Who controls the country now that Assad is gone?

In just two weeks, Syrian rebels abandoned their enclave in the northwest to capture a series of major cities, before reaching the capital, Damascus, and overthrowing President Bashar al-Assad, 13 years after the start of the Syrian civil war. country.

In convoys of small vehicles and motorcycles, fighters led by the rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) advanced rapidly along the north-south highway that forms the main backbone of the country to take Damascus without resistance.

But while many in the country celebrate the fall of a family dynasty that ruled Syria with an iron fist, the future is uncertain and the situation on the ground continues to change, with several different rebel groups controlling different parts of the country.

The fall of the Assad regime was brought about by the sudden and unexpected advance of the HTS rebels but, although the group controls Syria’s main cities, it does not rule the entire country.

Syria has been controlled for years by a patchwork of rebel groups, including HTS in Idlib and Kurdish-led groups in the country’s northeast, some of which have also seized territory in recent days and weeks.

None of the rebel groups will mourn the fall of the Assad regime, but finding a consensus on how to govern the country could still prove difficult and in the north of the country there have been clashes between rival factions.

After years locked behind frozen fronts, the rebels mounted a lightning advance that culminated in the overthrow of the president and the seizure of the capital over the weekend.

After taking Aleppo, Syria’s second city, in late November, the rebels continued their offensive, moving south to take control of the city of Hama last Thursday.

The advance continued apace and on Saturday the rebels swept through Syria’s third city, Homs, facing little resistance and advanced directly toward the capital, Damascus.

On Monday morning it was confirmed that President Assad had fled the country and Russian news sources reported that he had been granted asylum in Russia.

Syria, with a population of about 22 million people, is located on the eastern coast of the Mediterranean Sea. It borders Türkiye to the north, Lebanon and Israel to the west and southwest, Iraq to the east, and Jordan to the south.

Türkiye, Western powers and several Gulf Arab states have backed various elements of the Syrian opposition to varying degrees during the conflict.

The Lebanon-based and Iran-backed Hezbollah movement has fought alongside the Syrian regime’s army but has been severely weakened by its conflict with Israel. This has been seen as a key reason why the rebel advance was so successful.

Israel, concerned about what it calls Iran’s “military entrenchment” in Syria, has launched airstrikes against the Syrian army.

Israeli warplanes have reportedly been carrying out hundreds of airstrikes across Syria, targeting military facilities of the Syrian army, including weapons warehouses, ammunition depots, airports, naval bases and research centers.

The UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR) says it has documented more than 350 attacks by Israel since the fall of the Assad regime on Sunday, including in the capital Damascus, Aleppo and Hama.

The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) claim they have destroyed around 80% of the Assad regime’s military capacity, although that figure has not been independently verified.

Israel says its actions are to prevent weapons from falling “into the hands of extremists” as Syria moves into a post-Assad era.

Israel also says it has temporarily took control of a demilitarized buffer zone in the Golan Heights, saying that the 1974 withdrawal agreement with Syria had “collapsed” with the rebel takeover of the country.

He denies reports that tanks are approaching Damascus, but says some troops are operating in Syrian territory beyond the buffer zone.

The Golan Heights are a rocky plateau about 60 kilometers (40 mi) southwest of Damascus.

Israel seized the territory from Syria in the final stages of the 1967 Six-Day War and unilaterally annexed it in 1981. The move was not recognized internationally, although the United States did so unilaterally in 2019.

In the northern city of Manbij there have been clashes between Turkish-backed forces and Kurdish-led rebels.

Both sides claimed to have taken parts of the city, and fighting reportedly continues in some neighborhoods.

The Euphrates River acts as a dividing line between territory controlled by Turkish-backed groups in the west and Kurdish-led forces in the east.

In 2015, Russia sent thousands of troops to Syria to help keep President Assad in power.

In exchange for this military assistance, Russia received 49-year leases on two key military bases.

The port of Tartous is Russia’s only major naval base abroad and also the only naval base in the Mediterranean.

Along with the Hmeimim air base, which is often used to ferry Russian military contractors in and out of Africa, the two bases play an important role in Russia’s ability to operate as a global power.

The Kremlin has said it will hold talks with Syria’s new administration about the future of both sites.

Meanwhile, the Russian ships have left the port and are anchored off the coast.