Battles take place between the new Syrian government’s Defense Ministry forces and the forces loyal … [+] to Bashar Assad on March 7, 2025, in outskirts of Jableh, Latakia countryside, Syria. (Photo by Mohamad Daboul / Middle East Images / Middle East Images via AFP)
The violent clashes in Syria’s coastal region on Thursday and Friday were a sad reminder of how volatile and combustive that country remains. They also served as an apt reminder to the new authorities in Damascus that they cannot reconquer the entire country nor impose their will on its diverse population by force. Attempting to do so could reignite the civil war that beggared and utterly devastated Syria in the first place.
The violence began on Thursday afternoon when loyalists of deposed Syrian President Bashar al-Assad killed at least 16 security personnel of the new government in the coastal Latakia province following an arrest operation against a former Assad regime official. (Latakia is the heartland of Syria’s Alawite minority sect, from which the Assad family and regime hailed.)
The response by government forces was worrying. For example, video of government fighters pushing bombs out the back of a Mi-8 utility helicopter brought to mind Assad’s ferocious and indiscriminate barrel bomb attacks throughout the civil war.
On the ground, security forces and pro-government fighters—militiamen from the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army were also mobilized as reinforcements—backed by armor and artillery began arresting military-age males en masse. They killed at least 38 Alawites execution-style in the town of al-Mukhtareyah, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor. Eyewitnesses accused the security forces of indiscriminately targeting civilians.
After 48 hours, the Observatory estimated that the clashes had taken over 250 lives, including 162 “executed” Alawites, while the Syrian Network for Human Rights estimated that the Assad loyalists killed 15 civilians and approximately 100 members of the security forces. All these estimates are preliminary.
Syrian interim President Ahmed al-Sharaa appeared unapologetic for the harsh nature of the crackdown, declaring, “The riposte has come, and you have not been able to withstand it. Lay down your weapons and surrender before it’s too late.”
However, rampaging Assad loyalists aren’t the only Syrians Sharaa wants to disarm. Rejecting out of hand the very notion of federalism, his government has staunchly insisted that the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces in northeast Syria and various Druze militias in the south surrender their weapons to his caretaker government. Both are reluctant to do so, and not for unjustifiable reasons.
For example, the Rijal al-Karama militia has long protected the Druze-majority southern Syrian city of Suwayda against ISIS and the Assad regime, both of which still have dangerous remnants in the country. Such groups are understandably unwilling to relinquish their weapons until their constitutional rights and security are guaranteed by Damascus. Events in Latakia may well serve to reinforce this instinctive reluctance.
The SDF has fought ISIS for over a decade and still has militants and their families in prisons and detention centers scattered across their region. These ISIS members have attempted violent jailbreaks in the past. Furthermore, the SNA are actively attacking SDF positions along the Euphrates River and have killed and maimed scores of Kurdish civilians since November. Consequently, SDF fighters are understandably hesitant to lay down their weapons, especially with the SNA still running rampant. Furthermore, their counterproposals, such as integrating their fighters into the new Syrian security forces as an independent block, have been rejected by Sharaa’s government.
Syria experts have already suggested that Sharaa may need to “genuinely decentralize political power and establish a federal system” if he wants to avoid repeating the mistakes of his predecessor and successfully rebuild the country. Events in Latakia and the new Syrian leader’s insistence on complete centralization and disarming such groups indicate that’s not going to be in the cards anytime soon—or perhaps for however long he has the final say. But doubling down on nothing short of a strictly centralized state could inevitably lead to Sharaa repeating some of Assad’s most fundamental mistakes, something he should strive to avoid.
The former Syrian dictator’s detachment from the basic realities on the ground in Syria was on full display in an extensive interview with Russia Today in May 2018. Insisting that the “only problem left in Syria” was the SDF, Assad acknowledged they had begun negotiations—which unsurprisingly led nowhere in the ensuing years due to his regime’s characteristic intransigence—but emphasized he was ready to use force.
“We have one option, to live with each other as Syrians. If not, we’re going to resort… to liberating those areas by force,” he said, adding his regime would somehow compel the American troops in northeast Syria to leave.
In recent years, many, admittedly including the author, complacently concluded that Assad would inevitably reconquer the entire country from his various opponents and oversee a withdrawal of American and Turkish troops, and possibly an unprecedented humanitarian catastrophe in Idlib. He was gradually invited back into the Arab fold after almost a decade of ostracism by 2023, mainly under similar realpolitik assumptions and in the vain hope that he would reduce his regime’s drug smuggling throughout the region.
In reality, his downfall showed how heavily he relied on Russian warplanes and militiamen recruited and organized by Iran for his regime’s survival.
The well-organized and disciplined Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham—which Sharaa led while under his nom de guerre Abu Mohammad al-Jolani—burst out of Syria’s northwestern Idlib province in late November, seized Aleppo, and then swiftly advanced onto Damascus. The devastatingly effective and well-coordinated lightning offensive forced Assad into exile on December 8, instantly bringing 54 years of brutal one-family rule to an end and igniting hopes for a brighter and freer future for Syria and its people. It remains to be seen if these Latakia clashes are a brief detour on the road to that desirable destination, which many war-weary Syrians yearn for their country to finally reach.
As HTS leader in the months and years leading up to that victory, Sharaa exercised impressive acumen, rigorous planning, and strategic patience, ultimately achieving what many thought impossible after over a decade of horrific and seemingly unending conflict. If he doesn’t want the joyous aftermath of that hard-won victory to go down in history as a mere mirage like the Damascus Spring of 2000—when many Syrians and foreigners alike earnestly hoped the young Assad would prove more moderate and permit more freedoms than his late father—he should be more accommodating with many of these groups.
Force will undoubtedly be necessary from time to time in the new Syria to combat ISIS, violent Assad loyalists, and other elements that seek to stir up ethnic and sectarian violence to destabilize the country. Outstanding disagreements and issues between Damascus, the armed Druze groups, and the SDF can likely be resolved through protracted negotiations and mutual willingness to compromise somewhere between rigid centralization and extensive decentralization. Gradually building and earning trust through exhaustive diplomacy would undoubtedly distinguish Sharaa markedly from his predecessor and burnish his newfound persona as a diplomatic leader who seeks peace and reconciliation.
Doing so would convey a subtle understanding on his part that reconquering the entirety of Syria through sheer force of arms probably cannot be done but, more importantly, shouldn’t even be tried.