Recognized Authority

It all reflected the new government’s primary aim: to control the entire Syrian territory, while centralizing power in its figurehead.

Even to this internal end, al-Sharaa’s administration has focused on gaining international support, with Turkey offering full backing since the outset. The end of US, European, and Japanese economic sanctions has been a key means of raising popular expectations in the new government. In this same vein, several memorandums of understanding have been signed representing billions of dollars in investment commitments with American, Chinese, Qatari, Emirati, and Turkish companies for the development of ports and energy. The removal of al-Sharaa’s Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) from Western states’ lists of terrorist organizations marked a considerable step toward his government’s international recognition.

Yet Syria’s much-vaunted new freedom has also taken disturbing forms. Especially notable were this July’s clashes in the Sweida governorate, between bedouin tribes, government forces, and Druze factions. There has likewise been conflict in the coastal governorates, which saw an Alawi insurgency in March, and in the Kurdish-dominated northeast.

Still, the start of talks with Israel in Baku (Azerbaijan) in July over the Israeli occupation of Syria’s Golan Heights, as well as the al-Sharaa government’s intervention in Sweida, shows the kind of geopolitical challenges faced and their considerable internal implications. Even if Syria is in no position to militarily confront Israel in the Golan Heights, the potential bartering away of this territory faces strong opposition internally. Also in Sweida, Israel’s intervention in support of Druze militias, such as the one led by Hikmat al-Hajari, who repositioned himself politically after Bashar al-Assad’s fall, is creating lasting divisions.

Yet the Syrian administration has also interpreted its external legitimacy as a green light to advance the expansion of its control over state institutions. It has done so both through the use of force and by calling into question the firmness of democratic rights regarding religious communities, women, and ethnic groups.

Radical Islamism?

As many of these Western sponsors have insisted, while the new government is led by HTS veterans, it has been “pragmatic” in consolidating its dominance over Syrian society — defying expectations that it might establish a radical Islamic government. In other words, despite a past linked to organizations such as Jabhat al-Nusra, its leaders adjusted their strategy to take into account both the international picture and the country’s social and ethno-religious diversity.

Yet even since taking power last December, the government still faced a battle to establish control everywhere.

After Assad’s dictatorship fell under pressure from an HTS-led offensive, many of the country’s security institutions abruptly collapsed, having already been undermined by fourteen years of war, sanctions, and a much longer legacy of dictatorship and corruption.

The resulting vacuum allowed for the emergence of militias of various kinds, initially due to the abandonment of weapons arsenals. Some such militias are drawn from extremist movements such as ISIS or deserters from HTS, which have sought to reorganize and to challenge the new interim government. Others maintain the objective of defending their own communities, often in coordination with the new Ministry of Defense but not under its full command. This is the case of the Druze in Sweida — until July’s conflict — or the Kurdish-Arab alliance in the northeast, which already controlled their own territory.

Almost a year after al-Sharaa’s arrival in Damascus, the population remains uncertain. Syrians are waiting for better living conditions, with 90 percent living in poverty and 70 percent in need of humanitarian aid. These precarious economic conditions are aggravated by violence and sectarian tensions that have flared to varying degrees even since the nominal end of the war.

All this shows a tension between two Syrias. On the one hand, the millions subjected to the authoritarianism, psychological pressure, and economic oppression of the Assad era who now want real freedom. On the other, the new government seeks to rebuild the state under new parameters by consolidating its power through various means — from political and social integration to outright violence.

Sectarianism: A Tool of Control

Although al-Sharaa has pledged to protect Syria’s ethno-religious minorities, many members of the Alawi, Druze, Christian, and other communities remain unconvinced. To compel those who resist, he has used force. The regions of Hama, Homs, Sweida, and Damascus have been plagued by varying levels of sectarian violence that are eroding many Syrians’ hopes for the future.

The period since July has plunged the southern governorate of Sweida into chaos, marking Syria’s third major crisis under its new transitional government. This is a province of low mountains and green landscapes influenced by the Yarmouk River, which feeds the entire south with fertile land perfect for agriculture.

The outbreak of intense clashes between armed bedouin tribes and local Druze militias, which began in the predominantly Druze province of Sweida, brought back scenes from the war suffered by the entire Syrian people. Druze armed factions remain there, which, despite their differences, keep their distance from — or directly oppose — the new government.

In July, the kidnapping of a Druze merchant by bedouin factions (aligned with the new government) led to fierce fighting that opened the door to intervention by government troops with the help of local Druze factions. The result was a disaster that increased Israel’s interference in southern Syria with air strikes against the Syrian army. This was followed by the mass mobilization of bedouin tribes, which led to massacres perpetrated by both sides that were documented in dozens of horrific videos circulating on social media. Now negotiations to integrate the Sweida governorate under the new government’s control are probably further away than ever.

According to the Syrian Network for Human Rights, more than 814 civilians or unarmed combatants have been killed and more than 903 wounded. Humanitarian workers estimate that there are more than a hundred thousand internally displaced persons sheltering in makeshift centers in Daraa and Damascus. Finally, a fragile truce reigns in the southern region, where access by the press has been blocked, humanitarian aid is scarce, and for several weeks water and food have been in short supply. Now a fragile calm and a temporary truce currently prevail in the southern region.

This crisis is a continuation of a situation that developed when the insurgency of the remnants of the old regime in the coastal region of Latakia and Tartus, directed against civilians and security forces, provoked a repressive government reaction. However, the response resulted in wider massacres of civilians and extrajudicial executions. The brutality of the government forces left no room for distinction, with the Syrian Network for Human Rights documenting the killing of more than 1,500 people. Although the government in Damascus described atrocities as “individual actions” and promised to investigate, several months later there is no evidence that those responsible have been arrested.

The official version sounds like an alibi in a country where revenge often precedes justice. Meanwhile, a Reuters investigation concluded that the chain of command of the perpetrators reaches as far as the capital, Damascus, where attempts are being made to hold the entire Alawi community responsible for the crimes of the Assad family.

Such a fate had already befallen the Druze community in April, during four days of civil war in the Damascus suburbs, and again in an attack on the Christian minority on June 22, killing at least twenty-five people and wounding sixty-five. After the government attributed the attack to Islamic State, a little-known organization called Saraya Ansar al-Sunna claimed to be the perpetrator, exposing the government as incapable of protecting all communities.

Yet rather than simply fighting such destructive forces, for the new administration exploiting sectarianism is essential to strengthen its grip on power. It serves a dual purpose: on the one hand, it presents the Sunni community as the sole victim of Assadist repression, while at the same time courting segments of the Sunni population that could become insurgents — often motivated more by tribal loyalties than nationalist ideologies — as demonstrated by the recent mobilizations of bedouin tribes. On the other side, the government scapegoats particular ethnic or religious groups, portraying them as threats to security or responsible for the country’s problems. This deflects public attention from Syria’s deeper economic and political challenges.

Fragile Centralization

At the heart of Syria’s recent violent flare-ups lies a deeper, structural issue: President al-Sharaa neither fully controls the various factions within HTS nor rules all of Syrian territory. His inability to enforce broad political agreements stems from the absence of a unified military, the persistence of competing local warlords, and a strategic narrative that still clings to “eliminating remnants of the Assad regime.” As power moves away from Damascus, central authority is increasingly undermined.

Yet even as fragmentation defines Syria’s landscape of armed force, political centralization is advancing from the top down. The interim constitution issued in March — while nominally guaranteeing freedoms of belief, expression, and legal equality — cemented sweeping powers in al-Sharaa’s hands. He now controls appointments to the constitutional court, one-third of the legislature, and can declare a state of emergency at will. Institutional checks have been systematically removed under the guise of national unity.

Internationally, Syria is taking significant steps. The announcement of the lifting of US sanctions by the Trump administration (including the Caesar Act imposed by his first presidency in 2019), along with Syria’s reintegration into the SWIFT banking system, promises a path to economic recovery, although it will still be months before it is implemented. At the same time, negotiations are underway with Israel in Baku over the Golan Heights, where Syria is falling victim to a further expansion of the Zionist occupation. All these points signal a strong diplomatic pivot that distances HTS further from the hard-line jihadist doctrine that originated in the former Al-Nusra Front.

However, fears of a budding autocracy or an Islamic state may be overstated. Al-Sharaa’s administration is attempting a hybrid governance model: authoritarian centralization paired with tactical decentralization, involving alliances with tribal leaders and local power brokers.

In this regard, the focus on ethnic or religious identity has surely undermined any prospect of a class-based politics developing. Civil society — once vibrant in the early days of the uprising — has been stifled by state violence, while political parties and trade unions have been dissolved in the name of national transition. The protests by state workers that took place in the early months against layoffs and for better wages have disappeared after the massacres in Latakia and Tartus.

On several occasions, workers have been murdered on their way home at night. Various investigations have concluded that these were not gang-related incidents but rather planned sectarian attacks. While real wages are short of $150 per month, few dare to protest after unidentified attackers intimidated demonstrators on several occasions. There have recently been demonstrations by teachers demanding better wages in Aleppo and Deir Ezzor, but this is far from the dimensions of mass politicization around economic demands.

For now, the question of armed force remains crucial, with efforts to consolidate a unified Syrian Army that aims to bring all armed factions under centralized command. While the HTS leadership maintains strict control over many Sunni militias in Idlib, it must now negotiate with non-Sunni communities, such as the Druze and Kurds, whose armed factions still command parts of Syria’s south and east. These integration efforts, however, are reaching their limits. Top-level decision-making remains concentrated among a small inner circle, while rival factions on the ground resist being subsumed under the new authorities.

The most damaging of all is the impunity with which violence continues. It erodes the credibility of al-Sharaa’s centralizing narrative and exposes a deeper truth: the West’s current strategy appears to support this new order as a guarantor of militarized stability. But in doing so, it risks repeating the errors of the past — backing another forceful strongman in a region sliding ever further into chaos.