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00:00If we can just move on to Gilbert Achka to just reflect on that.
00:06He's a Professor of Development Studies and International Relations at the School of Oriental
00:10and African Studies at SOAS.
00:11Thanks for joining us, Gilbert.
00:13We just heard there from Danimaki, from Damascus, about speaking to that rebel fighter, if we
00:21could say, who just said that it's all about taking out Assad and letting the politics
00:27take over.
00:28Can those words be trusted?
00:32I'm not sure, unfortunately.
00:34I'm not sure we can trust anything like this, because actually it's not the first time that
00:40Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, HTC as it is now known, has tried to give an impression of moderation.
00:52But this has not prevented the situation in the Idlib province, where they were dominating,
00:59to turn into a mass movement demanding the downfall of Giuliani, the leader of HTC, and
01:09protesting against repression, against conditions created there.
01:13So it's normal, in a sense, that they try to be reassuring, and at the time when they
01:19are spreading much beyond their ability, because as a military force they are not large
01:28enough to control all of Syria.
01:30And so they had to show this kind of moderation also to facilitate the downfall of the regime,
01:38because people then had some confidence in getting rid of the regime forces.
01:45But this is not enough to give any real confidence in what might happen in the future.
01:56Is democracy a possibility, though?
01:59Well, let us wish so, but HTC is definitely not a democratic force, and Syria is a total
02:10patchwork today.
02:11I mean, before speaking of democracy or anything like this, just look at what it is.
02:16I mean, aside from the part of Syria that is occupied by Israel since 1967, and we know
02:25that Israel is seizing now the present condition into expanding into the buffer zone that existed
02:35in the Golan, we are seeing Israel bombing some military facilities in Syria to prevent
02:44the rebels from seizing them.
02:47You have this HTC territory.
02:49You have Turkish-controlled territory.
02:52You have a big part of Syria, the northeast, which is under the control of the Kurdish
02:59movement.
03:00You have some sections in the south where you have rebel forces linked to the United
03:05States or backed by the United States, and you have a province, that of Suida, where
03:10you have a genuine, this is the only one, where you have a genuine popular uprising
03:14from the local population.
03:16And so how will you be able to connect all this, unify all this, I mean, leaving aside
03:24the Israeli-occupied part of Syria, and establish any kind of, well, first state, two, and second
03:33democracy?
03:34This is a big question.
03:35And how to rebuild a state apparatus, because the kind of state apparatus that you have
03:40or you had in Syria until now is much more like the one you had in Libya.
03:48And when it collapsed, with the collapse of the dictatorship in Libya, you saw what you
03:54got.
03:55It was, and still is, extremely difficult to rebuild.
03:58There is no unified Libyan state, and that's the big question about Syria for the future.
04:03Gilbert, thanks so much.
04:04I'm going to turn to Catherine Norris-Trent, because you were nodding your head, remembering
04:09Libya.
04:10Oh, yes.
04:11Very much fresh in your mind.
04:13In terms of similarities and in terms of the same emotions, is this going to be the same
04:21or is there a space where this can really be something different and a new future for
04:27Syria?
04:28Well, we've got to hope for Syria that it doesn't go down the Libyan route because that
04:31today is still in chaos, 13 years, nearly 14 years after the overthrow of Muammar Gaddafi.
04:40I was in Tripoli, the Libyan capital, the night that the rebels drove into town there
04:45and the Libyan forces melted away.
04:48And they were tearing down the posters of Gaddafi, much as we've seen people tearing
04:52down the posters of Assad and knocking over statues of his father.
04:58And there was this initial sense of elation and positivity.
05:02Elections were organised.
05:03There were female candidates.
05:06Civil society started springing up.
05:08And yet it descended into chaos, very, very sadly, and it still is today, despite wonderful
05:13civil society activists and lots of initiatives.
05:16These warring militias and power struggles between different tribes, people from different
05:21areas, hasn't stopped.
05:24And so today it is a security danger zone, very difficult to move around the country,
05:31basically split into different parts.
05:33Now, there are differences between the Libyan experience and what's happening in Syria.
05:38Libya was mainly united on a sectarian front.
05:41It was only mainly Sunni, a few Sufis who were the target of some abuse, but they didn't
05:47have that.
05:48And yet they still managed to go to war.
05:50I mean, Gaddafi had the divide and rule situation.
05:54He'd mastered that.
05:55So he'd created these warring tribes.
05:57We'll have to wait and see whether the different parts of Syria's very diverse population can
06:03come together.
06:04There are Christians, there are Alawites, there are Druze, there are Sunnis, and these
06:08different militia as well now have different aims.
06:11And what had been uniting them until present was the common enemy of Assad.
06:16Now that he's gone and very suddenly they haven't had a chance to plan for a day after,
06:21will they be able to stick together?
06:22Of course, sorry, I forgot the Kurds also further in the northeast of Syria.
06:27It's a very, very complex picture.
06:29But they've had time to see what happened in Libya and other states like that where
06:33things have gone very badly wrong.
06:35And so many Syrian people, of course, don't want that.
06:38There are not perhaps the same international interference.
06:42This is being done.
06:43I mean, there are international players, don't get me wrong.
06:45But I think to a different extent.
06:48And there are Syrian actors on the ground who are trying to seize power rather than
06:52just bringing in a new political class completely from abroad, from exile.
06:57So perhaps there are reasons to hope.
06:59But it's dangerous ground.
07:00And I, again, sincerely hope it doesn't go down the Libyan road.
07:03We do hope that there's an education from that experience in the region and also for
07:08external players, as you mentioned, like Washington and the United States.
07:12We have had some reaction from Joe Biden, the current sitting U.S. president.
07:17This is exactly what he had to say regarding the situation.
07:21After 13 years of civil war in Syria, more than half a century of brutal authoritarian
07:27rule by Bashar Assad and his father before him, rebel forces have forced Assad to resign
07:34his office and flee the country.
07:37This regime brutalized and tortured and killed literally hundreds of thousands of innocent
07:43Syrians.
07:44The fall of the regime is a fundamental act of justice.
07:48It's a moment of historic opportunity for the long-suffering people of Syria to build
07:53a better future for their proud country.
07:56It's also a moment of risk and uncertainty.
07:58An historic opportunity.
07:59That's how Joe Biden has phrased it.
08:01And we can get more reaction on that with Fraser Jackson, our Washington correspondent.
08:05Fraser, Joe Biden also saying the U.S. will work with its partners there to help Syria
08:10manage the risk of Syria without Assad.
08:15How are we looking at Washington's involvement, especially given the words of Donald Trump,
08:22which are somewhat contrary?
08:24Yeah, well, of course, Joe Biden's words are clearly important.
08:30He's still president for the next six weeks, but he is also president only for the next
08:34six weeks.
08:35So a lot of people will be looking also at what Donald Trump has said.
08:38Now, he has sent out a couple of posts on his platform, Truth Social.
08:44He gave one in the immediate aftermath of the news that broke late last night.
08:50And he said Assad is gone.
08:52He has fled the country.
08:53And then he took a rather rare swipe at Russia.
08:56He said his protector, Russia, was not interested in protecting him any longer.
09:01He said as well, Russia and Iran are in a weakened state right now, one because of Ukraine
09:06and a bad economy and the other because of Israel and its fighting success.
09:10He then continued, I know Vladimir Putin well.
09:13This is his time to act.
09:15Well, of course, those words somewhat echoed by Joe Biden, especially the weakened state
09:21of Iran and Russia.
09:23Joe Biden taking credit almost for the fact that these these three powers, mainly Hezbollah,
09:30Iran and Russia, could not really come to the defense of Assad anymore because of U.S.
09:36intervention in places like Israel, backing them up with weapons and also Ukraine.
09:42Joe Biden, of course, is on the way out.
09:44He has just six weeks left of his presidency, and he's looking to try to cement his legacy
09:49in the American in American history.
09:52So this is one brick of the wall that he will be building to to lay out his legacy.
09:58And that has also been backed up by various senior administration officials that we are
10:03talking to as well.
10:04So the future of the American picture in the Middle East as well also coming into focus.
10:10But we're going to be waiting to hear from Donald Trump more because, of course, it's
10:13him that it's he that is going to be in charge of the Oval Office come January 20th.
10:18President Jackson, thanks so much.
10:19We're going to head back to Gilbert now and just ask him for a reflection on that.
10:24It does seem that Gilbert has, in fact, departed the scene.
10:28But Catherine, in terms of those security interests in Syria now for the likes of the
10:34United States and the likes of Russia, is there now a worry with HTS or do you think
10:39they'll be able to consolidate their military bases?
10:42How do we see that playing out?
10:44Yeah.
10:45So both the U.S. and Russia are likely very worried about what happens next.
10:49Let's start with Russia.
10:50We've mentioned their military bases.
10:52They have a significant presence in the Latakia province in the northwest of Syria along the
10:58Mediterranean coast.
10:59So a big military port, a naval port on the coast in Tartus, which is basically their
11:04logistics link to their Wagner presence in Libya and in African countries in the Sahel.
11:11So that's countries like Mali, Burkina Faso, Guinea, places like that.
11:17So they basically need that in order to maintain that presence.
11:20If they lost it, it would pose some huge logistical problems.
11:24And then they have the military airport outside of Latakia.
11:28What happens to that?
11:29Will they lose that?
11:30Apart from losing prestige, they have a lot to lose militarily and strategically.
11:37The U.S., it's estimated, has around 900 troops in Syria.
11:40Now, they're up in more of the northwestern kind of area where there are Kurdish-backed
11:47fighters from the SDF, the Syrian Democratic Force, is their name, this force backed by
11:53the U.S.
11:54And they have some very strategic assets in the area they control.
11:59So they've been fighting ISIS, the Islamic State group, and they have prisons full of
12:03ISIS prisoners.
12:05What happens to them afterwards?
12:06Are those people going to be set free?
12:08Where do they go?
12:09A big security concern, perhaps, as well, going forward.
12:13And there are the all-important oil and gas fields in that part of Syria, but a telling
12:19slip there.
12:20And revenue from those has basically been going to the U.S.
12:24The U.S. will want to try and control that.
12:27People in the State Department and the Pentagon may want to control that, despite what Donald
12:30Trump says.
12:31We'll see who wins out there.
12:32Well, let's take that question to Fraser once again.
12:35Fraser, Catherine Norris Trent there just saying that oil very much still in the sights
12:40of Washington and Syria.
12:43Is that going to be playing a part in what the Trump administration decides to do?
12:47Well, let me tell you what we've been hearing from government officials, current administration
12:53officials.
12:54Again, Donald Trump is very unpredictable.
12:55We don't really know what his stance is going to be.
12:58He's said on Truth Social that it's not the U.S.'s problem, that they shouldn't get involved.
13:02But of course, that could also change on a dime.
13:04So what we're looking at now is what the current administration has said about the U.S. deployment
13:10there in Syria.
13:11We heard there from Catherine that we have about 900 U.S. troops currently stationed
13:16in northeastern Syria.
13:17They have been there to protect those oil fields, but also to ensure that ISIS, the
13:22Islamic State, doesn't flourish there once again.
13:25We got off a call with a senior administration official who told us that as long as they
13:30are there and they've also spoken to the Trump administration and the Trump administration
13:34seems to be on the same page, that these troops will not be going anywhere because they are
13:38worried about those Islamic State fighters coming out of the ground once again.
13:44Now, we also got a word from this SAO that there have been significant strikes from the
13:49U.S. on the same day that this toppling of Assad took place.
13:54There was a gathering, we are told, of over 75 Islamic State fighters and contacts there
14:00that have been thwarted by the U.S.
14:0275 individual targets were targeted by this strike from the U.S. which involved over 140
14:09munitions fired by F-15 fighters as well as B-52 bombers and A-10 planes as well.
14:15So the U.S. still making sure that the U.S. involvement is still there, still active,
14:21but of course they were also engaging with other parts of the Syrian landscape to ensure
14:26a peaceful transfer of power now that the Assad regime has been toppled.
14:30And Washington senior sources say Syria's future will be written by Syrians.
14:34There's going to be no blueprint from Washington, this just coming out.
14:38Fraser, thank you so much and Catherine, again, thank you and thank you to all our guests.
14:43There's more coming up on Syria here on France 24, so please stay tuned for the latest.