Amid the chaos of Syria’s civil war, which has exploded back on to the global stage in the past week, there remains a chilling truth.
While these events are, of course, devastating for millions of Syrians, they also represent profound and alarming dangers to the West – on both domestic and international fronts.
First, I fear that the terrifying rise of Islamist rebels in Syria is a second coming of Islamic State – one that will embolden and radicalise a fresh generation of extremists intent on wreaking terror on our shores.
Second, the destabilisation of President Bashar al-Assad’s Syrian regime is having a broader geopolitical impact – with Russia, Israel and the US all being drawn further into the conflict.
Let us deal with the domestic threat first. Not so long ago we watched as a number of angry, radicalised Muslims – steeped in Isis’s deluded propaganda – waged a campaign of terror in Europe.
Sadistic
Similar violence is now likely to surge again – thanks to Syrian rebels just as sadistic as their maniacal Isis predecessors.
In recent years, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (Arabic for the Levant Liberation Committee and known as HTS) – who seized the Syrian city of Aleppo in a stunning offensive over the weekend – has sought to brand itself as a moderate force. Don’t be fooled. HTS is a renaming of earlier fanatical groups, including local branches of Isis and Al-Qaeda.
Make no mistake, the face of extremism lurks behind its moderate mask – which would soon be discarded in the event of victory.
While these events are, of course, devastating for millions of Syrians, they also represent profound and alarming dangers to the West – on both domestic and international fronts, writes Mark Almond. Pictured: An anti-government fighter tears down a portrait of Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad in Aleppo
First, I fear that the terrifying rise of Islamist rebels in Syria is a second coming of Islamic State – one that will embolden and radicalise a fresh generation of extremists intent on wreaking terror on our shores, writes Mark Almond. Pictured: An anti-government fighter stands on a portrait of Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad
In recent years, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (Arabic for the Levant Liberation Committee and known as HTS) – who seized the Syrian city of Aleppo in a stunning offensive over the weekend – has sought to brand itself as a moderate force, writes Mark Almond
After all, the Taliban, who seized power in Afghanistan after the withdrawal of US troops in 2021, successfully revamped themselves as moderates. It was only days following their takeover, however, before this medieval group started to strip women of their rights – a perverse crusade that continues to this day.
Just three days ago, Afghan women – already banned from education, going out alone and speaking in public – were forced to stop practising as doctors. I predict if HTS continues to advance quickly across Syria, its jihadis, too, will show the world who they really are.
Many ex-Isis terrorists still smart at how the West quashed their evil ‘caliphate’ seven years ago. This time, fighters inspired by their legacy will be all the more determined to succeed.
Worse still, if Assad defeats HTS, it’s likely that newly energised, radicalised jihadists will then head to Europe, claiming to be ‘refugees’ – and bringing their hateful ideology to our shores.
Don’t forget that huge numbers of Syrians marched across the Balkans into western Europe in 2015. Then PM David Cameron and German chancellor Angela Merkel were confident that the West could handle re-settling them.
They ignored the warnings that a sinister proportion of these young men – as many as one in 50, according to one well-informed Lebanese minister – were jihadis sent by Isis and its sympathisers.
Going the other way were radicalised Muslim fanatics travelling to the ‘caliphate’ to fight or to marry its warriors. After its defeat, many returned to the West, with Britain seeing the return of around 400 former fighters – surprisingly few of whom have been prosecuted.
Yes, Isis bride Shamima Begum, now 25, continues to languish in a refugee camp. But Nairobi bomber Samantha Lewthwaite, the so-called White Widow, remains ‘whereabouts unknown’. Today, of the 43,000 people on MI5’s watchlist, 90 per cent are Islamists – many sworn to our destruction.
Amid this kaleidoscope of confusion, we cannot be certain that a new and hideous wave of terrorism won’t soon swamp Europe.
After all, it was only one man, aided by his brother, who detonated the bomb at Manchester Arena at an Ariana Grande concert in 2017. That explosion killed 22 and injured 1,017 – marking the deadliest act of terrorism since the London bombings in July 2005. The perpetrator, Salman Abedi, claimed he was motivated by the deaths of Muslim children after the US-led intervention in Syria.
After all, the Taliban, who seized power in Afghanistan after the withdrawal of US troops in 2021, successfully revamped themselves as moderates, writes Mark Almond
Mark Almond adds: It was only days following their takeover, however, before this medieval group started to strip women of their rights – a perverse crusade that continues to this day
All that is bad enough. But the latest events in Syria also have wider geopolitical ramifications – and they are even less reassuring. Syria, after all, is just one square on the global chessboard – on which countries from Iran to Russia and China, the US and even Ukraine are fighting for dominance.
To Tehran, Syria represents a vital supply route to Hezbollah in Lebanon – all the more crucial now that the fragile truce between the terror group and Israel is on the verge of collapse.
So aware is Iran’s ageing supreme leader Ayatollah Khamenei of the rebels’ risk to his power in the region that he swiftly sent militias to help prop up Assad.
For Israel, a weakened Assad may not seem like a bad prospect on paper. But prime minister Benjamin ‘Bibi’ Netanyahu recognises that the Syrian dictator has at least kept his forces out of the current war in Gaza. Bibi cannot be certain that HTS will show such restraint.
Butchers
Escalating hostilities in the region will force Vladimir Putin to divert troops away from Ukraine to aid the Syrian regime – a historic ally of Moscow since the Cold War, writes Mark Almond
While HTS’s enigmatic leader Abu Mohammed al-Jawlani – designated a terrorist by the US in 2012 – continues to claim that his only goal is ‘freeing Syria’, it is striking that the butchers of Hamas have praised his rebel force.
Israeli intelligence officials are surely right to worry that, should Assad fall, his weapons of mass destruction – from missiles to suspected chemical weapons – would pass into jihadi hands.
Which brings me to Ukraine. Its frozen steppes may seem far from the dusty sands of Syria, but conflicts in the Middle East resonate in other countries. For some time, Kyiv has been assisting the Syrian rebels by teaching them to make cheap drones using 3D printing.
Why? Because their hope is that escalating hostilities in the region will force Vladimir Putin to divert troops away from Ukraine to aid the Syrian regime – a historic ally of Moscow since the Cold War.
However, this could prove to be a miscalculation. Putin does not like being threatened by new enemies – especially now that long-range Western missiles are striking targets deep inside his territory. Kyiv’s power supplies are already decimated and the city is facing blackouts after recent Russian attacks.
Now there is a chance that an increasingly desperate Putin could decide to up the ante. Only yesterday, Russia – whose forces are clinging on in eastern Ukraine – was said to be preparing a fresh assault on the southern city of Kherson.
Ferocious
Finally, it is just 43 days before Donald Trump becomes US President. For all his promises to end the Ukraine war in one day, many observers believe he heralds a fresh era of intervention in the Middle East, writes Mark Almond
Finally, it is just 43 days before Donald Trump becomes US President. For all his promises to end the Ukraine war in one day, many observers believe he heralds a fresh era of intervention in the Middle East.
In contrast to Joe Biden, Trump has already made ferocious threats to Hamas, suggesting that if the group does not release its remaining Israeli hostages, there will be ‘hell to pay’.
How will this ‘hell’ look? So far, Trump has not expanded on the details. But the death of Isis leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi in 2019 at the hands of US forces was hailed as a key victory during his first term.
Operations such as this, which threw the group into disarray, could be replicated again in the quest to destroy Hamas and quash the Iranian regime – to say nothing of his plans for Syria.
The cauldron, then, is roiling with a fury unseen in decades. Unless its fires are cooled, these local conflicts could fast spill beyond their borders. The troubles in Syria are not some distant crisis. Left unchecked, they presage chaos and disaster for all of us.
Mark Almond is director of the Crisis Research Institute in Oxford.
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