Afrasianet - Ilhami El Meligy - The most dangerous thing facing the new Syria is not the external threat, but the disintegration from within, and the explosion of contradictions at the heart of its transition experience before its contours are completed. 

The fall of the Syrian regime on the eighth of December 2024 was not the end of a phase, but the beginning of a more radical and confused transformation, as the moment of collapse extended from the borders of the old state to the depth of the new state on whose ruins it was born.

Instead of a political vacuum being an entry point for building a participatory republic that establishes an inclusive legitimacy and a new social contract, the door has opened to a very fragile scene, in which the forces of yesterday and the claims of tomorrow are conflicting, without a real center capable of containing contradictions or representing Syria's complex diversity.

While the field balances installed Ahmed al-Shara, known as al-Julani, as interim president of the new Syria, in a rare moment of regional and international consensus, the ground beneath his feet was only a postponed earthquake. Foreign factions fought under the banner of Tahrir al-Sham saw his transition from emir to president as a betrayal of the absolute and a deviation from a path that was not essentially a state project, but a project of religious empowerment without borders.

In the midst of this ambiguous context, we have a top-secret intelligence report warning of dangerous field developments in the countryside of Damascus, Homs and Hama, where Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham is witnessing rapid internal cracks and defections led by radical foreign factions that have pledged allegiance to a new organization known as "al-Qurashi", which re-presents itself as a radical extension of ISIS, but with more flexible tools and more bloody targets.

The report does not convey fleeting facts, but rather sheds light on a dangerous moment that goes beyond a military insurgency to the heart of the battle for legitimacy in the nascent republic: Who has the right to represent a post-Assad Syria? Can the new state withstand its first test, or are we facing the birth of a republic without a social contract, fought by knives at home before the wounds of the outside heal?

Defections ravage the governing body

According to the report, there is a wave of widespread defections within Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham, led by foreign factions (Chechen, Uighur, and Arab), which declared allegiance to a new organization known as the "Qurashi Organization". This organization is re-presenting itself as a more radical extension of ISIS, seeking not a transitional political authority, but rather to blow up the nascent structure of the new Syria and impose a bloody project based on the idea  of "revenge and caliphate" rather than on the state.

The pledge of allegiance to this organization by Algerian leader Abu al-Baraa al-Muhajir (former commander of the al-Muhajireen Brigade) is a defining moment, as it means the transfer of trained and experienced combat components to a camp hostile to the transitional presidency. 

Al-Julani, now interim president of the new Syria, finds himself facing an unconventional challenge: he is not facing the former regime or "foreign occupations," but rather an insurgency from within the jihadist body he created and grew up within.

Dissident factions accuse him of abandoning  the "Islamic caliphate" project, opening up to international powers, and restricting "jihadist action" to political understandings. Some sources even point to widespread discontent among foreign fighters, who see Tahrir al-Sham as a watered-down version of power, not unlike the regimes they revolted against.

The conflict thus turns into a struggle over the legitimacy of governance, not just over military control.

Al-Qurashi's organization is advancing... On the ruins of alliances

The new organization does not hide its intentions. He does not seek to share power, but prepares to destroy it. His discourse is based on bloody vocabulary: captivity, purification, sectarian fighting, revenge massacres... They are all mobilizing tools to re-polarize fighters disappointed in recent political transitions.

Field reports show that the group is expanding in the countryside of Homs, Hama and Damascus, attracting new recruits from former camps affiliated with al-Qaeda and ISIS, taking advantage of the ideological and realistic decline of the transitional project led by al-Julani.

A struggle for the soul of a post-Assad Syria

What is happening now is no longer a struggle for influence, but a battle to define the identity of the new Syria: is it a pluralistic and negotiable state? Or an open ground for ideological and doctrinal conflict?

Between those who see the state as a common political space and those who see it as a field for religious spoils and tools for purification, the nature of the transitional period is determined, and with it the fate of the entire country.

Failure to contain conflict could bring down the nascent state

If the transitional presidency does not succeed in containing this rebellion with a combination of security decisiveness and political openness, the new republic will be subject to internal collapse, more dangerous than the regime that preceded it. State institutions are still in the process of being formed, and there is no unified national army, a clear social contract, or balanced representation of all components.

Rather, the continuation of the conflict tempts regional actors to return through proxies, threatening to torpedo any reconstruction efforts, refugee returns, or internal confidence-building.

When emptiness is born from the womb of victory

The most dangerous thing facing the new Syria is not the external threat, but the disintegration from within, and the explosion of contradictions at the heart of its transition experience before its features are completed.

Despite the apparent victory of overthrowing the former regime and taking over the reins of a new leadership, the absence of a real social contract, the weakness of control institutions, and the conflict of intellectual references make the nascent state more vulnerable to collapse from within than it was exposed to danger from the outside.

If the transitional leadership does not build a national consensus on civil and representative bases and strengthen the legitimate monopoly on violence through unified institutions, it will gradually find itself caught between two fires: the fire of an organization that feeds on ideologues, and the fire of a society that is losing faith in the unborn dream of the state.

Post-Assad, then, is not a guarantee that the phase will be crossed, but rather the most difficult test: Will Syria win for itself this time? Or will the moment of salvation turn into the spark of another explosion, devouring the nascent experience before it takes its first lines?