Syria: Fall of Assad
Published: June 19, 2025
On December 8, 2024, the totalitarian regime of Syrian dictator Bashar Assad collapsed during a major offensive by the opposition forces, bringing an end to the Civil War.
The offensive was led by a group called HTS.
HTS is an Islamist group with the goal of establishing “Islamic governance”. It was previously aligned with al-Qaeda but later rebranded into a more moderate Syrian nationalist force.
HTS has set up a successful administration in the part of Syria that it controlled in recent years, which ran effective social services and was not highly repressive.
Turkey played a major role in supporting their offensive on Assad’s forces.
The Financial Times: a British daily newspaper
Business: focused on reporting economic affairs
Owned by Nikkei, a Japanese media giant
FT begins with a clearly negative description of Assad’s fallen regime, mentioning:
State repression
Corruption
Torture
War and destruction
The article says that this is a “watershed moment” (turning point) for the Middle East.
It explains that the fall of Assad decreases Iran’s and Russia’s influence in the region.
FT argues that:
Russia’s failure to keep the Assad regime in power in Syria underlined how the war in Ukraine had stretched Russia’s resources.
Hezbollah (Iran’s proxy group in Lebanon) had also supported Assad militarily but was no longer able to do this after its recent conflict with Israel.
The article says that “the only obvious winner” is Turkey, which backed the rebel coalition that defeated Assad.
Turkish President Erdogan negotiated with Assad to achieve a closer political alliance with Syria. After a rejection, he allowed the HTS-led offensive.
FT argues that it is still uncertain what kind of Middle East would come out of the “conflict and carnage”.
But it said that Syria now faced two possible futures: “The first is the reignition of the civil war… The second is a stabilisation…”
FT calls on countries with influence over HTS — “Turkey and perhaps also Qatar” — to push for the group to respect all religious communities.
The article noted that HTS leader was once linked to ISIS and al-Qaeda but was now modelling himself as a statesman.
Another op-ed in the FT wrote: "The fall of a brutal regime that is aligned to other brutal regimes is a good thing”.
Daily Sabah: one of the most-read Turkish newspapers
Conservative and pro-government
Owned by the son-in-law of the president
Sabah argues that the fall of the Assad regime served the interests of Israel by “diverting global attention from the genocide in Gaza” and damaging “those in the region who have been challenging Israel" (Iran).
This article focuses on the Kurdish groups and their supposed ties with Israel.
The Kurdish people have been fighting for a separate state or greater autonomy within Turkey and in neighbouring countries for over a century.
Some of these groups were part of the Syrian Democratic Forces, which fought against the Assad regime.
The text described the Kurdish groups as Israel’s “main military and political apparatus in Syria” and asked why they were "not subjected to the same level of scrutiny” as the Assad regime had been. However:
Israel has only given limited support to the Kurdish groups. Instead, it conducted airstrikes on some military infrastructure in Syria, including chemical weapons facilities left from Assad’s regime, as well as occupying the buffer zone between Israel and Syria “indefinitely”.
Kurdish groups have not been accused of committing organised war crimes, and none of their actions compare to the atrocities of the Assad regime which included torture of thousands of Syrians.
The article does not directly criticise Assad’s regime, downplaying its wrongdoings as typical for the “monarchies of the region”.
Daily Sabah uses the spelling “Türkiye” instead of “Turkey”. In 2022, the Turkish government “rebranded” the country’s name and requested international diplomats to adopt this change.
[We would like to hear your opinion: should Post factum spell it “Turkey”, “Türkiye” or “Turkiye”? – send us a reply]
In general, this Sabah article reflects how Turkey’s already tense relations with Israel have declined since the war in Gaza began in 2023.
In the rest of this report we take a closer look at the coverage by RT, Russia and its bases in Syria, as well as bringing in a liberal perspective from the Arab world with Al Jazeera's piece.
Then, we give you some post factum:
What did HTS do in power?
How did it go for the Kurds?
and more...
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