December 8th marks the first anniversary of the fall of Syrian dictator Bashar Assad. The Assad family ruled Syria for more than 50 years – Hafez Assad had been in power since 1971, and after his death in 2000, his son Bashar took over.
The Assads' autocratic rule led to a popular uprising in 2011 and then a brutal civil war that lasted nearly 14 years. But on December 8, 2024, a lightning offensive by the rebel militia Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) led to the fall of the Assad regime with very little resistance.
Assad and his family fled to Russia, and in January, the militia leader, Ahmed al-Shara, became the interim president of Syria. What has been done in Syria in the past year, and what hasn't?
Security and stability: "A fragmented landscape"
As stated in a November United Nations Security Council report, "Syria continues to struggle with a fragmented security landscape."
The capital Damascus is relatively calm, and Syria Weekly, a regular newsletter by Charles Lister of the American think tank the Middle East Institute, reports that the level of violence is declining.
However, clashes continue to occur between the new Syrian government's security forces and other groups across the country, including members of minorities, Kurds and Druze, the Security Council said.
Armed members of the Assad regime are still present, albeit hidden, and the resurgence of the extremist group "Islamic State" is also a problem, as it exploits security gaps.
It is clear that the new Syrian authorities do not have full control over the country, according to a recent report by the EU Asylum Agency. "Incidents of lawlessness, criminality and retaliatory violence have been recorded," the agency noted.
Transitional justice without "central government support"
One of the main reasons for the continued violent incidents is the persecution of those believed to have collaborated with the former Assad regime. That is why transitional justice – the process of acknowledging crimes committed by the Assad regime, but also by other groups – is crucial, the Syrian Justice and Accountability Center (SJAC) argued in a September article.
In May, the government established two independent commissions – one dedicated to finding thousands of Syrians who disappeared during the war, and the other for crimes committed by the Assad regime.
The SJAC reported that the first commission was the most active, while the second "made less progress, likely due to weak support from the central government."
Human Rights Watch has criticized Syria's National Commission for Transitional Justice for investigating exclusively the crimes of the Assad government, while ignoring the crimes of other groups, including – potentially – HTS and its allies.
Politics: "too early" for democracy in Syria?
Syria held its first relatively free parliamentary elections earlier this year. Due to circumstances, the elections could not be direct – instead, they were conducted through electoral colleges. Al-Shaara remains interim president until a new constitution is adopted. Syria is currently writing a new constitution and has held a national dialogue on this and other issues.
However, serious differences remain between the interim government and other communities over the future system of governance. Critics also claim that El Shaara is consolidating power and acting increasingly autocratically.
For now, analysts are taking a "wait and see" approach.
“It is too early to talk about democratizing Syria, but the new institutions represent a modest return to electoral politics,” Patricia Karam of the Arab Center in Washington wrote in November. “These developments bring Syria to a crucial crossroads: the country can move toward truly participatory governance or return to authoritarianism.”
Foreign military operations "inflame regional tensions"
Foreign policy is probably the area where Syria has seen the most change. Closed embassies are reopening, and new politicians, including the Syrian Foreign Minister and President El-Shar, are traveling the world.
El-Shara once collaborated with the terrorist group Al-Qaeda, was on numerous sanctions lists, and had a $10 million bounty on his head.
But in September he addressed the United Nations General Assembly, and in November he became the first Syrian leader to visit the White House since 1946.
Syrian officials have established contacts with all five permanent members of the Security Council, including Russia and China. This is seen as a sign of Syria's pragmatic foreign policy: Russia has been an ally of the Assad regime, and al-Shara and many of his associates would have previously been targets of Russia.
Syria's biggest foreign policy problem right now is probably Israel's continued incursions into Syrian territory. "Israeli military operations ... endanger civilians, inflame regional tensions, undermine a fragile security situation and threaten a political transition," the UN's deputy special envoy for Syria, Najat Rochdy, said in November.
"Families return and find only ruins"
Many Syrians who fled during the war are now returning home. The latest figures show that around 2,9 million Syrians have returned – including around 1,9 million internally displaced people and more than a million returnees from abroad.
But they face serious problems. According to the Norwegian Refugee Council, “many families are returning to Syria to find only ruins … people are returning to damaged infrastructure, destroyed schools and hospitals, and disputes over ownership of their homes.”
In November, the International Rescue Committee reported that “more than half of the water supply network and four out of five electrical networks were destroyed or non-functional.”
Estimates of the cost of reconstruction in Syria range from $250 billion to $400 billion, and possibly more. The Syrians are nevertheless trying to change the situation.
Analysis by the humanitarian organization Mercy Corps, based on satellite images of nighttime lighting, shows that electricity production is improving – although not equally in all parts of the country. In early November, the Syrian news agency SANA reported that 823 schools across the country had been renovated, with work underway on another 838.
Economy: material improvement "still not felt"
Many returnees still cannot find work. The civil war has devastated the country's economy. Today, about a quarter of Syrians live in extreme poverty.
There is some good news, though. A World Bank report released in July predicted that the Syrian economy would likely grow by one percent in 2025.
Most of the Assad-era sanctions have been permanently or temporarily lifted, which should help the economic recovery. In addition, financial support from countries like Saudi Arabia and Qatar, in the form of investment deals worth billions of dollars, could also help – although, as the Tahrir Institute for Middle East Policy points out, “the material impact on the daily lives of Syrians is still not felt.”
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