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Assad's Syria on the Brink of Collapse? [1]

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Date: 2024-11-30  

Events in Syria appear to be accelerating at an astonishing rate. Just Wednesday, the Islamist HTS faction in de facto control of Syria’s NW province of Idlib (under Turkish “protection”) launched what was initially described as a spoiling attack against the Assad regime’s forces to “deter further aggression” for numerous violations of the ceasefire agreement that had been worked out between Turkiye, Syria, and Iran back in 2019-20.

The attack apparently caught Assad’s forces entirely by surprise — so much so that they ended up doing what the Afghan national army did when the US pulled its last support troops out from that unfortunate country back in 2021, they dropped their weapons and ran away in abject terror. And by Friday the HTS was in control of Syria’s second-largest city Aleppo, which is also its commercial center.

And now today (Saturday) come rumors of an attempted coup in Damascus as HTS continues their rapid push south to Hama and Homs. So far this latest rumor has not been confirmed by any of the mainstream media, but according to a tabloid called the Jewish Press out of Brooklyn:

Attempted Coup D’Etat Taking Place in Damascus The sounds of gunfire were heard in the Syrian capital of Damascus on Saturday night as speculation grew that an attempted coup d’etat was under way. The official Syrian Arab News Agency (SANA) state television network was off the air Saturday night, and the news outlet’s Arabic and English language websites were unreachable as well. Explosions and gunfire were heard near the general staff and state media building in the capital. Local sources said Brigadier General Hassam Louka, chief of the regime’s general security directorate was attempting to oust President Bashar al-Assad, who was out of the country on Saturday. Assad’s whereabouts are currently unknown. Earlier in the evening, a Russian military plane landed at Damascus International Airport on Saturday night, with speculation that Assad was aboard and returning from meetings in Moscow. The plane departed from Damascus about an hour later. There were also multiple reports that Assad and his family are in Moscow, including at least one report in Turkish media. Clashes were reported between the Syrian Republican Guard and the Syrian Arab Army’s 4th Division in the Kfar Sousa district of Damascus, with gunfire directed at various government buildings.

If this latter report is true about fighting between the regular Syrian army and Assad’s personal bodyguard troops, then the regime’s demise may just be days or even hours away — particularly since its main props — Hezbollah, Iran, and Russia all seem a bit preoccupied to effectively help at the moment. Interestingly, we do have a sort of “negative confirmation” of these unconfirmed rumors from the Iranian Tasnim news agency, which has gone out of its way to deny the rumors:

There have been widespread rumors and reports of a military coup in the Syrian capital, but they are all unfounded and the city remains calm, according to a Tasnim correspondent. Tasnim’s Salma Awdah, who is in Damascus, says the city is calm and rumors of a coup d'état are just a psychological operation by the terrorists and their supporters to break the resistance and advance further. Since a few hours ago, media outlets linked to terrorist groups and Syrian rebels have been reporting that a military coup has taken place in Damascus but the Tasnim correspondent dismissed the reports as baseless. Clips that have been circulating purporting to be related to the coup are also untrue.

And for those interested in learning more about the background and evolution of the HTS and its leader Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, there is this deep dive from the Telegraph that is well worth reading in its entirety (and yes, I know it’s not a particularly well-regarded source here, but like the WSJ when it’s not doing political opinion pieces, their hard news reporting tends to be fairly reliable0.

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