Global Express | Syria stunner: How does India navigate the aftermath?

Who are the Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham? And What happened to the Syrian Army – why did it melt away? Why did it NOT put up a fight as one city after another fell?

This week in Global Express with Neena Gopal, we turn our focus on a Syria that has all but imploded.

Its President Bashar Al Assad has fled the country - some say with millions of dollars in cash - and been given asylum in Russia.

And Abu Mohammed Al Golani – a man designated as an international terrorist who worked with Al Qaeda’s Ayman Al Zawahiri – and who has a million-dollar bounty on his head, has swept into Damascus at the head of a well-armed force.

Golani's Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham, in a stunning, lightning offensive, took Aleppo, Hama and Homs and then Damascus. All within twelve days.

As Golani has appointed an interim Prime Minister – Mohammed Al Bashir – who ran the HTS's enclave along the Syrian Turkey border – and promised an inclusive government that will not target the Druze, the Christians and the Alawites – we must ask:

Who are the Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham? How did a rebel force – that is a spin off from Al Qaeda and ISIS - have the military capability to take one city after another.

Homs Hama. Aleppo. Damascus. How and why did Bashar Al Assad's regime crumble in the way that it did?

What happened to the Syrian Army – why did it melt away? Why did it NOT put up a fight?

They say that after 13 years of civil war – the conscripted soldiers had lost the will to fight

But much more critically - Assad's two main allies - Iran and Russia - stand vastly diminished.

Both are countries who have projected their power in the Middle East - Russia through its two bases – a naval base in Tartus and an airbase in Khmeimim... and

Iran – with its Axis of Resistance – that provided a corridor for arms to be supplied to governments that it backed and controlled in Syria, Iraq, Lebanon and Yemen…Neither did a thing. In fact, Iran withdrew it forces from Syria.

And a Syria that has been split since 2011 into six parts - sees a force rise from Idlib in the north west that topples Assad. Is this an ARAB SPRING that has been brewing since 2011?

The Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham – the HTS – has been working on this plan for months – This could not have happened – overnight.

AND THE BIGGEST QUESTION OF ALL – WHERE DO TURKEY, ISRAEL and THE UNITED STATES stand – after this unspoken alliance unleashes its forces almost simultaneously?

AND WHAT HAPPENS to the Kurdish enclave in the north, where a Kurdish Syrian National defense force has with active US backing and support fought ISIS K but is now facing Turkish fire. This is a conflict of interest, and some 120,000 Kurdish people who have been displaced are already paying a huge price.

How does India navigate this fall of Syria and the uncertainty in the Middle East – It had strong links with Assad. It has strong links with the UAE and Saudi Arabia, and with Israel, which has provided the kind of technology that we need to counter China and Pakistan. And it has a huge Indian diaspora. And regular stream of Indian Shias who visit the holy sites of Najaf and Karbala in Iraq.

But more than that – will the HTS – given its Al Qaeda and ISIS links – attract Indian radical Muslims to its ranks and be a source of destabilisation as it was in Afghanistan-Pakistan. India's young Muslims who've lived in the Gulf countries were radicalised by the online preacher Dr Zakir Naik – whose sermons drew hundreds into the Al Qaida fold. Iran – though radical – did not attract the Indian Shia. The Sunni Taliban and now HTS - could.

In conclusion, it's amazing how in the space of 12 days, a family that held Syria in its iron grip, for 50 years crumbled the way it did.

The ASSAD family - Bashar was in power for 22 years, he was preceded by his father Hafez Al Assad who plotted the 1963 coup and then took power in the 1970s – Bashar is known for the Hama massacre of February 1982 - Bashar and his brother Maher – who inherited their brother Bassel’s mantle – managed to counter the Arab Spring. But is Syria, in the throes of a civil war for nearly 14 years, already divided into six so-called ‘independent’ regions – where does it go from here.

Are we to see one dictator replaced by another?

Clearly, this is a crisis that goes beyond Syria. There are questions being raised about whether Lebanon will be carved up, whether Qatar and Bahrain will find their borders dissolved. This is a Sunni-Shia rivalry that has taken on a new impetus.

The balance of power has shifted dramatically. With RUSSIA losing its Syrian airbase and military base, Trump may have newfound leverage over Putin, as losing Syria undermines Russia’s influence in the region and strains its already overstretched resources.

BUT while TURKEY HAS SEIZED THE OPPORTUNITY - JUST AS ISRAEL HAS - and you have a Tehran that must be weighing its options on whether it should go nuclear or not, has the US bitten off more than it can chew? Has Joe Biden set off a confrontation rather than the opposite of what he set out to achieve?

TALKING US THROUGH THIS COMPLICATED WEB that is unravelling in the Middle East, the shifting balance of power – the new political chessboard, the fait accompli , that incoming US PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP Is being presented with, and JOE BIDEN undoubtedly MAKING IT DIFFICULT FOR TRUMP TO GET OUT OF THE MIDDLE EAST are

Dr Waiel Awwad, POLITICAL ANALYST, and WAR CORRESPONDENT , a Syrian-born journalist, based in South Asia. He has covered numerous wars in Afghanistan, Sri Lanka, Kashmir, West Asia and Gulf Region. And was even captured in an ambush during the American invasion of Iraq in 2003

and

Sanjay Kapoor, a senior journalist based out of Delhi, India. He is a foreign policy specialist focused on India and its neighbourhood, and West Asia. Sanjay is the founder and Editor of Hardnews Magazine, a political monthly.