Andie Parry, Johanna Moore, Annika Ganzeveld, Ria Reddy, Siddhant Kishore, and Nicholas Carl

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Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS) leader Ahmed al Shara detailed a three-to-four-year timeline for building new Syrian state, during which he presumably would rule and could heavily influence the allocation of political power. Shara articulated this vision, marking his most detailed articulation of the state formation process yet, in an interview with Saudi-owned al Arabiya. He said that he expects writing a constitution will take three years and organizing elections will take four years. Shara justified the long election timeline by emphasizing the need to conduct a “comprehensive population census” for election results to be “valid.” Shara acknowledged that he has appointed HTS members to most major ministries as a “necessity” but that the “National Dialogue Conference” will fully represent Syria’s diversity and be empowered to vote to rebuild the Syrian legal code. This interview is the latest in Shara’s effort to portray himself to international audiences as a moderate leader and distance himself from his extremist al Qaeda in Iraq and al Nusra Front background. Shara and his HTS-led interim government have yet to enact the tangible and irreversible steps toward implementing the type of representative democracy described in his interview at this time.

The HTS-led interim government is negotiating with the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) to integrate it politically and militarily into the future Syrian state. Shara said that these negotiations are meant to resolve the “crisis” in northeastern Syria. Turkey and HTS have tried in recent weeks to disarm and integrate the SDF into the HTS-led government by threatening the SDF with a full-scale assault. Shara reiterated that, under a potential agreement, there will be no federalism in Syria and noted that the SDF would be integrated into the new Syrian Defense Ministry. It is unclear whether Shara intends to re-flag SDF units and thus retain them as cohesive units or disperse individual SDF members across the Syrian armed forces. Shara and other Syrian former opposition leaders met on December 24 and agreed to dissolve and “merge” their armed factions under the Syrian Defense Ministry.

Key Takeaways:

• Syria: HTS leader Ahmed al Shara detailed a three-to-four-year timeline for building a new Syrian state, during which he presumably would rule and could heavily influence the allocation of political power.

• Syria: The HTS-led interim government is negotiating with the US-backed SDF to integrate it politically and militarily into the future Syrian state. It is unclear whether such integration would involve re-flagging SDF units or dispersing SDF members across the new Syrian armed forces.

• Iran: Baloch Salafi-jihadi militia Ansar al Furqan claimed a suicide bombing targeting the head of political intelligence in Bandar Lengeh in southern Iran. The attack is notably deep into Iran given that most Baloch militancy in Iran occurs around the border with Pakistan. 

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ISW–CTP has launched an interactive control of terrain map of Syria in response to the Syrian opposition offensive in northwestern Syria that began on November 27. It represents our medium-confidence assessment. We will continue to refine this control of terrain (CoT) assessment over the coming days, weeks, and months to increase our confidence levels.

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