In the early hours of Dec. 8, a cold, rainy morning in Syria, thousands of soldiers wandered aimlessly along the roads, heading nowhere, their wet rifles in hand. Their exhausted faces revealed that many hadn’t had food or water for days. Their feet were blistered from marching in heavy military boots.
Thousands stood by the roadside, signaling to the few passing cars, hoping for a ride that might take them closer to their distant homes. It was dawn, and some vegetable truck drivers took advantage of the situation, demanding exorbitant sums from the soldiers to transport them just a few miles. But their pockets were empty. The last salary they had received barely exceeded the equivalent of $20.
On both sides of the road, hundreds of military vehicles lay abandoned, burning or destroyed: old Czech artillery trucks, Russian World War II–era tanks, UAZ military vehicles and Land Rovers — all scorched and charred. That morning, the air bore no scent of gunpowder; the rifles had run out of bullets, though the echoes of explosions still rumbled in the distance. Soldiers who hadn’t bathed in weeks, now soaked under a gray, rainy sky, marched on for hours. Some slept on the roadside, some sought whatever shelter they could find. No doubt, in those fleeting hours of slumber, their dreams revolved around a warm cup of tea shared with their families.
These are not scenes from “Saving Private Ryan.” They are but a glimpse of the final hours of the Syrian Arab Army, more than 75 years after its founding and 54 years after Hafez al-Assad assumed power in Syria, to be followed by his son, Bashar. While the elder Assad may have left behind an army that enemies saw as a worthy opponent — one that, at the start of the Syrian conflict, numbered around half a million conscripts and volunteers equipped with relatively strong armaments — his son spent a decade and a half grinding it down into worthless scrap.
This is an army that once fought external wars: against the Zionists in the occupied Golan Heights, against “Lebanese reactionaries” and Israel in Lebanon, and in Kuwait after its invasion by its notorious Iraqi neighbor, Saddam Hussein. But later, it found itself fighting on hundreds of internal fronts — against “terrorists,” both those who deserved the moniker and those who didn’t, whether the Islamic State group, the Nusra Front or the many other factions and militias that mushroomed across Syria.
To sketch a fuller picture: The army was accompanied by sectarian militias that fought alongside it, hailing from Iran, Iraq, Lebanon, Pakistan and Afghanistan. To be yet clearer: A significant portion of this army’s operations targeted Syrian civilians, turning their towns and villages into desolate ruins. Those who survived were scattered across the world.
Such scenes evoke memories of the collapse of the Iraqi, Libyan and Yemeni armies, each of which had a common denominator: They were forged through military coups and the rule of the “Father Leader.” They were ultimately undone, to a large extent, in the chaotic aftermath of the Arab Spring. Eroded by internal strife and external pressures, they lost their national compass, becoming mere factions in carefully engineered internal conflicts.
This demise of what was once one of the Middle East’s most powerful armies compels us to examine the causes and circumstances that led to its collapse. Was the Syrian army the victim of unwise political and military decisions that forced it into battles it should never have fought within its own borders? Did the political and military leadership fail to foresee Syria’s future, instead tying the country’s fate to an individual and a regime detached from reality?
Military commanders and politicians never truly align. The overnight dissolution of an army once numbering in the hundreds of thousands cannot be attributed to politics alone — there are many other factors that need to be addressed. And before Syrians themselves regret yet another attempt by their new regime to build a “lean” military, we must ask some pressing questions about the composition of this new military and the question marks surrounding it.
The German sociologist Max Weber argued that the military is one of the fundamental pillars of the state. It serves as the protector of territory and people against potential enemies and is the (legally) legitimate force to uphold public order. For many Syrians, though, this conception of the military as a central institution in state-building ceased to apply after the onset of the Syrian conflict in 2011. They no longer saw the Syrian Arab Army — its official name — as a force for stability in the country; instead, they viewed it as one of the primary drivers of the conflict, contrary to Weber’s reasoning.
Syrians’ disillusionment with their military was evident in several ways, most notably in the widespread objections to and dodging of compulsory military service, which formed the backbone of the army’s manpower. This occurred in all ethnic and religious communities. Although long accused of being a sectarian regime dominated by the Alawite minority, more than 30,000 young Alawite men in Syria’s coastal regions had evaded conscription in Assad’s military by the time the regime fell in Damascus.
Despite relentless efforts by the security forces to arrest young men at checkpoints set up along highways and city entrances, and even in the side streets of cities and towns, many conscripts still managed to desert their units. This pattern was not unique to the coastal areas but occurred across various regions of Syria, including those outside the control of Damascus in the early stages of the conflict.
In the years following the outbreak of war, the language used to refer to the Syrian army in both public and private discourse also shifted. Terms like “the regime’s army” and “Assad’s forces” became more commonplace, not only among opposition groups and their supporters but also among regime loyalists who disapproved of the army’s role in the country’s deep political crisis — a crisis that was further complicated and steered by regional powers.
This shift in language and perception reflected a profound transformation in Syrians’ understanding of their national identity and the legitimacy of their state. It stemmed from the deep rupture that occurred in 2011, when the army’s leadership chose to side with Assad rather than making the courageous decision to remain neutral or stand with the protesters. Some military leaders did oppose the deployment of the army in internal strife, including former Defense Minister Ali Habib, who was dismissed in the second year of the crisis and placed under house arrest until his death in 2020.
Despite undergoing profound changes and the rise of several militias using its name, the Syrian Arab Army has a long history of national service that helps to explain its ultimate fate.
The Syrian army was founded in 1945 from the remnants of the Army of the Levant, which France had created during its colonial-era mandate in Syria and Lebanon. This force was largely composed of ethnic and religious minorities, with Alawites primarily serving as foot soldiers and the officer corps drawn from the Kurdish, Circassian and Sunni Arab communities.
Shortly after independence in 1946, the army began playing an increasingly political role, as seen in the three military coups in 1949 alone. The first coup, led by Husni al-Zaim — of Kurdish descent — was the first of its kind in the post-World War II Middle East. In 1963, the Baath Party (founded in 1947) seized power in Syria in another military coup, and from that point on, the army and the party became the twin pillars of the ruling regime.
After the elder Assad, an air force officer, rose to power in a 1970 coup against his former allies, the sectarian composition of the army began to shift slowly but decisively. The Alawite sect, to which Assad belonged, gradually came to dominate the senior ranks of both the military and security institutions. This sectarian transformation produced a military that was more loyal to the regime but also deepened internal divisions, as exemplified by the army’s standoff against the Muslim Brotherhood in Hama in the early 1980s.
Following Syria’s defeat in the 1967 Six-Day War and its loss of the Golan Heights to Israel, Assad shifted focus toward achieving strategic parity with the latter. He poured the nation’s resources into strengthening the military, particularly its air defense and ballistic missile capabilities. Despite receiving large quantities of Soviet military aid and weaponry, Syria failed to reclaim the Golan Heights, and tensions with Israel persisted for decades. The army suffered from a lack of modernization, with many of its military vehicles dating back to the 1950s. After the Cold War ended, Russian military support declined, causing Syria’s global military ranking to drop.
As it entered the 21st century, Syria became increasingly reliant on Iranian and North Korean support. Without Iranian assistance, which began in 2004 and expanded thereafter, Syria’s defense-related manufacturing would have ceased to operate. The absence of Arab or international support for Syria’s arms production may explain its growing dependence on Iran, right up until the regime’s collapse.
In the first decade of Bashar al-Assad’s rule, the Syrian army underwent several structural changes in reconnaissance, surveillance and advanced weapons systems, all of which remained classified. This secrecy was a deliberate tactic of Assad’s, aimed at creating the illusion of military strength.
Until its collapse, the Syrian army remained the only internationally recognized force in Syria and retained its status as the official state army. While the regime it upheld faced heavy criticism, the army itself was an integral part of the state’s infrastructure. This highlighted the contradiction between its traditional national identity and the transformations it underwent during the conflict. Until 2011, the Syrian army had been a symbol of national unity, bringing together various ethnic and sectarian communities through compulsory service. It had been responsible for protecting Syria’s borders and countering external threats, and had been a key player in maintaining security and stability in the country. Whereas, under Hafez al-Assad, the officer corps had come to predominantly comprise Alawites — Syria’s second-largest religious community — under Bashar, the proportion of officers from the Sunni majority increased, reflecting shifting dynamics within the army’s structure.
With the emergence of multiple armed factions after the outbreak of conflict in 2011, many of them overtly sectarian and supported by regional and international powers, Syria’s military landscape became increasingly complex. The army retained its position as the official force attempting to maintain public order, while the factions were clearly aligned with external interests — though they consistently claimed to have formed in response to the regime’s repression of the people, a claim that was largely true.
Amid these challenges, internal and external, the Syrian army continued to serve as the state’s first line of defense, particularly as Israeli attacks intensified after 2011. This defensive role gave credibility to the army’s continued link to the state, even as it faced widespread condemnation for its brutal suppression of the armed opposition — a strategy heavily influenced by Russia’s approach in Chechnya (including the use of barrel bombs in civilian areas).
After the regime’s collapse, drone footage emerged capturing harrowing scenes of Syrian cities devastated by the army. In many cases, the military accused armed factions of entering these cities and using civilians as human shields, forcing the army to strike them repeatedly. Most Syrians reject this narrative, arguing that the destruction of Hama in 1982 should have been a lesson that such tactics must never be repeated — a lesson, they say, that was never learned.
In extensive interviews with New Lines, a Syrian officer of senior rank, whose name has been withheld at his request, recounted the events of the last 12 days of the Syrian Arab Army, from Nov. 27 until the collapse of the regime on Dec. 8. The officer, an Alawite, had worked in the joint operations command for Aleppo, which included Syrian army commanders as well as Russian and Iranian military advisers. Today, he resides outside the country, awaiting “reconciliation” with the new administration.
The officer began by stating that his unit had confirmed intelligence of an imminent opposition attack on Aleppo, expected to take place between November and December and to last for at least six months. “We knew the opposition had acquired Ukrainian drones and was preparing for an assault at a high level of coordination,” he said. “It was based on this intelligence that a joint command was established in Aleppo. The only disagreement was over the exact date and the axis from which the attack would be launched. All army units and security branches in Aleppo were placed on high alert.”
The officer said that each security agency had a different assessment of where the attack would come from. “They confused us. Each branch insisted on a different axis and direction — except for the Military Intelligence Directorate, which had concentrated all its efforts on the axis of the actual attack. This was around 10 days before the assault.” He added: “The army was exhausted from the high alertness before the attack. Soldiers and officers had spent an entire week on edge, hungry and sleep-deprived.”
What the Syrian forces on the ground were unaware of, but the leadership knew, was that the small team of Russian advisers in the operations command had already planned to withdraw from the city. This decision was made under direct orders from Gen. Sergei Kisel, the commander of Russian forces in Syria.
Similarly, Iranian leadership within the security zone had begun evacuating their headquarters and moving vehicles out of their compound as early as Nov. 20, according to multiple accounts from soldiers stationed there in the final hours. The main reason was that Israeli airstrikes had repeatedly targeted Iranian positions in Aleppo, killing several Iranian advisers, including in a strike on a weapons depot in al-Safira.
The Russian and Iranian withdrawal was further hastened after a four-man rebel unit, including a Chechen fighter, managed to infiltrate the officers’ residential complex adjacent to the operations room and the security committee headquarters in Aleppo on the night of Nov. 27. They killed two Syrian officers and eight noncommissioned officers, wounded another and injured a Lebanese commander. The officer recounted that three of the attackers were killed and that he narrowly escaped in what he described as a “highly sophisticated breach at the heart of the regime’s fortifications.”
At 7:23 a.m. on Nov. 27, Turkey informed the Russians that the attack on Aleppo would begin within half an hour. The Russians took another 30 minutes before passing this information on to the Syrian command. Russian field commanders executed an emergency evacuation from Aleppo, gathering all documents and withdrawing to Kuweires Air Base with extreme haste.
On Dec. 2, Russia announced the dismissal of Kisel from his position. This decision was less a response to the armed factions overrunning Aleppo than an attempt to placate Assad loyalists by shifting blame onto the Russian commander, citing his delayed communication with the Syrian side. The Russian air force did not participate in the counteroffensive to repel the rebel operation in any capacity.
On Nov. 28, the Syrian army’s General Command in Damascus issued orders placing all units on high combat alert, according to a classified military document obtained by Reuters from an Air Force Intelligence office in Damascus. A second document from the same office, dated the same day, accused security personnel of laxity at guard posts across the country, citing an incident in which a small opposition force had overrun a checkpoint in Daraa, in southern Syria. The document warned that severe punishment awaited any officers who failed to engage in battle.
On Nov. 28 and 29, a secret meeting was held at the operations headquarters of the 25th Division at Kuweires Air Base, bringing together senior officers of the Syrian army, commanders of combat divisions and leaders of Russian and Iranian forces. Among those present were the Syrian chief of staff and Kisel, along with the highest-ranking Iranian officer in Syria and Maj. Gen. Saleh al-Abdullah, commander of the 25th Division, who is nicknamed “al-Sabaa” (“the Beast”). Entry was restricted to those deemed “trusted,” according to the officer who recounted these events, though he did not specify any names. Al-Abdullah, hailing from al-Safita, in Tartus province, would soon become a defining figure in the events leading up to the fall of Hama, Homs and, finally, Damascus.
On Nov. 29, Kioumars Pourhashemi, the commander of Iran’s military advisers in Syria, was killed in unclear circumstances. The Syrian opposition claimed he was assassinated inside a command center in Aleppo, while Iran reported that he died in clashes with opposition forces in rural western Aleppo. A Turkish journalist alleged that Pourhashemi was assassinated by an Alawite Syrian officer amid tensions in the war room, following pressure from Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps commanders. For his part, my source affirmed that Pourhashemi was killed in an opposition-led operation west of Aleppo.
Attention soon turned to the 25th Division, which served as the backbone of Aleppo’s rear defense lines, spanning vast areas between Aleppo and Idlib with a force of 11,000 soldiers and officers under the command of al-Abdullah. The latter was appointed to the role through a decree issued by Talal Makhlouf, the commander of the Republican Guard.
Makhlouf, who played a key role in military appointments, ordered the transfer of Maj. Gen. Suhail al-Hassan — the original founder of the 25th Division — to command the Special Forces, which consisted of only 1,500 fighters. Many officers saw this as effectively sidelining al-Hassan, a figure who had risen to prominence over several years leading the Idlib front and who was nicknamed “the Tiger.” The personal rivalry between the two senior officers, al-Abdullah and al-Hassan, had already reached a fever pitch, with both vying for command over military operations in Aleppo. During a high-level meeting in mid-September attended by Russian and Iranian officials in the Hama command center, al-Hassan was deliberately excluded, despite the presence of several lower-ranking and less influential officers. Contrary to expectations, the Russians backed al-Abdullah over al-Hassan, despite their previous support for the latter.
As a result, al-Abdullah assumed command of Aleppo’s rear defense lines, while al-Hassan was effectively removed from the equation — a shift that would later shape the course of battles in Hama.
Although al-Hassan did not openly object to the orders from Damascus, he chose to remain silent. His rival, al-Abdullah, had grown in influence over time, succeeding a year earlier in separating the elite combined forces of the 30th Division from the Republican Guard. This decision caused a deep rift within the military leadership on the Aleppo front, and instead of cooperation, factional divisions began to take hold.
Al-Abdullah deployed three regiments across the regions of Aleppo and Idlib, including elite combat units under his direct command. In public gatherings, he boasted of his ability to restore positions and defenses in the event of an enemy attack. However, according to my source, these claims were empty, as he lacked real operational control. Within two months of taking over the 30th Division, the force had shrunk to one-third of its original size, dropping from over 30,000 troops to just 11,000. Most of the remaining units consisted of paramilitary groups, including al-Tarmah from Qamhana (a pro-regime militia composed of Shiite converts), al-Fuhud (a mixed civilian force from Hama) and al-Haydarat, from Homs, among others.
In the two months following the regime’s receipt of intelligence reports of a major (and imminent) opposition offensive on Aleppo, no additional forces were mobilized, no fortifications or defensive positions were constructed and no new fire support lines were established. According to the senior officer I spoke to, the preparation that took place was “all talk and no action.” And while the fortified positions facing Idlib were well supplied and reinforced, they were severely understaffed.
On the morning of Nov. 27, another four-man special operations squad managed to infiltrate Tel al-Zaytoun, a strategic military hill in the Qubtan al-Jabal area. This position was under the control of the 57th and 69th Battalions of the 47th Regiment, part of the 30th Division. The officer recounted that the four rebel fighters, disguised in Syrian army gear, reached the position without encountering any security measures. They approached the guard post and simply asked for water. This account was corroborated by the commander of the faction they belonged to — a Lebanese national affiliated with the Local Defense Forces. In a sudden move, the four fighters killed the personnel at the post. According to the officer, the hill was manned by “friendly forces” affiliated with Iranian-backed militias from Nubl and al-Zahraa, not by the Syrian army itself.
The loss of Tel al-Zaytoun triggered widespread rumors of a full-scale opposition offensive. Its fall coincided with a heavy deployment of so-called “Shaheen” (“Falcon”) drones, causing panic among regime troops, many of whom abandoned their positions and retreated. The breakdown of military leadership further contributed to the collapse, as soldiers were left without commanding officers. The abandoned front lines stretched over 40 miles.
The officer explained that the lack of manpower was a key factor in the army’s failure. A proposal was submitted to Damascus to reinforce troops by offering amnesty to deserters and draft-evaders from Aleppo and its countryside. However, army chief Abdel Karim Mahmoud and the chief of staff rejected the proposal. At the same time, new conscripts were barred from deployment to frontline positions until six months after completing their combat training.
On the morning of Nov. 27, as Turkey informed Russian forces of the imminent offensive, Tel al-Zaytoun had already fallen, exposing vast stretches of the western Aleppo front to opposition forces and their drones, which quickly began striking the beleaguered soldiers — men who had spent two months awaiting the arrival of their enemies.
The collapse intensified as rumors spread, rebel forces flanked rear positions and attacks came from both the front and rear, causing further confusion and prompting mass withdrawals toward safer positions. This led to one of the most catastrophic military scenes in the history of the Syrian army: Hundreds, even thousands, of armed soldiers fled, chased by an invisible ground force and an overwhelming drone presence overhead. No one could tally the human losses or the number of positions abandoned in this cascade. By midday, the first major breach occurred, with the fall of the 47th Regiment, followed by the 102nd Regiment (around 1,000 troops). The opposition then shifted tactics, prioritizing encirclement from the rear rather than frontal assaults, effectively trapping Syrian army units.
The scenes bore a striking resemblance to the defeat of June 1967.
The attacking opposition forces did not need much time to cross into western Aleppo from the points where they had amassed in rural eastern Idlib. Operation Deterrence of Aggression began at dawn on Wednesday, Nov. 27. By Friday evening, just two days later, the rebels had entered Aleppo. According to multiple sources, around 1,000 fighters entered the city’s western sector.
None of the security branches or army units stationed in Aleppo evacuated their positions. At this point, the city was declared to have fallen and, as usual, the media played a central role in amplifying the narrative that Aleppo had been completely overrun, including dramatic footage of rebel fighters reaching the Aleppo Citadel.
Between 10 p.m. on Nov. 28 and 4 a.m. on Nov. 29, Syria’s second-largest city fell with little resistance. Later on Nov. 29, at Kuweires Air Base, east of Aleppo, more than 6,000 Syrian army troops — along with division and brigade commanders as well as Russian generals — awaited orders to establish a new defensive line to protect what remained of Aleppo’s countryside. The order to deploy was eventually received, but the soldiers scattered due to the absence of their commanding officer and the breakdown of communication. That commanding officer was al-Abdullah, who was nowhere to be seen.
Following the fall of Aleppo, military and political analysis flooded in, with some suggesting that Aleppo was deliberately handed over — or even “sold” — by the army’s leadership. Many civilians in Aleppo circulated this rumor, as they had seen no clear signs of fighting within the city limits.
Days after the fall of Aleppo, the Syrian army laid down its arms across multiple regions in the early morning hours of Dec. 8. This came after a moderate-sized offensive by 20,000 to 30,000 fighters from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and allied factions, advancing along a wide front from Idlib to Hama, Homs and Damascus, against no fewer than 60,000 Syrian army troops.
The opposition claimed its use of drones, developed over the preceding years, played a decisive role in neutralizing Syrian forces and securing victory. However, the reality is far more complex and warrants careful analysis.
The main opposition convoy advancing southward from Idlib — the rebels’ stronghold in northwestern Syria — toward Hama should have been highly vulnerable to concentrated artillery fire from the surrounding mountain ranges. The Syrian army’s fortified positions overlooking the al-Ghab Plain had a clear line of sight and the capability to destroy any moving convoy in the area, even without air support.
Fierce battles led by al-Hassan erupted around Qamhana, a town in Hama province, but they failed to halt the opposition’s advance, especially under the devastating impact of drone attacks. As one senior officer put it, “The drones burned us down.”
Similarly, the opposition column heading toward Damascus — the capital and the regime’s center of gravity — could have been neutralized from the Qalamoun Mountains, or at the very least delayed for hours, buying time for a counteroffensive by the army and Lebanese Hezbollah militias, which had been entrenched in the area for years. The same applied to northern Latakia, where the front lines with opposition forces had remained static for years, without significant territorial gains.
Yet the collapse did not stop there. When Syrian government forces withdrew from Idlib and the western Aleppo countryside, they regrouped around Hama Military Airport, amassing over 30,000 troops and outnumbering the opposition fighters advancing from Idlib.
A first lieutenant who retreated with 15 soldiers from the 47th Regiment headquarters in rural Idlib to al-Suqaylabiyah in the Hama countryside described the situation as follows: “The opposition claimed their drones, especially the small Shaheen drones, gave them the upper hand in reaching Hama. But in reality, we were shooting them down with Kalashnikovs.”
Reports from other Syrian officers suggested that British and French forces had assisted the opposition by jamming the Syrian army’s communications network, which, according to multiple sources, had been compromised for at least a week.
Near Hama, some officers reported a breach in the already-deteriorating Syrian army communications system. Several commanders received direct orders to withdraw, while al-Hassan was instructed to hold his ground and continue fighting.
According to soldiers on the ground, this contradiction in orders led to a brief skirmish between Syrian army battalions, which was quickly de-escalated after urgent communications. Several officers and soldiers pointed to the Syrian General Staff, specifically Defense Minister and Chief of Staff Maj. Gen. Ali Abbas, as the source of the conflicting directives.
On Dec. 8, opposition forces entered the vicinity of the 101st Brigade in the Damascus countryside, overlooking the Republican Palace. An Alawite Syrian army soldier from Tartus told New Lines what happened:
I finished my second guard shift at 2:30 a.m. It was freezing. I went to my room to sleep. I didn’t care who was coming after me — that was their responsibility, not mine. At 6 a.m., I was woken up by an armed, bearded man. Without introduction, he asked me about Bashar al-Assad. At first, I didn’t understand the question, but I cursed Bashar, his family and his regime. The fighter laughed and told me that Bashar al-Assad had fled the country. Then he asked if I wanted to work with them. I said yes.
He continued: “Minutes later, I was on the back of his motorcycle, carrying my rifle as we rode through the streets of Damascus and then to Homs. When we reached Homs, the man gave me food and money and said, word for word: ‘Go home, go to your family.’ I arrived in Tartus at 10 a.m. That fighter was from Idlib.”
The soldier added that his brigade’s leadership remained in their offices until the evening, on high alert, but he had no idea what had happened during his shift or while he was asleep. When he woke up, all the officers and soldiers had disappeared.
Iranian advisers had left the soldier’s brigade by the end of spring. From that point on, chaos steadily increased. “Anyone who took leave never came back. Our numbers, which had been around a thousand, had dropped to less than half by September — including officers who left and never returned. This brigade was part of the Republican Guard, once considered one of the Syrian army’s elite forces,” he said.
Similarly, Firas, a soldier who had spent more than seven years deployed as a conscript on the northern Latakia front, described the evening of Dec. 8 as follows: “Everything seemed normal — except there were no longer any Hezbollah fighters. They had left after Israel escalated its attacks on Lebanon last September. But that didn’t change anything along the front lines with the opposition factions.”
The collapse of the Syrian army is not merely a military event; it marks the disintegration of the state itself. As the saying goes: “Armies are the backbones of nations — when they collapse, the state collapses with them.” Without a national army, Syria has lost its sovereignty, becoming an open battlefield for foreign interventions. The abolition of compulsory military service by the current de facto government will leave any future Syrian army a stripped-down, “lean” military force. The recent Israeli and Turkish bombings of Syrian military sites, which met with no effective response, further confirm this harsh reality.
To the south, Israel — Syria’s enemy of eight decades — seized a rare moment in history, exploiting the army’s collapse. The day after Assad’s fall, Israeli warplanes launched a relentless aerial assault on Syrian military sites, carrying out 480 airstrikes within 48 hours. These attacks devastated over 80% of Syria’s military capabilities, including warplanes, tanks, air defense systems, weapons factories and a wide array of missiles. Additionally, the Israeli navy bombarded the ports of al-Bayda and Latakia, destroying 15 naval vessels and dozens of anti-ship missiles with ranges of between 50 and 118 miles. Following these strikes, Israel occupied Mount Hermon (aka Jabal al-Sheikh), pushing its forces within 25 miles of Damascus.
This effectively removes a major regional player from Israel’s path, making it the undisputed master of both air and land in the Middle East. What Israel has done — and continues to do — far surpasses what the U.S. did in Iraq when it dissolved the Iraqi army.
To complete the picture, Israel’s occupation of parts of southern Syria and the construction of military bases there will further justify Ankara’s continued control over vast sections of northern Syria. Given the weakness — or, rather, the complete inability — of the new administration to secure Syria’s 620-mile border, Turkey will have every justification to maintain its hold.
Today, there is no Syrian army. The de facto government’s attempt to form a new military force raises serious questions about its structure, objectives and capabilities, as well as about the necessary equipment and the feasibility of salvaging what remains of Syria’s military assets.
Building a new national army will take years and, even then, it will likely serve only to guard borders — not to defend the country by air or land.
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