Fatshimetrie — The roar of celebratory gunfire echoed through the streets of Damascus after the collapse of President Bashar al-Assad’s regime. A jubilant scene marked the end of half a century of tyranny, but the task ahead of the victorious Islamist rebels, led by the Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS) group, is daunting.
The debacle that followed the fall of the capital was a stark reminder of the scale of the undertaking. At least 28 people died in the celebratory gunfire, while civilians looted Assad’s palaces, ransacked shops and stole bags of cash from the central bank, forcing the rebels to impose a 1 p.m. curfew.
As Damascus descended into chaos, only airstrikes broke the nighttime silence, with Israel claiming to have targeted strategic weapons systems, residual chemical weapons capabilities and long-range rockets belonging to Assad’s army.
“They fired for 11 hours. After four hours, I broke down in tears, feeling like I was being tortured… as soon as it started to calm down, the Israelis started bombing us,” a 25-year-old lawyer and resident of an upscale Damascus neighborhood told CNN, speaking on condition of anonymity for security reasons.
The rebels have long dreamed of this day, but even they appear to have been surprised by the speed and ease of their advance. The urgent task now is to maintain order by avoiding a power vacuum and preventing the chaos that almost inevitably arises when a 50-year regime collapses in a matter of days.
As for what form the next government will take, it remains unclear. After the capture of Damascus, the rebels asked Assad’s prime minister, Mohammad Ghazi al-Jalali, to continue in his role alongside his government until a transition team is appointed. But Jalali has few answers about the future of governance in the city, as do his colleagues.
The vacuum facing the rebels could even be seen as a parting gift from Assad. The president, who has not made a public statement since the rebel advance two weeks ago, appeared to be planning to “abandon his government, his people and his country and let it descend into chaos” if the situation deteriorated, his prime minister said.
For now, the fate of Syria’s future lies with the leader of the HTS rebel coalition, Abu Mohammad al-Jolani. His return to Damascus marks a turning point, having left the city two decades ago to join al-Qaeda’s fight against U.S. forces in Iraq. He led al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria for four years before creating a splinter group, declaring war on the Islamic State and orchestrating the elimination of its leader..
Today, he advocates transformation and moderation, saying that Syria’s armed opposition plans to form a government based on institutions and a “council chosen by the people.”
The group he leads is among the best-organized rebel factions in the offensive, having ruled for years over 4 million people in Idlib through a semi-technocratic body called the National Salvation Government. It has already mobilized its politicians to run major cities, including Aleppo, captured last week, and deployed its own police forces to secure the streets of Damascus.
In this uncertain time for Syria, the road to stabilization appears to lie in the rebels’ ability to manage a delicate political transition and establish legitimate governance to avoid the specter of chaos that has hung over the country for too long.