8 December 2024 marked the fall of one of the most repressive regimes in the Middle East. After more than fifty years of domination by the al-Assad family and thirteen years of war, power collapsed in Damascus. In its place, the Islamist armed group Hayat Tahrir al-Cham (HTC) imposed itself, placing at its head Ahmed al – Sharaa, a former jihadist fighter who became de facto president. Welcomed with caution, but without open hostility, by several Western capitals, the new leader quickly set about smoothing his image and presenting a vision of rupture for Syria, based on stability, reconstruction and the return of the State.
One year later, however, questions remain. Has the fall of the regime translated into a tangible change for the Syrian population, beyond the political shift? If institutional and diplomatic advances are highlighted by the new power, the reality on the ground remains marked by strong security instability, persistent communal tensions and a still massive humanitarian crisis. Extending the analysis sketched in the article by India Hauteville published in Défis Humanitaires in the aftermath of the fall of Bachar al-Assad, this article offers a critical assessment of this “year after”, by cross-referencing political dynamics, security recompositions and humanitarian stakes.
The political reconstruction runs up against the realities on the ground
More than a year after the fall of Bachar al-Assad, Syria is engaged in a transition that many observers describe as “fragile”, so much do the institutional advances remain exposed to security and communal tensions. The new power, arising from the capture of Damascus by HTC and embodied by the self-proclaimed president Ahmed al-Sharaa, sought to quickly equip itself with political legitimacy. In March 2025, a provisional constitution was thus adopted in order to frame a transition period announced to last about five years. Ahmed al-Sharaa came to power thanks to a transition agreement supported by the United Nations, accompanied by the promise of a gradual return to stability and the organization of free elections at the end of this period.
In the wake of this, a government was formed, judicial and administrative institutions were reactivated and a budding Parliament came into being, mixing indirectly elected officials and personalities appointed by the executive. On the formal level, these reforms mark a break with the hyper-presidentialism of the previous regime. In practice, power remains largely concentrated around a small circle stemming from the former leadership of HTC, which fuels fear of a reproduction of authoritarian practices under a new face.
The legislative elections of 5 October illustrate these limits. They only allowed the election of six women out of the 119 seats filled at this stage. Minorities also appear under-represented: one Christian, three Ismailis, three Alawites, four Kurds, and no Druze. Out of a total of 210 seats, eighteen remain vacant in the constituencies of the north-east and the south, notably in Soueïda where intercommunal tensions persist. Institutional reconstruction thus remains punctuated by challenges and deep discord.
This institutional dynamic was accompanied by a relative improvement in the security situation compared to the most intense years of the war. Massive bombardments have ceased and certain major cities are experiencing a lower level of violence. Behind this official picture, the ground nevertheless remains far from pacified.
Population returns illustrate this ambivalence. According to the United Nations, more than one million refugees and nearly two million internally displaced persons have returned to their areas of origin since December 2024, reflecting both a hope for normalization and a strong aspiration for stability. At the same time, new displacements continue to be recorded with each resumption of fighting. Recently, around Aleppo and in the North-East, the failure to implement the March 2025 agreement between the government and the Kurdish forces of the Syrian Democratic Front (FDS) has led to a resumption of clashes and the flight of hundreds of thousands of civilians.
The Syrian transition is thus being played out on a precarious balance. There are enough elements of stabilization to nourish the idea of an “after-Assad” but persistent violence, vivid identity tensions and a still not very inclusive power are raising the risk of a bogging down of the transition or a shift towards a new phase of crisis.
An active diplomacy to get out of isolation, but under strong constraints
Since his arrival in power, Ahmed al-Sharaa has made diplomacy a central lever to consolidate his political legitimacy, bring Syria out of its international isolation and obtain a easing of the economic sanctions that continue to weigh heavily on the country. Former leader of an Islamist group, he seeks to project the image of a pragmatic leader, concerned with stability and reconstruction.
This strategy has been translated into a series of unprecedented diplomatic initiatives since the fall of the Assad regime. In May 2025, Ahmed al-Sharaa made a visit to Paris, where he was received at the Élysée by Emmanuel Macron. He then delivered a speech at the 80ᵉ General Assembly of the United Nations, on 24 September 2025. In November 2025, he was also invited to Washington, a first for a Syrian leader since the fall of Bachar al-Assad, which marks a possible step towards a normalization of relations with the United States.
In this context, the American authorities extended the suspension of the Caesar Act, a sanctions regime established in 2020 against the former Syrian government and then frozen after a meeting between Ahmed al-Sharaa and American officials in Saudi Arabia in May 2025. This measure is considered crucial for Syria, engaged in a reconstruction process estimated at nearly 216 billion dollars by the World Bank after nearly fifteen years of civil war.
In parallel, the new power seeks to redefine the terms of alliances inherited from the Assad era, notably with Russia. A meeting organized on 15 October 2025 thus aimed to lay the foundations of a renewed cooperation, centered mainly on economic issues and investments, but also on the fate of the Russian bases in Syria — the naval base of Tartous and the air base of Hmeimim — as well as on the question of the rearmament of the Syrian army. As early as the previous spring Moscow had moreover shipped oil, diesel and wheat to Syria.
The issue of the protection of minorities
Indeed, the illusion of a pacified transition quickly ran up against the reality of Syrian fractures, exacerbated by targeted violence against minorities. From the first months of 2025, the Alawites paid a heavy price. In March, massacres on the coast (Lattaquié, Tartous) left more than 1,600 civilian dead, mainly Alawites.
The Druze have also suffered a wave of attacks. At the end of April in Jaramana (suburb of Damascus) about a hundred dead during clashes with the security forces of the new regime, then in July in Soueïda, where a minor incident between a Druze merchant and Bedouins degenerated into a week of armed clashes (11-17 July). Government forces intervened to “restore stability”, imposing a curfew, while Israel struck Syrian positions (15 dead). Amnesty International documents 46 Druze executions (44 men, 2 women) by bullets in public squares, in schools, hospitals, homes; hateful slogans, humiliations (shaving of religious moustaches), looting. These events revealed the inability of the al Sharaa regime to protect minorities or to impose a unified control, leaving room for – tribal and jihadist militias acting as instruments of pressure. Some already speak of “Sunni revenge”. If it does not manage to regain control of this situation, and to protect minorities, it risks plunging Syria again into a cycle of violence.
The Kurdish crisis: the calling into question of the Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (AANES) also called Rojava
But beyond the Alawites and the Druze, it is the Kurdish question that today crystallizes the sharpest tensions of the Syrian transition.
Indeed, the new offensive of Damascus against the Kurds of the North-East has become one of the tipping points of the Syrian transition, at once military, political and humanitarian.
Since 6 January 2026, the Syrian army has been conducting a large-scale offensive against the positions held by the Syrian Democratic Forces (FDS) in the North-East, in the prolongation of the clashes of January in Aleppo (Cheikh Maqsoud district) and of the aborted agreement to integrate the FDS into the national army. Government troops have regained control of large swathes of the provinces of Raqqa and Deir ez-Zor, while the FDS have retreated towards the Kurdish-majority areas of Kobané and the governorate of Hassaké, which they now present as their “red line”.
A unilateral ceasefire was announced by Damascus on 20 January, with the commitment not to enter the city centers of Hassaké and Qamichli nor the Kurdish villages, and a deadline granted to the FDS to present an integration mechanism. The truce was extended by fifteen days on 24 January to allow the transfer of Islamic State (IS) detainees from facilities controlled by the FDS to Iraq, at the initiative of the United States
Al-Sharaa also announced a series of symbolic gestures towards the Kurds, declaring the Kurdish language a “national language”, recognizing the Kurds as a “constituent part of the Syrian people” and promising cultural rights. These announcements contrast brutally with the reality on the ground made up of sieges, electricity and water cuts, blocked roads and forced displacement in Kurdish areas. They are widely perceived as political signals addressed to the international community in order to reassure Western partners.
In parallel with these events, the central power took direct control of ultra-sensitive sites such as the Al-Hol camp, long administered by the Kurds and where there are still several tens of thousands of people linked to IS, including around 6,500 foreigners in a high-security sector. This security shift illustrates a strategy of recentralization of the tools of control of jihadism by Damascus, even as the risks of escapes and of reconstitution of networks remain high.
The offensive and the fighting that preceded it triggered a new wave of massive displacement in the Syrian North-East. The United Nations and the International Organization for Migration estimate that between 170,000 and just over 173,000 people have been displaced since 6 January, essentially in the governorates of Aleppo, Hassaké and Raqqa.
NGOs already report civilian deaths, including children, due to the cold and the lack of heating, while water and electricity infrastructure has been severely affected around Kobané and in several localities of the Djézireh.
On the level of direct human losses (civilian deaths and injuries or Kurdish fighters), the figures remain fragmented and disputed. The main official and UN sources focus on displacement without a consolidated casualty toll, which weakens any attempt at precise quantification. This statistical opacity fuels the concerns of NGOs who evoke summary executions, targeted violence and a risk of “cleansing” or of forced bringing into line of Kurdish communities in several reconquered areas.
Why does Ahmed al-Sharaa choose to reopen a front with the Kurds while the country is economically and politically drained? While at the same time he avoids any direct confrontation with Israel on the Golan issue, yet still occupied?
Several logics overlap. First, the oil stake, the North-East concentrates a large part of the hydrocarbon resources that have until now financed the AANES, and their recovery allows Damascus to consolidate its economic base.
Then, centralization, the new power of al-Sharaa stemming from a transition marked by the victory of an Islamist-nationalist coalition refuses any federal model and seeks to reintegrate Kurdish territories into a unitary state framework, if necessary by force. This will coincides with the interest of the Turkish State which continues to consider the FDS as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party of Turkey (PKK) and supports, directly or indirectly, the objective of preventing any Kurdish autonomy in Syria and of weakening them as much as possible.
In this context, IS prisons and the Al-Hol camp also become political levers: by taking back these facilities, Damascus positions itself both as an indispensable partner in the anti – jihadist fight and as an actor capable of managing a dossier that deeply embarrasses Western powers. The United States, which is reducing its military footprint and pushing for the transfers of detainees to Iraq, seems to accept de facto this recentralization at the price of a partial abandonment of their former Kurdish allies. Indeed, Tom Barrack (the local representative of the Trump administration) judges the Kurdish mission against Daesh to be “largely obsolete” and reduces his engagement.
While the fighting continued in fits and starts and the truce was nearing expiry, an agreement was finally announced this Friday 30 January between the government of Ahmed al-Sharaa and the leaders of the FDS. This provides, on paper, for the progressive integration of Kurdish forces into the Syrian national army, the administrative reintegration of the North-East into the structures of the State and the recognition of certain rights to the Kurds in exchange for the end of any claim to formal political autonomy.
In practice, this arrangement enshrines the victory of the center in Damascus over the Rojava project in a Syrian federal State, since it transforms actors until now quasi-sovereign into subordinate partners, without clear constitutional guarantees nor robust protection mechanisms for Kurdish and Arab populations who lived under the AANES.
The Kurds nonetheless obtained notable advances compared to earlier versions. The agreement consecrates their national, civil and educational rights, as well as the effective return of all displaced persons to their areas of origin. Also, they acquire the post of governor for the province of Hassaké, accompanied by their own military division of three brigades, while the Kurdish police retains control over internal security of their territories and command posts within the Syrian army are reserved for them.
The real scope of this agreement nevertheless remains uncertain. Its implementation will depend on Damascus’s capacity to keep its symbolic promises and to avoid a logic of security revenge in the reconquered areas, but also on the room for maneuver that Kurdish elites will retain to weigh in the writing of the new institutional architecture. In the short term, the agreement could reduce the intensity of open fighting and reassure certain foreign partners anxious to see a single interlocutor take back the management of IS prisons and of the Al-Hol camp. In the medium term, it carries an obvious risk: that of transforming the “normalization” of the North-East into authoritarian bringing into line, feeding new Kurdish resentments which would come to durably weaken the Syrian transition.
A persistent humanitarian crisis
Behind the political and security recompositions, the daily reality of civilians remains marked by precariousness and insecurity.
One year after the fall of Bachar el-Assad, the hope raised by the opening of a new political sequence has not translated into a significant improvement in the humanitarian situation for a large part of the Syrian population. According to several humanitarian organizations present on the ground, the crisis remains massive, structural and largely under-funded.
To analyze these challenges, this article relies notably on the testimony of Solidarités International, through the interview of Thomas Janny, Middle East regional director of the NGO. He recalls that:
“ The fall of Bachar el-Assad was perceived by many as a liberation, with a legitimate hope after decades of dictatorship. But from a humanitarian point of view, the crisis is not over. Even if Syria rises politically and economically it is not guaranteed that everything will happen without bumps. ”
Despite the change of power, humanitarian needs remain extremely high, notably “in terms of access to food, health care, water and electricity. ” explains Thomas Janny.
The United Nations figures confirm this critical situation: according to the UN 16.5 million people in Syria still need humanitarian aid in 2025 out of more than 26 million inhabitants, more than 90 % of Syrians live today below the poverty line. Several million still depend on assistance to cover their most basic needs.
This reality contrasts with certain signs of recovery observed in large cities repaired roads, rebuilt buildings, gradual return of electricity up to 20 hours per day advances unprecedented for nearly ten years but which remain minimal advances and very unevenly distributed across the territory.
The hope of normalization was accompanied by movements of return, both of internally displaced persons and refugees, notably from Turkey and Lebanon. However, these returns remain largely fragile and not durable. As Thomas Janny underlines:
“ We saw populations return home, then come back to the camps because there was nothing left: no water, no electricity, little access to health, education or an economic activity. ”
Beyond chronic needs, humanitarian organizations alert to a high potential for new shocks likely to slow any trajectory towards resilience. Thomas Janny identifies several risk factors:
“ There is a potential for new shocks, which can create new needs and prevent the path towards resilience. This includes the question of minorities, interconfessional tensions, but also natural disasters, health risks — like the return of cholera epidemics — and more broadly the effects of climate change and water scarcity. ”
These risks do not belong to a hypothetical scenario. Localized violence, notably in Alawite coastal areas, has already -caused several hundred deaths in a few weeks. The resumption of clashes in the north-east, after the failure to implement the March 2025 agreement between the transition government and the Kurdish forces has led to the flight of hundreds of thousands of civilians. To these dynamics are added persistent health threats, in a country where health infrastructures remain extremely fragile.
In this context, the capacity to respond of humanitarian actors is strongly limited by the fall in funding. According to the UN tracking of the coordinated humanitarian response plan for 2025, needs amount to 3.19 billion dollars, but only 1.10 billion have been covered, that is 34.6 %, leaving 65.4 % of needs unfunded (2.09 billion dollars).
FTS (UNOCHA), tracking of funding of coordinated humanitarian plans for Syria 2026
In total, the declared funding for Syria according to the Financial Tracking Service (OCHA) 2025 reaches 2.46 billion dollars, of which 45.2 % recorded within the framework of the coordinated plan and 54.8 % outside, illustrating the fragmentation of flows and the difficulty of covering in a coherent manner the whole of humanitarian priorities.
The fall of the regime nevertheless translated into a concrete evolution of humanitarian access. For the first time in years, international NGOs were again able to circulate across the whole Syrian territory including in areas long forbidden to expatriates.
“ In May last, we were able to reach Damascus then go up to the Turkish border via the north-west which was unthinkable before ”, testifies Thomas Janny.
Solidarités International, now present from Damascus and active in the north-east (Hasakah, Raqqa), the north-west and in Aleppo, employs more than 300 national staff. However, this improvement in access remains fragile.
Faced with these challenges, humanitarian organizations plead for the maintenance of an emergency response capacity, while accompanying early recovery and resilience actions. Solidarités International thus structures its action around three axes: response to emergencies (displacements, health crises, winter conditions), durable access to dignified basic services for long-term displaced populations, and resilience projects, notably the rehabilitation of markets and essential infrastructures.
In this still unstable context, diplomatic hope remains, as testified by the announcement of European support during the visit to Damascus of Ursula von der Leyen and Antonio Costa, on 9 January 2026. The European Union committed to mobilize 620 million euros over the period 2026-2027 in favor of humanitarian aid and early recovery, a support however explicitly conditioned on advances in terms of stability and governance.
But, as Thomas Janny indicates, we must keep in mind that this transition remains extremely fragile:
“ It can have today a temptation to shift too quickly towards development, while millions of people remain in camps and new needs can arise at any moment. ”
Perspectives
Thus, Syria still has a long way to go to rebuild itself, but above all to create a real rule of law. The future remains uncertain and many questions remain:
Will the current transition make it possible to truly integrate minorities, protect the Kurds of the North-East and avoid new cycles of targeted violence? Will the power of Ahmed al-Sharaa accept to share authority, limit centralization and guarantee effective rights, beyond mere symbolic gestures? Will the international community maintain its humanitarian and financial commitments while needs remain massive and donor fatigue sets in?
What will happen for the thousands of former fighters of the Islamic State (Daesh) and their families locked up for years in camps and prisons: will they be tried, transferred, released, or will they continue to live in a legal no man’s land, with the risk of new escapes and a jihadist resurgence? Can the transfer of these sites under direct control of Damascus really strengthen security, while detention conditions remain uncertain and countries of origin do not wish the repatriation of their nationals but their trial by courts where they may have committed crimes?
In Kobané, Qamichli, Hassaké and Amouda, will Kurdish populations and the FDS see their advances (cultural rights, internal security) respected, or is the worst still to be feared with residual attacks, new displacements and a gradual erosion of their autonomy?
In this context, more than ever, Syria’s future will depend on courageous political choices, a durable international engagement and the country’s capacity to transform this fragile transition into real and inclusive peace.
Lorine Çakar.