Governing the day after in Syria

On Dec. 8, 2024, Bashar al-Assad’s regime fell. This is a fact, but it woefully understates the enormity, speed, and consequences of what has transpired. The brutal dictatorship that ruled Syria for more than 50 years disintegrated in fewer than 10 days. Celebrations erupted across public squares, thousands of Syrian refugees lined up at the borders of Turkey, Jordan, and Lebanon eager to return, and the release of political prisoners fueled hope for a new era after decades of despotism and conflict. However, concerns about Syria’s political future and territorial integrity quickly surfaced. These fears are entirely legitimate: Assad has left a country in ruins, with shattered infrastructure, a bankrupt economy, a fragmented territory, a corrupt political system, and compromised sovereignty, while the exact nature of the alternative now taking shape is still ambiguous.

Amidst this dramatic collapse, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) emerged as the only group with a contingency plan. By the evening of Assad’s fall, HTS rushed into Damascus, positioning itself as the leader of the transitional period. To prevent a complete breakdown of state institutions, former Prime Minister Mohammed al-Jalali offered to peacefully hand power to the “new rulers.” On Dec. 10, the head of the Idlib-based Syrian Salvation Government (SSG), Mohammad al-Bashir, was named caretaker prime minister until March 2025. During their meeting in Damascus, HTS head Ahmad al-Sharaa (who formerly went by ِAbu Muhammed al-Jolani) remarked to al-Jalali, “It is true that Idlib is a small region lacking resources, but they [SSG functionaries] have a very high level of experience after starting with nothing.” While very little is yet known about the plans of the new leadership, it is evident that the SSG intends to play a role beyond that of a caretaker administration.

Idlib’s playbook

With almost a decade of experience governing Idlib, HTS knows that winning a war is easier than governing in its aftermath. Playing a central role in taking control of the governorate in 2015, Jabhat al-Nusra (the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda that was later rebranded as HTS) gave governance a central focus. To consolidate its power, it engaged in a multi-year rivalry with other military and civilian actors to establish itself as the sole authority in northwest Syria, a process framed as “unifying the governance bodies in the liberated areas.” While HTS’s evolution is often described as a shift from global jihadism to localized armed activism, it entailed another crucial aspect: from non-state rebel governance to a state-like technocratic administration.

The Idlib of 2015 shares some similarities with the wider Syria of today: damaged infrastructure, fragmented territorial control among multiple factions, and a multiplicity of governing actors. Lacking local or global legitimacy, HTS sought to earn those by distancing itself from other actors and establishing parallel service and governance entities in Idlib over the past decade. These included service providers like the Public Administration for Services, governance bodies such as the General Directorate for Local Administration, judicial institutions, and private companies operating in key sectors like fuel, telecommunications, and transportation. Through a mix of incentives, negotiations, and coercion, HTS eventually dismantled or subsumed its competitors within its controlled areas. HTS-linked entities showed a high level of resilience and flexibility compared to others, undergoing multiple phases of restructuring and rebranding before they were unified under the SSG in November 2017.

The establishment of the SSG marked a turning point for HTS’s state-building ambitions in Idlib Governorate, becoming the cornerstone of the group’s centralized technocratic governance model. Politically, the SSG pursued a legitimacy-building strategy, adopting revolutionary nationalist rhetoric and engaging tribal leaders and community notables. It also created the Shura Council, an elected supervisory body representing local communities and displaced groups in Idlib. While avoiding the term “democracy,” HTS embraced certain democratic practices, such as issuing an election law in June 2024 through the Shura Council, despite skepticism about its restrictions on candidacy.

However, it is hard to believe that such major transformations within HTS and the SSG were only due to strategic (or opportunistic) decisions made by their leadership, and not also to the struggle of civil society actors and local activists on the one hand and international pressure on the other. Until a few months before the last offensive, HTS and the SSG remained unpopular, facing significant public dissent. Between February and September 2024, mass protests erupted in the Idlib region demanding the removal of the HTS leader and denouncing corruption, the taxation system, and political imprisonment. Although HTS gained popularity after playing a leading role in toppling the Assad regime, this alone will not suffice to build its legitimacy across the country, where it faces larger social diversity, more hostile constituencies, and bigger economic and humanitarian challenges.

The Aleppo test

Before the dust of battle had fully settled in Aleppo, a new struggle began on Nov. 29 to win the hearts and minds of its residents. Ruling over the country’s second-largest city posed a critical opportunity for the SSG to demonstrate to Syrians and the international community that the Idlib model could serve as a foundation for a new Syria. Opposition forces sent clear signals to break from past mistakes, embracing an inclusive approach that respected the city’s diversity, particularly its Shi’a, Christian, and Kurdish communities. This was reflected by the disciplined conduct of fighters protecting civilians and properties, alongside efforts to improve basic services such as electricity, bakeries, and water. Idlib-based governance bodies and humanitarian organizations expanded their operations into Aleppo and other newly controlled rural areas. This also included some private companies (known to be linked to HTS) such as Green Energy (electricity), E-clean (garbage collection), and Zajel (transportation), which began operating alongside public-sector counterparts.

In its first week in power, the SSG emphasized preserving state institutions, calling public employees to their positions and paying their overdue salaries. While the policing sector remains exclusively managed by the SSG’s Ministry of Interior, this strategy extended to all other sectors, including sensitive areas for HTS like the judiciary and religious affairs. Thus far, only top leadership positions have been replaced with figures affiliated with the SSG/HTS. A new civil administration, “Free Aleppo City,” was set up to communicate official news and decisions. Meanwhile, former state institutions have demonstrated their willingness to cooperate with the new authorities to maintain service provision, calling all their employees back to work, and even swiftly embracing the Syrian revolutionary flag. Similar practices have been seen in other major cities, like Damascus, Hama, Homs, and Latakia.

Outside the largest urban areas, the picture so far is different. Local civilian initiatives and existing state structures continue to play a primary role in restoring basic services. In some areas, the military operations command has initiated discussions with local notables, particularly in non-Sunni towns such as Salamyeh, Mesyaf, Valley of the Christians (Wadi al-Nasara), Nubul, and Zahraa. These negotiations aim to involve local leaders in governance, foster social cohesion, and preserve state institutions. If they persist, such agreements could shape the future relationship between Damascus and these communities, allowing for a de facto autonomous governance system until top-down restructuring of government institutions and the rebuilding of military and security forces can be achieved.

Planning for the “day after” from Damascus

In the first week after Assad fled the country, Syria managed to avert complete chaos, civil violence, and state collapse. As the SSG — which is now being extended across most of Syria — approaches the end of its self-imposed caretaker period in March 2025, it will likely continue to pursue its top-down governmental reform agenda, embedding its members into Damascus’s bureaucracies and solidifying its position as the de facto central government. However, two critical challenges stand out.

First, significant parts of Syria remain under varying degrees of autonomous control. Northeast Syria is governed by a combination of the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces and Arabic tribal forces, northern Aleppo by the Turkish-backed Syrian Interim Government, and southern Syria by a semi-independent structure in Suwayda alongside former opposition groups in Daraa. Years of geographical isolation and mistrust cannot be reversed in a matter of days. Rushing to merge or unify these governance structures could cause more harm than good.

Second, HTS’s confrontational history in Idlib raises concerns about its approach to governance consolidation. While the group was comparatively more tolerant than the Assad regime toward independent service providers and civil society actors, even integrating bureaucrats from former regime-controlled areas in past years, it consistently sought to eventually dominate and subsume all entities within its authority. Applying this approach too aggressively on the national level risks alienating public servants and institutions worried that the SSG’s top-down reform plans will eventually threaten their livelihoods or replace them with actors from the northwest.

Decisions on Syria’s governance should not only be made by political elites in Damascus through top-down reforms but also involve ordinary Syrians. For many years, local actors have filled critical gaps in basic services, humanitarian needs, and community cohesion where the former regime was absent or ineffective. Until a comprehensive national framework of local administration is established to guide integration, these actors should maintain their roles in partnership with local initiatives and civil society organizations.

Today, the localization and decentralization of governance is not merely a pragmatic solution to the current turmoil and low state capacity; it is a strategic imperative to ensure that accumulated governance experience is not lost. Granting more autonomy to local actors on the governorate or sub-district level to govern themselves, until trust is built with the central government and their counterparts across former lines of military control, is necessary. This would mitigate ethno-sectarian tensions and fears of the new central government while preserving the social diversity across Syrian communities within their natural and cultural boundaries.

A major political event, such as the fall of the regime, will inevitably alter the business, social, and political landscape. New actors will emerge while others recede. Effective management of this transition by the government, coupled with strategic decisions by international donors in terms of geographical-, sectoral-, and actor-level distributions of funds, is crucial to avoid unintended consequences of uneven recovery across different geographies or social groups.

As Syria will continue to rely on foreign aid for the foreseeable future, the international community can play a double role in achieving multi-level reform. Western leverage — such as sanctions relief, removal of the HTS terrorism designation, and reconstruction funding — should be used progressively to incentivize HTS and the transitional government to ensure a democratic and inclusive political process. However, these measures alone are insufficient. Foreign support must also empower local actors across the country and enhance their capacity to deliver localized services that complement, rather than compete with, the central government. Two weeks ago, such a statement would not be more than a cliché; today it is a realistic objective. The fall of the Assad regime presents a rare opportunity to overcome longstanding restrictions on and the politicization of aid, opening new doors for direct outreach to local communities in Syria.

Munqeth Othman Agha (@muagha11) is a Non-Resident Scholar at the Middle East Institute, a researcher at the Syrian Memory Institute under the Arab Center for Research and Policy Studies, a doctoral student at the University of Trento, and a co-founder of the Syria Urban Research Project.

Top photo by Ali Haj Suleiman/Getty Images