Assad’s Syria is no longer. What’s next?

In just a matter of days, Syria has been transformed from a brutal but relatively stable dictatorship run by the Alawite Al-Assad family, to a collapsed state where competing rebel groups are vying for power and control, potentially supported by regional powers.

The course of events have taken the world by surprise. The landscape of the Middle East has changed dramatically and irreversibly. The implications are largely unknown. For Israel it is a game-changer.

These dramatic developments were triggered by the chain of events following Hamas’s premeditated but ill-timed attack on Israel on 7th October 2023. Since then, Israel has under Netanyahu’s leadership gone on the offensive, and all but defeated Hamas, destroyed Hezbollah’s military capabilities in Lebanon, and even taken out Iran’s capacity to threaten Israel. And now Iran’s main ally in the region – in which it invested billions of dollars over the years – has suddenly collapsed without a fight.

With surprising speed and ease, Syrian rebel groups took Homs, Aleppo and then, last weekend, the capital Damascus. The rebels are led by Islamist alliance Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) along with an umbrella group of Turkish-backed Syrian militias called the Syrian National Army.

The Syrian army barely put up a fight. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad fled to Russia where, it is reported, he and his family have been granted asylum. His government is still in place.

“Israel has taken the opportunity to destroy Syria’s strategic weapons to prevent them from falling into the hands of entities hostile to the Jewish state.”

Israel has taken the opportunity to destroy Syria’s strategic weapons to prevent them from falling into the hands of entities hostile to the Jewish state. The Israeli Air Force has conducted more than 350 aerial strikes against anti-aircraft batteries, Syrian Air Force airfields and dozens of weapons production sites in Damascus, Homs, Tartus, Latakia and Palmyra. Colonel Richard Kemp called it “a strategic masterstroke” and “perhaps the most intensive bombing campaign in [Israel’s] history”.

Israel has also announced the establishment of a temporary demilitarized zone beyond the buffer zone Israel has taken over in the border area on the Golan Heights. This “sterile defensive zone” in southern Syria aims to eliminate potential terrorist threats to Israel.

How all of this will play out is highly uncertain. Clearly this is a major loss for both Russia and Iran, both of which were heavily invested in the Assad regime. One of the questions is what will be the influence of Turkey – host to about 3 million Syrian refugees – which occupies part of northern Syria and supports various rebel groups. Another is how Iran will respond to the fall of its most strategic ally in the region. Some fear that Iran will speed up its race to make nuclear weapons, which could provoke an Israeli strike.

The fate of the Christian minorities in Syria is uncertain. They need our prayers.

“The fall of Damascus and the potential role to be played by regional powers such as Russia, Iran and Turkey suggest we are witnessing the unfolding of as-yet-unfulfilled prophecies concerning the region.”

The fall of Damascus and the potential role to be played by regional powers such as Russia, Iran and Turkey suggest we are witnessing the unfolding of as-yet-unfulfilled prophecies concerning the region. Are we potentially seeing the emergence of the alliances that will be drawn into war against Israel, as foretold in the Gog and Magog prophecies of Ezekiel 38? It is too early to say with any certainty. In any event we do well to watch this closely as we seek to understand the signs of the times.

Let us lift the nation and people of Syria , the nation of Israel, and this complex regional development, before the Lord.