In a stunning two-week advance, rebel forces captured the Syrian capital of Damascus and ended the brutal rule of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. After a 13-year civil war that has killed more than 500,000 people — a third of them civilians — and forced half of the Syrian population to flee, many of my fellow compatriots have new hope — and deep fears.
A loose alliance led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham — an offshoot of Al Qaeda that claims it has allegedly become more moderate since severing affiliations with the terrorist group years ago — has swept into the capital from its base in the northwest , largely unchallenged by Assad’s forces. The dictator was abandoned by his weakened allies — Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah — who have been distracted by their own conflicts in Ukraine and with Israel.
Like many Syrians in the country and abroad, I cling to a thin thread of hope amid the whirlwinds of chaos, waiting for positive change to come. After decades of living under the hammer of an oppressive regime, we now find ourselves caught on the anvil of a little-known Islamist group with ties to extremist factions.
Assad’s Syrian army officers cannot offer us a sense of safety. Nor do the victorious rebels with their fiercely Islamist fighters make us confident that life in Syria will soon be free and stable.
Abu Mohammed al-Golani, 42, the leader of HTS, was born in Saudi Arabia to a family of Syrian exiles. He joined al Qaeda in Iraq, fought against US troops following the 2003 US invasion, and spent several years in an American prison there. After his release, he returned to Syria and joined forces with ISIS in trying to topple the Assad regime. He broke with ISIS in 2012 and then with al Qaeda in 2016.
After his forces took control of the northern city of Hama last week, al-Golani pledged that their rebellion would be “a conquest in which there is no revenge, but rather a conquest full of mercy and love.”
There has been understandable joy in the streets of Syrian cities where the hated Assad troops have fled in the face of HTS’s onslaught. But there is also anxiousness: Will HTS arrest people if they don’t obey its orders? Are we just replacing one authoritarian government with another?
I can’t shake the question out of my head: Is this the moment we had been dreaming of 13 years ago when pro-democracy protests kicked off a rebellion against decades of brutal rule under Assad and, before him, his father, Hafez al-Assad?
You only have to watch the videos of the residents in Aleppo this past weekend, showing people so happy at being liberated from the Assad regime and showing hardly a care about what will happen next. There were mothers surprised by a son or daughter who had been released from prison after not knowing for years whether they were still alive.
I feel my heart beating fast. I’m a Syrian in exile like so many others who gave up the dream of ever seeing my country again.
But I am also an independent journalist who has covered the war for the past 13 years and I have very mixed feelings, because the lesson I learned was that the men who carry the weapons on either side have not shown a commitment to freedom or democracy.
I was the editor-in-chief and an on-air host for a popular radio station in Damascus and like many Syrians I joined the pro-democracy protests in 2011. With death threats hanging over me, I was forced to flee as Assad cracked down viciously on the protesters. Along with other Syrian journalists in exile, I helped to set up Radio Rozana, a nonpartisan news organization based in Turkey near the Syrian border.
Focusing on women’s rights and their resistance, we continued to broadcast citizen journalism, interviews, and stories about the Assad regime’s atrocities — and also the oppressive tactics by some of the rebel groups.
We faced attacks from all sides, who did not like our coverage; everyone wanted to lay down their rules and censor our content.
I learned that as independent media, you will never satisfy any armed group or political party. But that’s as it should be: We’re not there for them. We are there for the people of Syria.
I have been asked many times over the past years: Isn’t better for you as Syrians to have Assad rather than ISIS ?
My answer was always the same: There are other options in Syria for Syrians to choose. It must be our choice to make.
And we deserve better.
Lina Chawaf is a Syrian-French journalist with Radio Rozana and currently on a Nieman Foundation Fellowship at Harvard.