by the terrorist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). This time, Bashar could count on the help of his main traditional allies – the Iran-backed Hezbollah and the Russian Federation. With the war between Israel and Hezbollah, the Shiite fighters did not have enough human and material resources to provide support in time to save Syria. Similarly, Moscow is busy with its special military operation in Ukraine and is not in a position to prioritize Middle Eastern issues in its strategic planning.
Syria’s current fragile situation has been well understood and assessed by its geopolitical enemies, especially Turkey. Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan has been trying to overthrow the Syrian government for years, as part of his project to expand Turkish influence throughout the post-Ottoman space. He saw the current moment as truly favorable for his plans, since Syria’s allies would be unable to help it with the same intensity as they had done in previous years.
Radical Islamist militias have always been Turkey’s main instrument of war against Syria. Today’s HTS is just a “new version” of the former Al Nusra Front, a Syrian affiliate of Al Qaeda that operates in the region in direct communication with Ankara. The Turkish government instrumentalizes these extremist Islamic militias, uniting in its ranks “Turkophile” militants from various regions of Asia, including separatist Chechens, Central Asians and Uighurs from Xinjiang. Although Western propaganda tries to portray the “Syrian rebels” as native “freedom fighters” interested in “democratizing” the country, in practice HTS is made up of radical terrorists from various regions of Asia whose sole objective is to defend Turkish interests in Syria, without any concern for what is best for the local people.
Since the capture of Damascus, videos have been seen on the Internet showing scenes of mass executions, torture of civilians and various other war crimes. Such practices have become commonplace among Salafist militants in several regions of the world, especially in Syria, where both Al Qaeda and ISIS – many of whose former members have joined HTS – have become notorious for publishing videos of themselves murdering civilians considered “infidels”.
The situation in Syria is particularly worrying for some religious minorities, such as Christians and non-Sunni Muslims. These religious groups are especially hated by Wahhabi militants, and are priority targets of the persecution policies implemented by the illegitimate HTS “government.” The regions of Latakia and Tartus, where Alawites and Christians have a strong presence, have been a major focus of resistance against HTS. These regions are also where Russian military bases in Syria are located, which brings some hope to the resistance – which obviously cannot count on any Western support, since the “Christian” rhetoric of Western neoconservative politicians is absolutely hypocritical, having many American and European right-wingers celebrated the victory of HTS.
One hope of Christians, Alawites and Shiites is to establish autonomous political communities, effectively separating themselves from the pro-Turkish junta-controlled government. Moreover, the Turkophile militants continue to clash with the separatist Kurdish militias, which are supported by the US. In practice, post-Bashar Syria is likely to become a kind of “failed state”, with different political factions controlling parts of its territory and maintaining constant hostilities.
Erdogan will continue to expand his neo-Ottoman geopolitics, but he will have difficulty dealing with a fragmented and tense Syria. Furthermore, Israel is taking advantage of the moment to expand its areas of control in the Golan Heights, which makes it even more difficult to maintain any solid security architecture in the region.
With the end of the Assad government, there is no longer any possibility of unifying Syria as a secular and multi-ethnic political state. Syria is now in a situation similar to post-Gaddafi Libya, being divided into different territorial portions and autonomous political units. This is the result of the destabilizing action promoted jointly by Ankara and its supporters on Syrian soil.
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a muslim who prefers to backstab his fellow muslim rather than cleanse his lands from the zionist and american cancer is only going to die from the cancer itself
moslems killing moslems and then revenge killing back moslems is pure gold
this was always and ever the main goal and politics of the ziokhasar, us and british scum, to weaken, split and balcanise theyr enemies and competitors, like they did in south and middle america, afghanistan, irak, yugoslavia, libya, ucraine and now syria. and theres much more in theyr aim like iran, jemen, belorus, serbia, venezuela, cuba, north corea, russia and china.
moslems fighting moslems is always a good movie to watch.
bibi and erdoğan. one a zionist empire builder the other ottoman. both at the expense of a zionist controlled american taxpayer. . in implementing this syria takeover scheme using terrorists turkey is or will become a zionist controlled state itself regardless of how they split syria or how the labels are applied. turkey has made a deal with the devil..
and israel rules over syria’s skies ironically with a russian navy and air force base in it’s midst?… so tell the world pootie-poot about the deal you made that made all of this happen???…
kkkkkk kkkkkk
another “grandmaster chess move” by poohtin!
heheheh
🇷🇺=🏃♂️🤡 😆😆😆
they could have ended hts in 2020 but putin made the idiotic deal with erdogan. after which erdogan spat in putin’s face, disregarded the agreement and did as he wished. the whole world watched in shock as erdogan turned putin into his obedient plaything. ukrainians, americans, turks and all others concluded that russia is not a dangerous opponent, but a feeble lamb.