The fall of Syrian capital Damascus, after rebel forces ousted President Bashar al-Assad, marks a historic geo-political shift in the Levant region, bringing to an end one of the longest civil wars that was runover by jihadist elements. The opposition not only got rid of Assad but of the brutal regime that was under the control of one family and one party since the 1970s.

Syria is often called Bilad al Sham or the beating heart of Arabia. Its strategic location is at the crossroads of important geopolitical and sectarian fault lines and is a dominant factor in understanding why Syria is different than other Arab countries. When civil uprisings erupted in 2011 in the name of Arab Spring resulting in the fall of the autocratic leaders like Tunisia’s Ben Ali (1989-2011), Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak (1981-11), Muammar Gaddafi (1969-11) in Libya and Abdullah Saleh (1978-12) in Yemen, Assad held on to power despite mass revolt to demand greater political freedoms in the state. The opposition in Syria was led by the majority Sunnis who remained impoverished under the oligarchy and dissidents in a culture of fear and hatred against the regime.

The story of post-independent Syria is intricately linked to the Assad family belonging to the minority Alawite sect, which held the country in its iron hold. Historically, Sunnis and the Shias, the two leading branches of Islam, or more specifically the minority Alawites—a sect that emerged in Syria’s north-eastern mountainous region in the 9th century—have clashed in Syria.

Sunnis have dominated Syria for centuries and have harnessed bitterness against the Alawites, a minority within the Shia faith. The Alawites were historically discriminated as they are deemed as non-Muslims with many even today calling them apostates and derogatorily referring to them as Nuseiriyyah, owing to the sect’s secret tenets which differ from traditional Islamic practices. The Damascus-based 14th-century medieval scholar Ibn-e-Tamiyaah, also known as the founder of Salafi thought in Islam, issued a fatwa calling “Alawites greater infidel than Jews, Christians and idol worshipping Indians” and declared a holy war against them.

Before the armed conflict took root in 2011, Syria was known as the last bastion of secularism. It was a safe home to the region’s minorities, including Christians, Armenians, Druze and even a small quarter of Jews. The Assad regime’s authoritarian rule started with Hafez al Assad—the father of Assad—as President in 1971, holding together the multi-ethnic, multi-religious country with hard-imposed secularism.

In the region of West Asia, minorities historically faced persecution giving rise to the fears of being exterminated under Islamic rule. Hafez Assad carefully manoeuvred religion to create fear of an Islamist takeover by the Sunni majority. By employing this fear as a tactic in his policy, he ensured the survival of the regime by forming a coalition of minorities who had a high stake in seeing Assad in power. He doled out privileged and influential positions to win the loyalty of minorities whose stake in his regime became an important legitimisation of its secular credentials.

During Hafez Assad’s reign, the Alawites controlled the military, economy and the Arab socialist Ba`ath party.

The Ba`ath party was established soon after Syria gained independence following its secession from Egypt under the United Arab Republic and called for pan-Arab unity and Arab nationalism. The Ba`ath party, comprising Christian, Sunni and Alawite minorities, rose to political prominence in post-independent Syria and grew in military dominance. In 1963, the Ba'ath Party seized power and was recognised as the only political party. In the following years, political infighting, military coups and regional crisis, including Israel’s six-day war, instabilised Syria. Hafez al Assad, the minister of defense, seized power in a bloodless coup in 1970.

The Assad family members and Alawite elites had a large stake in the economy through banking, business interests in public sector, oil and energy sectors and influential positions in state institutions. It was almost unheard of for an individual from the Alawite community or a member of the Ba`ath party to hold a senior governmental position. Syrians thus considered the Assad family-led government as an Alawite fiefdom. The ironical rise of Alawites made historian Daniel Pipes quip that ‘Alawi ruling Syria is like an untouchable becoming maharajah in India or a Jew becoming Tsar in Russia.’

Under the regime’s iron fist, the political and security apparatus resembled a system rooted in patronage to benefit the interests of its kin and cronies, rather than the state. Thousands of political prisoners, dissidents, journalists, activists or any critic of the government languished in secret cells, tortured or/and killed. The presence of spies, mukhabarat (secret police), forced disappearances; underground prisons had transformed Syria into a police state. Around 70 per cent of career soldiers and 80 per cent of officers in the Syrian army, as well as the elite Republican Guard and Fourth Armoured Division, led by Assad’s younger son Maher al Assad, were an all-Alawite force. The intelligence agencies to report and spy on anti-regime activities and the fearful Shabiha militia, an irregular paramilitary force running protection rackets, smuggling and engaging in other criminal enterprises belonged to the Alawi sect.

The Syrian Muslim Brotherhood, which started as a non-sectarian political party to its Egyptian counterpart, challenged the Alawite dominance. It was the first political Islamic party in Syria but was promptly banned by Hafez Assad under a decree prohibiting all political parties who supported Egypt-Syria unity under the UAR. The Islamist forces in the 70s and 80s launched series of campaigns challenging the legitimacy of Assad’s rule. They resurrected an armed insurgency against the Ba`ath party through the underground network in mosques, educational, health and charities. But the movement was brutally crushed, as the government cracked down against the members, resulting in one of the worst massacres in the Arab world.

The Assad regime violently confronted Sunni Islamists, insurgents and brotherhood members. The final showdown took place in 1982 in the city of Hama, where the military forces besieged the city for 27 days to flush out the insurgents. Nearly 2/3rd of the city was bombed, killing between 20,000 and 40,000 civilians. The retaliation by the regime was one of the deadliest acts in the Arab world. American journalist Thomas Friedman coined the term ‘Hama Rules’ to describe Hafez Assad’s military dictatorship: “When Syria's Baath regime feels its back up against the wall, it always resorts to Hama Rules. The Syrian Army levelled—and I mean levelled—a portion of its own city, Hama, to put down a rebellion by Sunni Muslim fundamentalists there in 1982. There are no rules.”

The carnage stood as a warning for the dissident Syrians on the control vested by Assad in the state. The levelled grounds of Hama and its bombed buildings not just broke the Islamist insurrection but served as a savage reminder of the fate that would befall those who dared to challenge Assad’s rule. The opposition by Sunni Islamists that challenged the regime was ruthlessly eliminated and so was political Islam. Membership of Brotherhood was made punishable by death, forcing its surviving leadership in exile, and Syrian security forces chased down, persecuting and detaining any religious groups with political motivations brutally. Even having a long beard would raise suspicion from the authorities.

But a new network of Islamists and religious resurgence began appearing in its place, controlled and driven by Hafez Assad himself. To project that his government was not against religious Sunnis but against the radical elements and terrorists, Hafez Assad carefully nurtured Sunni Islam to neutralise political threats to the regime. Thousands of new mosques, Islamic educational institutes, and even the Assad Institute for Memorizing the Quran, with branches in most cities and governorates, were built by the state. The state incorporated Sunni ulema or religious scholars who opposed or condemned the rebellion of the Brotherhood within the regime. The regime’s main effort towards promoting a spiritual form of Islam was to weaken the ideology of political Islam amongst the young Syrians and abstain from Jihad.

By the 1990s, Hafez was ailing with poor health and died of heart attack in 2000 at the age of 69. He was succeeded by his young son Bashar, an ophthalmologist by profession, who was groomed in the military service after the untimely death of his elder brother and heir apparent Bassel al Assad.

Syrians hoped Bashar’s foreign education and medical background would enthuse new political spirit, different from the hardline approach of his father. His marriage to Syrian British banker Asma Akhras, five months after taking Presidency, was symbolic in reinforcing Bashar’s image as a secular and liberal. Hailing from the Sunni elite family of Homs, the union between Akhras and Bashar came to be seen as a Sunni-Alawi unity.

Bashar inherited much of the political and military old guard, including the trusted loyalists of Ba’athists who had surrounded his father. He, however, promised democratic reforms to bring in political transition.

He launched several controlled economic and political reforms and even released hundreds of political prisoners. Several intellectuals, journalists, academics and civil society activists held discussions on reforms and presented new sets of demands. The new political activism worried the hardliners in the regime as it could weaken their hold on the country.

The old guard, represented by military Generals and senior advisers, pulled back Bashar to ensure the regime’s stability. Beginning in February 2001, the regime came down hard on opposition members, rolling back the reforms. The brief democratic reforms, which bloomed in Damascus, was nipped in the bud.

Extracted from Syrian Revolution How the Road from Democracy Ended in a Caliphate, Maneckshaw Paper, Center for Land Warfare Studies, by Shweta Desai