When Sir Richard Moore, the head of MI6, warned in a speech given 10 days ago that he had “never seen the world in a more dangerous state” Syria was mentioned just once. The context was that jihadist terrorism was on the retreat in the country, but after the lightning success of the rebel offensive, questions will inevitably be asked again.
Intelligence chiefs are now having to quickly reassess the triumphant Syrian rebels, and in particular, the leading group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), now designated as a terror organisation by the US and the UK. Once a Syrian offshoot of al-Qaida, HTS cut its affiliation in 2016 and under the leadership of Abu Mohammed al-Jolani the group has sought to project a moderate image as it has led the counter offensive from Idlib to Damascus. In an interview with CNN, al-Jolani said he would respect Syrian minorities and “no one has the right to erase another group”. Early reports from Aleppo suggest the Christian minority in Aleppo was unaffected after the HTS capture of the city a week ago.
External experts are divided as to how HTS might govern. Edmund Fitton-Brown, a former UN terror expert and senior adviser to the Counter Extremism Project, said “good academic experts know HTS and disagree very sharply with each other. Some will tell you it is reformist and will be law abiding; others will say it is the Taliban all over again” – a reference to the Islamist group that took over Afghanistan again after the US withdrawal in 2021.
The reality is that the truth is unknown, but it is also not yet important from an international security perspective. It is not clear what sort of government will replace the Assad regime, or how far al-Jolani will be its dominant force. HA Hellyer, a Middle East specialist at the Royal United Services Institute thinktank, said: “I don’t think anyone should be naive, but also not too deterministic about HTS.”
As intelligence chiefs repeatedly emphasise, international terror threats usually take time to develop, even in permissive environments. It took two years for Islamic State’s Afghan offshoot to return to plotting international terror attacks after the Taliban takeover, though when it did, the attacks were severe – such as the massacre of concert goers in Moscow, which killed at least 130, at the Crocus City Hall in March.
For the moment, though, western officials believe there are no indications that HTS has an aspiration to engage in terror activities that directly affect UK national security. That underlies comments on Monday by cabinet office minister Pat McFadden, who suggested that HTS’s terror designation – which formally prevents the UK government talking to the group – could be reviewed soon. It would be “a relatively swift decision” if it were made, he said.
A more pressing concern is what happens if the fall of Damascus leads to broader instability. Islamic State, which controlled swathes of territory in the east of the country in the second half of the last decade, has now been reduced to the operations of small cells. It has been degraded by a combination of western air power and Syrian Kurdish forces, who now control the north-east of the country, where former Islamic State fighters and supporters, including Shamima Begum, are detained in prisons and camps.
The future relationship between HTS and Syria’s Kurds is uncertain, but the real concern of the Kurdish forces in the north-east of the country is a heavy-handed Turkish-backed military intervention against them, amid the wider turbulence. Their military, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), reported serious clashes in Manbij over the past three days, with Turkey deploying air power in support of another group, the Syrian National Army (SNA), which Ankara supports. Turkey has long been aggressively opposed to Kurdish separatism in its own country.
The US and the UK are keen to maintain the stability of the Kurdish sector – at least for now. On Sunday, US Central Command, or Centcom, said it had bombed 75 Islamic State targets in central Syria and emphasised it would continue to work “together with allies and partners in the region” a reference in part to the Kurds.
About 900 US troops are also deployed in north-east Syria, as a backup presence, though when he was last president, in October 2019, Donald Trump said he would be withdrawing them at the request of Turkey’s president, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, to allow Turkey to establish a cross-border security zone. Another concern for the stability of Syria may well be the stability of western policy.
