HOW ISRAEL’S PLAN TO CARVE UP SYRIA WAS THWARTED BY THE DOWNFALL OF ASSAD

Sat 21 December 2024:

Israel’s plan to divide Syria into three blocks and cut ties with Iran and Hezbollah was thwarted by the overthrow of Bashar al-Assad’s government, Middle East Eye reported, quoting regional security sources.

The plan involved establishing military and strategic ties with the Kurds in the northeast and the Druze in the south, while Assad remained in power in Damascus under Emirati funding and control.

This would have also served to limit Turkey’s influence in Syria to Idlib and the northwest, the stronghold of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and Turkish-backed rebel groups whose lightning offensive earlier this month led to Assad’s downfall.

The plan was hinted at in a speech by Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar a month ago in which he said Israel needed to reach out to the Kurds and the Druze in Syria and Lebanon, adding that there were “political and security aspects” that needed to be considered.

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“We must look at developments in this context and understand that in a region where we will always be a minority we can have natural alliances with other minorities,” Saar said.

But the plan was overtaken by events when forces loyal to Assad crumbled in Homs and Hama, leaving the road to Damascus open.

Rebels by then had already smashed through frontlines and captured Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, without a fight, transforming the balance of power in the country’s 13-year civil war.

In the early hours of Sunday 8 December, Mohammad Ghazi al-Jalali, the Syrian prime minister, appeared on video saying he was willing to hand over power peacefully.

Ahmed al-Sharaa, the HTS leader better known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, swiftly replied that he was ready to keep Jalili in power until a transition was organised.

But even as HTS was approaching the capital, the Emirati and Jordanian ambassadors in Syria were making desperate attempts to stop HTS from gaining control of Damascus, security sources revealed.

Jordan encouraged the Free Syrian Army and allied groups from the south to get to Damascus before HTS.

“Before Jolani arrived, the two ambassadors arranged for fighters from the Free Syrian Army to pick the Syrian prime minister up from his home and take him to the Four Seasons Hotel where they were to officially hand over the state institutions to the armed groups from the south,” security sources told Middle East Eye, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Jalali was filmed being escorted to the hotel by soldiers from the Hauran region in southern Syria belonging to the Fifth Corps, a military force made up of former rebels who had previously reconciled with the Syrian government.

When Israel realised it could not thwart HTS’s takeover of the country it began destroying Syria’s military assets, including sinking its fleet in Latakia and occupying territory including Mount Hermon, Syria’s highest mountain near the border with Lebanon and the occupied Golan Heights.

“These weapons were safe under Assad. That is how much Israel was invested in keeping him in control. But they became unsafe in the hands of the rebels,” a source said.

Officials in both Jordan and the UAE have expressed alarm at the HTS takeover, and the prospects of an Islamist-led government in Syria, even if, as has been promised by Sharaa, all factions and religions are represented.

The Israeli government plan for the division of Syria had been taking shape for weeks previously in the knowledge that a ceasefire with Hezbollah in Lebanon, which was agreed at the end of last month, was on the way.

UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed stepped up his contacts with the Druze community in Israel. He met Sheikh Mowafaq Tarif, the spiritual leader of the Druze in Israel, in Abu Dhabi on December 7.

Sheikh Mowafaq Tarif (L), the spiritual leader of Israel’s Druze community, met UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed in Abu Dhabi on 7 December (WAM)

A week earlier, the US and the UAE had held talks on using the prospect of lifting sanctions as a lever to persuade Assad to cut ties with Iran and close the routes that Iranian weapons take through Syria to resupply Hezbollah.

Since the eruption of the Arab Spring revolutions in 2011, the Emiratis have been at the forefront of anti-democratic counter-revolutionary efforts in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Yemen.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

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