Syria’s facilitation of foreign fighters to wage an insurgency in Iraq spawned the rise of Al Qaeda in the region. Due to its support and protection of Islamist terrorists and the protection Syria came to be compared with Pakistan for its role in fuelling an insurgency in Iraq.
In 2014, Syria descended into darkness after part of the country in the northern territory of Raqqa was declared a caliphate by the Islamic State terrorist group and the other half was torn by civil war between insurgent groups and allied forces supporting President Bashar al Assad. Bombings, brutal violence and bloodshed ripped apart both sides of the country.
Ten years since then, the streets of Syria are jubilant with ecstatic crowds celebrating the downfall of the Assad regime. The militant jihadist group IS has been forced underground after the US-led international coalition broke its back.
Long before this chaos, Syria’s image in the Western world was that of a liberal and westernised’ Islamic country where women didn’t wear headscarves and men were clean-shaved. Internally, the country remained in the grip of sectarian and ethnic faultlines, as the Assad regime-- led by Bashar, and before that his father Hafez-- manoeuvred religion and politics for its survival. The regime struck hard against radical and Islamist forces as a way of keeping opposition from the majority Sunni population against the government in check. President Hafez Assad was known as the strong Arab leader who fought religious extremism and terrorism at home, thus preventing the Islamisation of Syria. In reality, he supported terrorism externally as part of foreign policy.
Syrian military backed the Palestine cause and supported Palestinian groups, including Hamas, Palestinian Islamic Jihad (PIJ), and Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine-General Command (PFLPGC), permitting them to operate from inside Syria. It also extended support for Shiite Iran to undermine Israel. Iran’s support for the militant group Hezbollah allowed Syria to attack Israel from Lebanon. Syria allowed Iran to use its territory as a training ground for Hezbollah and for the supply of weapons, making it a proxy power in Lebanon. A UN investigation in 2005 found that Syrian officials were involved in the assassination of former Lebanese Prime Minister Rafiq Hariri, an allegation vehemently denied by the regime. Similarly, the Syrian government maintained ties to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and assisted in the organisation’s efforts to exert pressure against Turkey and Iraq.
The United States designated Syria as the earliest state sponsor of terrorism and subjected it to economic sanctions and diplomatic embargoes. After 9/11, Syria cooperated with US intelligence and security agencies, providing key information on Al Qaeda’s hideouts and its leadership, and even earned gratitude from America for its role in the War on Terror. Newly anointed Syrian President Bashar al Assad, however, refused to rein in Hezbollah and other Palestinian groups, prompting President George W Bush to extend the axis of evil to include Syria. After Iraq, Bashar Assad anticipated Syria could be the next target of regime change.
The fall of Saddam Hussein’s regime in 2003 in Iraq dismantled the Ba`ath party’s hold on governance and military institutions, unleashing chaos. Sectarian violence surged between the Shia and Sunni populations and opposition groups raised an armed insurgency against the occupying US forces. As millions of refugees poured into Syria, the country became a principal transit point for jihadi foreign fighters backed by Syrian authorities to fight the US invasion.
The 375-mile-long shared border became a principal conduit for jihadi groups to travel from Syria’s Deir-ez-Zoir in the north to reach Mosul or Nineveh in Iraq. Anbar and Nineveh provinces, across the Syrian border in Iraq, were home to Al Qaeda in Iraq [AQI, the earliest manifestation of the Islamic State of Iraq and later (ISIS) or later IS], the Sunni terror group founded by a Jordanian named Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Syria’s military and security authorities turned a blind eye as safe houses to store weapons, ammunition and facilitation networks, helping in the movement of foreign fighters, were set up in both rural and urban areas. Al Qaeda fighters’ recruitment and finance networks operated with the knowledge of Bashar and Syria’s military and intelligence agency. The network helped in providing fake passports for foreign terrorists, weapons, guides, safe houses, and finance to join the terror group. Syria’s role was not limited to being an intermediary to the movement of these fighters but included setting up terrorist training camps and providing weapons and combat training. The foreign fighters trained in these camps were responsible for some of the most violent acts and car bombings in Iraq and against the US troops.
Syria’s facilitation of foreign fighters to wage an insurgency in Iraq spawned the rise of Al Qaeda in the region. Due to its support and protection of Islamist terrorists and the protection Syria came to be compared with Pakistan for its role in fuelling an insurgency in Iraq.
In 2011 when Arab Spring protests erupted in West Asia and North Africa, civilians in Syria too rose in opposition to dispose against President Bashar al Assad. Chants of Allah, Syria and Bashar were substituted by Allah, Syria and Freedom. The vast majority of civilians who picked up arms against the government’s security forces saw the struggle as a patriotic duty to rid Assad of power and establish a state based on equal rights and freedom to practice their religion. Fearing the rising civilian opposition, Assad promptly gave it a sectarian overture projecting the demonstrators as Sunni jihadi Islamists. Iran and Lebanon extended military support to Assad by sending Shia volunteer forces into Syria. Iran’s Grand Ayatollah Kazim Al-Haeri issued a public religious edict permitting Shiites to fight against the takfiri rebels and support Assad’s forces. On the other hand, Egyptian theologian Yusuf al Qaradawi urged Sunni Muslims worldwide for Jihad in Syria, turning the tide of civil war into a holy crusade with sectarian overtures and an influx of foreign fighters against Bashar and Hezbollah. Shiite Muslims from Lebanon, Iraq and Iran poured into Syria to defend sacred religious sites and Assad's embattled regime while Sunni Muslims rushed in to join rebels with whom they shared tribal and religious affinity.
The armed conflict in Syria got mired in regional and sectarian rivalries as Turkey, Qatar and Saudi Arabia began arming the opposition Sunni rebel groups while Iran and Lebanon supported Bashar’s deflated military strength through the deployment of the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps, Quds forces, Shia volunteers and Hezbollah forces. The regional powers’ support for the two warring sides divided them along sectarian lines, allowing Iran and Saudi Arabia to engage in a proxy war and use it to leverage their sphere of influence and hegemony in the region. The conflict in Syria provided an opportunity for the Saudis to hit back at rival Iran which vowed to protect the regime if it came under external military attack— by arming and training the anti-Bashar opposition of Sunni rebels and, thus, undermining Iranian influence in Syria as well as in Lebanon.
Syria’s role in sponsoring terrorism and the Iraqi insurgency since 2003 resulted in a fertile ground for the networks of Islamist extremists and jihadi elements in the country. Some of these foreign Islamist groups decided to join the opposition and exploit the local revolution for their own objectives: to replace the regime with their version of Islam. They envisioned a new world order, modelled on early Islam, defying the idea of a modern state and the principles of democracy. With the added advantage of knowledge of local terrain, important for tactical operations and planning, gained while building the group’s networks that later became sleeper cells, and inside knowledge of the Syrian regime’s intelligence apparatus, these foreign Islamist and jihadist elements, with high military capabilities, helped in tipping the balance in favour of the opposition while influencing and overpowering the local civilian groups.
In less than two years after the civilian uprising, Syria became the most prominent jihadist battlefield in the world, providing both a rallying point and training ground for radical Islamists from other nations. The Islamic State of Iraq, operated by Zarqawi, expanded into Syria under the name of Jabhat al Nusrah (JAN) led by Abu Muhammad al-Joulani. The JAN became a part of the larger Syrian opposition group, targeting government facilities and military establishments, and liberating local areas from the presence of Syrian armed forces. Following military victories, JAN tried to establish its hold on the liberated areas by providing civilian aid and gradually imposing Sharia rule on the community. The jihadi governance was rejected by civilians who resisted JAN’s extremism. The Islamic State of Iraq operated independently, consolidating a base in northern Syria around Raqqa. It adopted a radically stark jihadi-Salafi strategy which included applying the harshest hudud punishments that set it apart from the other extremist rebel groups. It carried out public executions, crucifixions, amputations, and flogging, by invoking Quranic verses on takfir (apostasy). ISIS’s brutal approach and the infighting with JAN eventually led Al Qaeda leader Ayman al Zawahiri to disown the group in 2014. Both JAN and ISIS retained control over the liberated areas by using religion but the latter’s objective remained solely focussed on the goal of establishing an Islamic state.
The ISI seized the border region of Deir ez Zoir in Syria and Mosul in Iraq capturing a huge cache of the US military’s sophisticated equipment. It also reportedly carried out a heist of 500 billion Iraqi dinars, or $425 million, from the Mosul Bank, making it a self-sustained terror group. In June 2014, the ISI fighters destroyed Syria and Iraq’s borders enshrined in the Sykes-Picott Agreement and their leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi declared the establishment of an independent Caliphate in the occupied areas of Iraq and Syria. The Syrians who had sought to free themselves from the shackles of autocracy were now controlled under extremist religious laws.
The Islamic State of Iraq and Syria controlled the Caliphate’s territory and two million Syrians residing there with tyrannical leadership and brutal military force. ISIS became a ruthless force administering Salafi jihadist rule and delivering justice under Sharia law, public executions of disbelievers, or those found committing apostasy, and destruction of shrines, museums and ancient heritage sites. The US-led international coalition entered Syria in September 2014 to fight ISIS. With the help of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a Kurdish-Syrian Arab alliance, ISIS was militarily defeated in Iraq and Syria in 2019.
Joulani, a Syrian national, continued the fight against the Assad regime as part of non-jihadi rebel forces. He quit AQ-linked Jabhat in 2016 and renamed his group Jabhat Fatah al-Sham now known as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) in 2017. The HTS, a moderate jihadi group, became a prominent rebel force and established its stronghold in Idlib, north-west Syria, where millions of displaced Syrians took refuge. He began to unite the fragmented opposition groups, while simultaneously working for the local Syrian population in crisis, providing them with aid, medicine and food. Under Joulani’s leadership, HTS captured parts of Syria controlled by Assad’s government. By the first week of December, HTS and rebel forces surrounded the Syrian capital of Damascus, forcing President Bashar al-Assad to flee the country. Joulani and other opposition figures announced their victory over a Syrian state television broadcast ending the 50-year-long reign of the Assad family. It remains to be seen whether Syrians will succeed in achieving the dream of democracy, or head for another jihadi doomsday.
(Extracted from Shweta Desai’s 2015 Maneckshaw paper ‘Syrian Revolution: How the Road from Democracy Ended in a Caliphate, for Center for Land Warfare Studies, New Delhi.)