The Shattered Lion: How Syria’s Revolution Finally Toppled Assad

If you are among the believers in conspiracy theories, handovers, or shady deals, you need not continue reading. This was a grueling struggle that lasted thirteen years, accompanied by hundreds of thousands of deaths and unprecedented social, economic, and military destruction.

The Assad regime fell on December 8, 2024, after a lightning offensive by revolutionary factions that seized Aleppo, then expanded through Hama and Homs until reaching Damascus.

The attack shocked everyone — even the Turks, accused of supporting the factions, whose confused statements and calls to stop the offensive revealed their surprise. Regional and global powers stood helpless due to the extraordinary timing:

• Turkey had been practically begging Assad for reconciliation just days before the attack (Nov 27, 2024), seeking solutions for the PKK separatist issue and the five million Syrian refugees.
• Iran suffered a crushing Israeli strike against Hezbollah, Assad’s strongest ground force, making the collapse of his defenses inevitable. Attempts to mobilize Iraq’s Popular Mobilization Forces failed, as Prime Minister Sudani prevented their involvement.
• Russia, drained by the war in Ukraine, withdrew most of its Syrian forces, leaving the remainder incapable of providing effective air cover.
• The United States, in a transitional phase of power transfer, was unable to take decisive action. Syria was already considered a secondary file, as President-elect Trump recently stated.
• Israel, exhausted by wars in Gaza and Lebanon, saw Syria’s conflict as beneficial, draining the so-called “Axis of Resistance.”

Ironically, Arab and global intelligence agencies failed to anticipate the offensive, despite clear signals: Abu Muhammad al-Jolani’s declaration a year earlier of his intent to seize Aleppo, intensified recruitment and training by HTS and other factions, the assassination of Hassan Nasrallah, and leaks from factional accounts in Idlib about an imminent major operation.

No one can fully grasp the speed of Assad’s collapse, but decisive factors can be identified:

• The revolution was cumulative, delivering wave after wave of blows since 2011. Without Iranian, Russian, and ISIS intervention, Assad would have fallen in 2013.
• U.S. Caesar sanctions and the loss of major oil fields plunged Assad’s base into poverty, eroding morale among his fighters.
• Israel’s dismantling of Hezbollah neutralized Assad’s most effective ground force.
• Iran was drained by its confrontation with Israel, while Russia was consumed in Ukraine.

The sweeping success achieved by Ahmad al-Sharaa and his faction forced the West to reconsider, preparing to remove them from terrorism lists and gradually accepting the idea that they represent Syria’s next authority — or at least its backbone.

• The so-called external opposition — interim government, coalition, constitutional committees — evaporated from all negotiations.
• Europe, desperate to stem refugee flows, halted automatic asylum procedures in Austria, Germany, and Belgium the day Assad fell.
• The world, already facing hotter conflicts that could spark a third world war, turned its eyes elsewhere, especially with Trump’s return.

Today, hundreds of urgent files face the revolutionary authority led by Ahmad al-Sharaa. The most pressing include:

• The PKK-controlled regions (SDF): liberating them from security grip, reclaiming oil, gas, and fertile lands, and ensuring full territorial control to block separatism.
• The Eighth Corps in Daraa, led by Ahmad al-Awda and backed by the UAE, which could act as a Trojan horse. Al-Sharaa and al-Awda met yesterday to discuss restoring Daraa, Suwayda, and Quneitra under revolutionary authority.
• Imposing security nationwide and swiftly pursuing war criminals inside and outside Syria, paving the way for transitional justice.

Moumin Sawady

P.S

I published this report this day last year.

It turns out that the eight's corps wasn't that big of an obstacle.

Instead Syria faced sectarian violence started in the coastal region by Assad's remnants, and south in Suwayda started by Druze spiritual leader Hikmat al Hajri, supported by Israel, and yet to face the merge of SDF and Ceaser sanctions removal.