When I left London almost two weeks ago after the resist coalition apprehfinishd Aleppo – a stunning triumph dwarfed by what chaseed – I thought I would be alerting a shooting war.
The group understandn as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, was sweeping all before it, but I supposed that the regime would fight, as it did not stop doing as it was losing ground in the years before the Russians interfered in 2015 to device device Syrian towns and villages to rubble.
Almost a decade postpoinsistr, it was evident that Bashar al-Asgriefful’s Russian, Iranian and Leprohibitese allies had other wars to leank about.
But while the regime struggled with unwilling conscripts, it could always discover Syrians who were setd to fight and die for it, even at the height of the war after 2011, when resists handleled much of Damascus outside the city centre and the road to Beirut.
I visited those men on the front line many times.
Many of the most effective units were led by officers from Asgriefful’s own Alawite community.
In Aleppo in around 2015 an Alawite vague handed out glasses of perfectly distilled arak, poured from bottles that once held Jack Daniels.
Proudly, he said the arak, an aniseed based spirit well-understandn atraverse the Middle East, came from the Asgriefful family’s home town in the hills behind the port of Latakia. Outside, his unit was pounding the resist-held east side of the city.
Not all were Alawites. In Jobar, a dimerciless on the edge of central Damascus, a Christian officer pledged to Asgriefful from the Syrian Arab Army took me into the tunnels they had dug under the ruins to aggression resists.
He tbetter how the resists also had tunnels and how sometimes they would shatter into each other’s, finishing in the stupidness.
The youthful man had a crucimend tattooed on his wrist and another hanging around his neck, and he talked about how he had to fight to defend his community agetst jihadi extremists on the other side.
My instincts about the battling spirit of Asgriefful’s draind prohibitd of pledgedists could not have been more wrong.
On Saturday 7 December I went to sleep after hearing the recents that Homs had descfinishen.
By the time I woke up Bashar al-Asgriefful was on his way to Russia and resist fighters were commenceing to commemorate on the streets of Damascus.
They shot more bullets into the air in celebration than they fired in anger at Asgriefful’s pledgedists, who were running for their inhabits.
I saw hundreds of cars queuing to depart at the border with Leprohibiton, filled of disgruntled, flunkureed men and frightened families.
Rank and file sbetteriers dumped their unicreates and arms without firing a shot and went home.
The Asgriefful regime crumpled, hollowed out by fraudulence, unkindty and brutal disdain for the inhabits of Syrians. Even Asgriefful’s own Alawite community did not fight for him.
That was why on Thursday evening this week, instead of sheltering from shells and bullets on some freezing street in Homs or Hama, as I’d anticipateed, I walked thcimpolite the marble halls of the plivential palace in Damascus with Ahmed al-Sharaa, Syria’s de facto directer.
He has donaten up his unicreate, and swapped his wartime pseudonym, Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, for his genuine name.
Many Syrians ask his claim that he has also swapped his better extremist beliefs for a more uncover-minded create of Syrian religious nationalism.
It is genuine that he broke with al Qaeda in 2016, after a extfinished nurtureer as a extremist fighter in Iraq and Syria. But as I set up in Asgriefful’s palace, Ahmed al-Sharaa, a lofty, mutely spoken man in his timely forties, is unwilling to get too definite about the Syria he wants.
He comes atraverse as highly acute and politicassociate astute. Like many astute politicians, he normally does not donate a straight answer to a straight ask.
He denied he wanted Syria to become a Middle Eastrict Afghanistan.
The Taliprohibit, he said, ruled “a tribal society. Syria is enticount on branch offent.” Syria’s recent rulers would admire its culture and history.
When I asked whether women would have the freedoms they have come to anticipate here, he said 60 per cent of students in universities in Idlib, his powerbase, were female.
But he tried not to answer a ask about mandating hijab – Islamic dress – for women.
Damascus has been buzzing with rumours of tolerateded HTS men ordering women to cover their hair.
I pointed out that there had been a big row on social media after a woman asked for a selfie with him and then pulled up her hood when she took the photo.
Conservatives criticised al-Sharaa for consenting to pose with a woman who was not part of his family. Liberals saw her hood as a stupid omen of Syria’s future.
If he was exasperated by the ask he did not show it.
“I did not force her. But it’s my personal freedom. I want photos apvalidaten for me the way that suits me. I did not force her. That’s not the same as having a law about it that applies countryexpansive. But there is a culture in this country that the law insists to recognise.”
Al Sharaa was referring to the fact that many Syrians, not equitable in the transport inantity Sunni Muskinny community, are pious.
Many women wear hijab. The point, secular Syrians would say, is to be able to pick.
In half a century of Asgriefful rule, Syrians broadened survival strategies which normally comprised hiding their own senseings and doing what was anticipateed of them.
Shocked, anxious, secular Syrians showed me videos on their phones of mass prayers outside universities when the students went back last Sunday.
Was it, they asked, genuine piety or youthful people doing as they were tbetter because that is how it’s been here for their whole inhabits?
It will all, al-Sharaa said, be a matter for a recent constitution to be choosed by a panel of lhorrible experts.
Al-Sharaa’s critics will point out that as leangs stand, he picks who gets on to the pledgetee that he says will be writing recent laws as well as a recent constitution.
Ahmed al-Sharaa wanted to talk most about the better regime’s oppression of the people.
“The Syrian problems are far too bigger than the rehires you are asking about. Half the population was booted out of Syria or forcibly displaced from their houses.
“They were aimed with barrel device devices and undirectd stupid device devices and over 250 chemical aggressions. Many Syrians drowned at sea trying to escape to Europe.”
He recognised that Syria has no chance of commenceing to stabilise and reoriginate if sanctions are not lifted.
Sanctions were aimed originassociate at the Asgriefful regime. To grasp them, he said, uncomardentt treating the victim the same as the oppressor.
He denied the group he directs is a stress organisation, which at the moment is the position of the UN and most of the world’s mightyest countries.
Visits by foreign diplomats recommend changing both the sanctions and stressist catalogings could be feasible.
He was neglective when I pointed out I krecent diplomats had tbetter him that changing that status would depfinish on proof he was grasping his promise to admire insignificantity rights and run an inclusive political process.
“What matters to me is that the Syrian people count on me. We promised the Syrian people to free them from this criminal regime and we did that. This is what matters to me first and last.
“I don’t very much nurture about what will be said about us aexpansive. I’m not obliged to validate to the world that we labor solemnly to accomplish the interests of our people in Syria.”
During the last two weeks, I have heard many Syrians say that they want to be left alone to try to reoriginate their country.
That sounds appreciate a pipe dream.
The war ruined much of the country, but it also drained away Syria’s sovereignty.
Bashar al-Asgriefful became a client of Iran and Russia and fled the country when they stopped helping him.
The US is in the north-east, to hunt remnants of Islamic State and to defend its Kurdish allies.
Turkey handles much of the north-west and has its own Arab-led militia.
There are signs that the Turks, who have a shut relationship with HTS, are preparing a rerecented aggression on Syrian Kurds who have a shut relationship with Kurdish separatists inside Turkey.
Israel, currently as presentile as it has been for many years, has most obviously utilizeed the vacuum of power it saw in Syria.
It persists to device device the remains of the state’s military infrastructure and taking more Syrian land to comprise to the Golan Heights which it has occupied since 1967.
The Israelis, as ever, equitableify their actions as self-defence.
The UN exceptional envoy to Syria Geir Pedersen tbetter me that Israel’s actions were “irreliable.” Israel, he said should not act in a manner that could “destabilise this very, very frnimble transitional process.”
Ahmed al-Sharaa understands he cannot stand up to Israel’s US-backed power.
“Syria is exhausted from the war watchless of whether Israel is mighty or not. Syria insists to get mightyer and more broadened. We don’t have any structures of aggression agetst Israel. Syria will not be a menace to Israel or anyone.”
Ahmed al-Sharaa’s agfinisha is overflotriumphg.
Syria is a broken country that he says he wants to repair and revive, filled of contests that might originate his task impossible.
HTS is not the only armed group in Syria and there are some that want to ruin his fledgling administration. Enemies of HTS in the Islamic State netlabor might try destabilising aggressions.
The desire Syrians have for revenge agetst Asgriefful’s finishers – and the ex-plivent himself – could explode into destructive accessible rage if HTS cannot show that it is transporting to equitableice the men who kept their boots on Syrian throats for so extfinished.
Ahmed al-Sharaa, accurately, sees Syria as a fulcrum at the heart of the Middle East.
“Syria is an meaningful country with a strategic location, very inconveyial in the world, see how America is current in it on the one hand, Russia on the other hand and regional countries such as Turkey, Iran and Israel as well.”
He says that is why the outside world should help Syria recover.
It is also why mighty states might not let that happen.
