What’s going on in Syria?

The Briefing Room

BBC

News, News Commentary

4.8 • 731 Ratings

🗓️ 5 December 2024

⏱️ 28 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

In under two weeks Syrian rebels have moved through the country and taken Damascus - bringing to an end 50 years of rule by the Assad family. The country borders Israel, Lebanon, Turkey and Iraq, and in which Iran and Russia take the most active of interests.

So why did the government of Bashar Al Assad fall so fast, who are HTS the rebels who toppled him, and what does it mean for the region and the world?

Charles Lister, Senior Fellow and the Director of the Syria and Countering Terrorism & Extremism programs at the Middle East Institute in Washington DC. Lina Khatib, Director of the SOAS Middle East Institute. Chris Phillips, professor of international relations at queen Mary’s university, an associate at Chatham House and author of The Battle for Syria. Shashank Joshi, defence editor at The Economist.

Presenter: David Aaronovitch Producers: Charlotte McDonald, Kirsteen Knight and Beth Ashmead Latham Sound engineers: Rod Farquhar, Neva Missirian Editor: Richard Vadon Production Co-ordinator: Gemma Ashman

Transcript

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0:00.0	BBC Sounds, Music, radio, podcasts.
0:07.7	The Assad family had ruled Syria for over 50 years, but as of yesterday, Bashar al-Assad and his entourage are exiles in Moscow.
0:18.1	In less than two weeks, Syria has gone from being hardly mentioned in the news
0:22.7	we last covered it five years ago to making headlines all over the world. Palaces taken
0:28.6	over, prisoners freed. So why did the government of Bashar al-Assad fall so fast? Who are HTS,
0:37.3	the rebels who toppled him, and what does it mean for
0:40.2	the region and the world? Step into the briefing room and together we'll find out.
0:51.3	We start with the BBC's international editor Jeremy Bowen
0:54.5	and a reminder of how we got here.
0:57.3	2011 was the year known as the Arab Spring.
1:00.2	I prefer it to call it the Arab Uprisings.
1:03.9	Syria was always going to be an interesting case.
1:07.4	And the reason why it was interesting is because President Bashar al-Assad was seen as a reformist.
1:14.6	So his public rhetoric can be quite harsh, but below that he is a genuine reformer.
1:20.6	He is somebody who will respond to dialogue and he is not somebody.
1:24.6	So there were some hopes, I think, when pro-democracy demonstrations started in the south of Syria in a place called Dara.
1:35.5	There were hopes that, you know, he might actually say, well, guys, you've got a point.
1:39.9	Because he had been calling for reform for, well, more than 10 years since he inherited the position
1:46.4	of president from his father, Hafes al-Assad, who'd seized power in 1970.
1:52.4	There was a lot of positivity about people thinking, well, maybe this is Assad's chance to bring in
1:57.9	the reforms that he's promised for so many years. And he kept saying
2:02.0	that time isn't quite right. We need to do more. I do want reform far from saying to the pro-democracy
	...

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