Syria takes a breath

Syria’s new government has signed an historic deal with the biggest faction in the country, the Kurdish-led SDF, which oversees the northeast and is backed by the US.

So what? Most of Syria is now under the government’s control, as part of an agreement that also secures new constitutional rights for the country’s Kurdish minority. Syria’s leader, Ahmed al-Sharaa, has been lobbying the West to lift sanctions. He will be hoping this deal shows his administration has shed its hardline Islamist roots for a more pluralistic Syria.

Good timing. This deal follows a weekend when government forces struggled to quell sectarian violence that led to hundreds of deaths. It is impossible to verify the figures but:

• The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says more than a thousand people, civilians and armed forces, have been killed.
• In a series of well-coordinated attacks remnants of the Assad regime led by a former general ambushed and killed a number of government forces in Latakia, the heartland of the Alawite minority and a stronghold of the Assad family.
• In response, hundreds of Syrian men took up arms and drove across the country to the area seeking revenge. There are credible reports of mass executions of Alawite men by government forces.

Hope. Recent events have shown the fragility of Syria’s post-Assad transitional period. Syrians of all sects are desperate to turn over a new leaf, but the effects of decades of repression and a 13-year civil war won’t vanish overnight.

Amnesty. The government has asked the public to be patient, promising a process of reconciliation after the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad. Senior Assad officials accused of war crimes are being arrested while lower-ranking soldiers and officials prepared to give up their weapons are being pardoned.

But in practice:

• Many former regime soldiers have been left feeling disenfranchised. Unemployment is as high as 90 per cent in some areas, leaving open the temptation of being hired by militia groups looking to destabilise the new administration.
• Ordinary Syrians are frustrated. Their need for justice is unsatisfied as men who they believe caused their loved ones so much suffering seem to be getting away with it.

Insecurity. In a country full of guns the government has been struggling to exert control over the population and even its own forces, which are made up of disparate factions with differing ideologies. To that end it has disbanded the Assad regime’s police and security forces and is trying to recruit 50,000 new police. But kidnappings are commonplace and often go unsolved.

Confusion. Disinformation has circulated, including reports of entire Alawite and Christian families being massacred. Old footage has been recycled in an effort to stir up more anger by those seeking to destabilise the current government. Some families have come out to deny reports of their own deaths.

Not neighbourly. There is evidence that Iran and allied groups have been stoking anger and bringing more weapons across the border, playing patron to armed factions hoping for a return to civil war.

In a speech on Sunday night, Sharaa said the events of the weekend were the result of wounds left by the former regime. But to heal those wounds he has to show that the pursuit of reconciliation is real and urgent. The SDF deal is a good start.

What’s more… It may keep the peace in other ways too. SDF territory includes prisons and secure camps housing about 42,000 Isis fighters and family members. Managing this population is crucial to preventing another insurgency.

Photo credit: Izettin Kasim/Anadolu via Getty Images