>Syria is on a “knife edge” and needs a “course correction” as sectarian clashes and the slow pace of reform undermine the fragile transition following the Assad regime’s collapse, a senior UN official has warned. The sectarianism and the nascent government’s struggle to deliver judicial and security reforms have created “nervousness” within Syria, diminishing the early goodwill for President Ahmed al-Sharaa, the UN’s Syria envoy Geir Pedersen told the Financial Times. “It is on the knife edge, that’s how serious it is,” Pedersen said. “We all know that these kinds of changes take time, but he [Sharaa] needs to do what I call a course correction.” In a worst-case scenario, Syria could “turn into Libya”, he said, a reference to the conflict and factionalism that divided the north African state into a patchwork of fiefdoms after rebels ousted dictator Muammer Gaddafi in 2011.
>“No one wants it to happen, but it’s a real danger,” Pedersen said. The stark warning comes almost a year after Sharaa led a rebel offensive that toppled Bashar al-Assad and ended his family’s more than 50-year rule. Syria on Sunday held parliamentary elections that, while largely symbolic, were seen as a test of Sharaa’s commitment to a more representative transition. Most Syrians were euphoric over the fall of Assad and welcomed Sharaa’s takeover, putting aside concerns about the Islamist ideology of his Sunni faction, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). Sharaa, who was once affiliated to al-Qaeda, promised an inclusive government and to protect minorities after inheriting the bankrupt, fractured state, shattered by almost 14 years of civil war. But HTS remains the dominant governing force, and Syrians’ faith in the leadership has been shaken by the fighting that involved security forces and took on a sectarian bent.
>Clashes between former regime loyalists from the Alawite sect that Assad belongs to, and fighters affiliated to Sharaa, killed at least 1,400 people in the coastal region of Latakia in March. Similar violence involving members of the Druze community, Bedouin and security forces erupted in the southern province of Sweida in July. Israel, which has seized a swath of land by the southern border, exacerbated the situation by launching air strikes against Sharaa’s forces and the defence ministry in Damascus, saying it was defending the Druze. “A lot of people are telling me” the violence shows “he can’t control his own people. And they are asking me what kind of message does that send?” Pedersen said. “It is my sense that they haven’t fully grasped how serious this is for the whole transition.” He lamented the slow pace of integration of the myriad Sunni rebel factions, which supported Sharaa’s December offensive and are affiliated to his government, into a formalised security system. Sharaa “doesn’t feel ready” to do security reforms, Pedersen said, whose term as envoy is coming to an end. “What is happening is all these factions are establishing their own fiefdoms around the country.”
>At the same time, the government is struggling to exercise authority over swaths of the nation. Government forces withdrew from Sweida after the July clashes, leaving the province largely cut off and controlled by Druze factions that refuse to be integrated into the new administration. Meanwhile, Kurdish-dominated forces, armed and trained by the US, control much of the north-east. The government signed an agreement with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces in March to integrate its estimated 60,000 fighters into state institutions. But little progress has been made and the violence in Sweida has hardened the SDF’s position, experts say.
>“It’s very clear Sharaa wants to give the Kurds their political rights, but what happened on the coast and Sweida deepened the lack of trust,” Pedersen said. Israel’s intervention also hardened attitudes among the Druze, and “does not bring stability”, he added. The Norwegian, who has been envoy since 2019, praised Sharaa for saying he would allow an independent UN commission to investigate the Sweida clashes, as he did on the coast. Sharaa has condemned the violence, and some members of the security forces were arrested.
>But Pedersen added that the government needed to move forward with a transitional justice process to deal with Assad-era crimes and those committed by forces affiliated to Sharaa. The administration is fuelling the unease by appointing sharia, or Islamic, judges from HTS’s stronghold in Idlib province to the judiciary, Pedersen said.
Sharaa has shown “he’s pragmatic and he learns”, and, given the state of the broken nation, the challenges facing whoever replaced Assad were “enormous”, he added.
>But the president needs to reassure Syrians he understands their concerns “so you don’t see spoilers start to act against him”, Pedersen said. “He’s gone through a remarkable journey. He has many years of experience in Idlib, and what he did in Idlib was basically co-opting people because he could use whatever power he had, or he defeated them militarily,” Pedersen said. “If he wants to co-opt people in Syria at large, he needs to be meticulous. And it’s a different kind of legitimacy he has.” Syrians, he added, need to be convinced that “this is a new beginning — not a new autocratic regime”.
randommathaccount on
Didn’t shit go down in Aleppo yesterday? Seems worse than knife edge at this point
DiscussionJohnThread on
> almost a year after Sharaa led a rebel offense
This hit me like a rock, insane how quickly time passes 😭
3 Comments
>Syria is on a “knife edge” and needs a “course correction” as sectarian clashes and the slow pace of reform undermine the fragile transition following the Assad regime’s collapse, a senior UN official has warned. The sectarianism and the nascent government’s struggle to deliver judicial and security reforms have created “nervousness” within Syria, diminishing the early goodwill for President Ahmed al-Sharaa, the UN’s Syria envoy Geir Pedersen told the Financial Times. “It is on the knife edge, that’s how serious it is,” Pedersen said. “We all know that these kinds of changes take time, but he [Sharaa] needs to do what I call a course correction.” In a worst-case scenario, Syria could “turn into Libya”, he said, a reference to the conflict and factionalism that divided the north African state into a patchwork of fiefdoms after rebels ousted dictator Muammer Gaddafi in 2011.
>“No one wants it to happen, but it’s a real danger,” Pedersen said. The stark warning comes almost a year after Sharaa led a rebel offensive that toppled Bashar al-Assad and ended his family’s more than 50-year rule. Syria on Sunday held parliamentary elections that, while largely symbolic, were seen as a test of Sharaa’s commitment to a more representative transition. Most Syrians were euphoric over the fall of Assad and welcomed Sharaa’s takeover, putting aside concerns about the Islamist ideology of his Sunni faction, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS). Sharaa, who was once affiliated to al-Qaeda, promised an inclusive government and to protect minorities after inheriting the bankrupt, fractured state, shattered by almost 14 years of civil war. But HTS remains the dominant governing force, and Syrians’ faith in the leadership has been shaken by the fighting that involved security forces and took on a sectarian bent.
>Clashes between former regime loyalists from the Alawite sect that Assad belongs to, and fighters affiliated to Sharaa, killed at least 1,400 people in the coastal region of Latakia in March. Similar violence involving members of the Druze community, Bedouin and security forces erupted in the southern province of Sweida in July. Israel, which has seized a swath of land by the southern border, exacerbated the situation by launching air strikes against Sharaa’s forces and the defence ministry in Damascus, saying it was defending the Druze. “A lot of people are telling me” the violence shows “he can’t control his own people. And they are asking me what kind of message does that send?” Pedersen said. “It is my sense that they haven’t fully grasped how serious this is for the whole transition.” He lamented the slow pace of integration of the myriad Sunni rebel factions, which supported Sharaa’s December offensive and are affiliated to his government, into a formalised security system. Sharaa “doesn’t feel ready” to do security reforms, Pedersen said, whose term as envoy is coming to an end. “What is happening is all these factions are establishing their own fiefdoms around the country.”
>At the same time, the government is struggling to exercise authority over swaths of the nation. Government forces withdrew from Sweida after the July clashes, leaving the province largely cut off and controlled by Druze factions that refuse to be integrated into the new administration. Meanwhile, Kurdish-dominated forces, armed and trained by the US, control much of the north-east. The government signed an agreement with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces in March to integrate its estimated 60,000 fighters into state institutions. But little progress has been made and the violence in Sweida has hardened the SDF’s position, experts say.
>“It’s very clear Sharaa wants to give the Kurds their political rights, but what happened on the coast and Sweida deepened the lack of trust,” Pedersen said. Israel’s intervention also hardened attitudes among the Druze, and “does not bring stability”, he added. The Norwegian, who has been envoy since 2019, praised Sharaa for saying he would allow an independent UN commission to investigate the Sweida clashes, as he did on the coast. Sharaa has condemned the violence, and some members of the security forces were arrested.
>But Pedersen added that the government needed to move forward with a transitional justice process to deal with Assad-era crimes and those committed by forces affiliated to Sharaa. The administration is fuelling the unease by appointing sharia, or Islamic, judges from HTS’s stronghold in Idlib province to the judiciary, Pedersen said.
Sharaa has shown “he’s pragmatic and he learns”, and, given the state of the broken nation, the challenges facing whoever replaced Assad were “enormous”, he added.
>But the president needs to reassure Syrians he understands their concerns “so you don’t see spoilers start to act against him”, Pedersen said. “He’s gone through a remarkable journey. He has many years of experience in Idlib, and what he did in Idlib was basically co-opting people because he could use whatever power he had, or he defeated them militarily,” Pedersen said. “If he wants to co-opt people in Syria at large, he needs to be meticulous. And it’s a different kind of legitimacy he has.” Syrians, he added, need to be convinced that “this is a new beginning — not a new autocratic regime”.
Didn’t shit go down in Aleppo yesterday? Seems worse than knife edge at this point
> almost a year after Sharaa led a rebel offense
This hit me like a rock, insane how quickly time passes 😭