Assessing Turkish intentions after the fall of the Assad regime

Ankara appears determined to pursue a two-faced strategy to unify Syria under the rule of its Sunni Islamist client.

By Jonathan Spyer

Amid the euphoria following the overthrow of the Assad regime in Damascus, the plight of Syria’s non-Arab and non-Sunni Muslim minorities has been largely ignored. But even as global media focuses on Damascus and speculates about the future intentions of the new power brokers, elsewhere in Syria the war is not over and fighting continues. The area in question is northeastern Syria, and the warring sides are the Kurdish-dominated, US-aligned Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) and the Turkish-backed Sunni Islamist Syrian National Army (SNA).

To understand the nature and dynamics of the conflict taking place in northern Syria between these two organisations, one must first address a number of broader dynamics.

Most notably, and perhaps insufficiently understood, the end of 61 years of Baath Party rule in Syria is, above all, the triumph of one man. That man is not Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS) leader Abu Mohammed al Julani, though he is set to emerge as Syria’s new president. That man in question is Turkish President Recep Tayepp Erdogan.

Erdogan’s decision to refuse to cede a small corner of northwestern Syria to the Assad regime allowed the slow growth of the forces that would eventually destroy Assad. For half a decade, this decision seemed inexplicable. Everyone else had long since moved on from the Syrian civil war, considering it over.

Often shrewd and patient strategists, the Russians fell into the Turkish trap this time, dragging their client, the Syrian regime, along with them. In their strategy of “reconciliation” rather than direct conquest of areas held by Syrian rebels, they got around the problem of the most hardened and determined insurgents by including a clause in the reconciliation agreements that allowed these men to keep their weapons and fight their way into the Turkish-guaranteed enclave in the northwest of the country.

The idea, presumably, was that these men would spend their time praying and training, in total irrelevance. Instead, it turns out that with this practice Russia and the Assad regime were busily stoking the fire that would eventually consume them.

But it should be remembered that in their enclave in northwestern Syria, the Turks allowed the incubation of not one, but two Sunni Islamist armies and authorities. The first of these, the HTS and its Syrian Salvation Government, is the force that marched on Damascus and took power there in December 2024.

The Syrian National Army

The second group, the Syrian National Army (SNA) and its Syrian Interim Government, is a more direct creation of Ankara. It is made up of Sunni Islamist insurgent groups from northern Syria other than HTS, corralled by Turkey into a military force trained, armed and directed by Ankara.

It is far less disciplined than HTS, which has a history of violence against non-Arab or non-Sunni minority Syrians, including the killing of prominent politician Hevrin Khalaf in 2019. The force, backed by the Turkish military, carried out the ethnic cleansing of 300.000 Syrian Kurds from the Afrin area in 2018.

The ENS has maintained a prison system in northwest Syria where torture and abuse are routine, and where thousands of Syrians have disappeared.

In parallel to the HTS advance on Damascus, the SNA launched its own offensive in November 2024. The SNA did not head south against the regime, but east against the Syrian Kurds. With close Turkish support, the SNA overran Tal Rifaat and then took Manbij, pushing the SDF back to the line of the Euphrates River. Their advance included, unsurprisingly, documented war crimes, including the filmed executions of two wounded soldiers in a Manbij hospital.

The US negotiated a ceasefire along the river line, but shelling has continued. The latest reports suggest that the SDF has launched a counteroffensive in the direction of Manbij.

All indications suggest that the Turkish plan for Syria, now controlled by its clients, includes the destruction of the SDF and the political authority it defends, the Autonomous Administration of Northeast Syria. As of now, there are indications that a new major SNA offensive, supported by the Turkish Armed Forces in the city of Kobani, may be imminent.

The SDF will undoubtedly fiercely oppose any invasion across the Euphrates, but with Turkish air power, artillery and drone capabilities involved, the fighting will be bloody and Turkish success likely. What will follow, given the SNA's existing track record, will almost certainly be ethnic cleansing and mass slaughter.

The focus on the US

The main front to prevent any such incursion is political and centered on the United States. Senators Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.) last week introduced bipartisan legislation that would impose sanctions on Turkey in an effort to prevent an assault on the SDF east of the Euphrates.

It remains unclear whether these measures and other pressures will succeed, but given the strategic patience the Turks have already shown in the Syrian context, it seems equally likely that their efforts to destroy the pro-US Kurdish authority will, at least initially, take a political, rather than military, form. On Tuesday, the Syrian interim authorities announced that an agreement had been reached following consultations for the dissolution of all armed factions in Syria. However, the pre-agreement consultations were conducted entirely between the HTS-led interim government and the SNA. The SDF was not invited.

This seems to indicate that Ankara is determined to pursue a two-faced strategy to unify Syria under the rule of its Sunni Islamist clients. In this strategy, the threat of a possible military intervention by Turkey will be maintained, while the SDF, in the shadow of this threat, is expected to voluntarily declare its own dissolution before the rulers of the new “unified” Syria. Otherwise, in time, the newly equipped army of the new HTS regime will cross the Euphrates to “reunify” Syria by other means.

This strategy is likely to be supported by voices in the West, who recommend bowing to the Turkish project in order to keep Ankara “on their side.” They will argue that it no longer makes sense to oppose the Turkish will in Syria, to support lost causes, etc.

However, as long as approximately 2.000 US troops remain in eastern Syria, an all-out assault by Turkey remains impossible. Meanwhile, the SNA alone does not appear strong enough to make decisive inroads against the SDF. The US posture will therefore be crucial.

From Israel's point of view, Turkey's victory in Syria marks the beginning of a resurgence of Sunni political Islam on its borders. It is also likely to usher in a period of open competition between Israel and Turkey, with the latter allied with various Sunni Islamist forces, including those in the West Bank and Gaza.

The interest is therefore to keep the newly dominant forces as far away from Israeli communities as possible and as militarily weak as possible, and to strengthen and preserve those elements resistant to the Turkish/Sunni Islamist project.

This explains Jerusalem’s current support for the Syrian Kurds and recent Israeli military actions. A victory for the SNA and Turkey in northeastern Syria, and a reunified and resurgent Syria under Turkish and Sunni Islamist control, will constitute net losses for Israel in this newly emerging competition.

Source: The Jerusalem Post