December 8, 2025 marks one year since the fall of the Assad regime in Syria, marking a major geopolitical shift in the region and upending a decades-long authoritarian rule over the nation.
The ousting of longtime president Bashar al-Assad by the rebel group Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and its allies was the result of an extremely rapid offensive, putting an end to a civil war that had been raging for 14 years.
The result of this change in power is a new leadership in a still-divided Syria, and an uncertain future for the region as a whole.
The Assad regime: Syria's longtime Ba'athist Alawite rulers
Syria has been an independent Arab republic since 1950, except for a brief period when it was unified with Egypt. However, the country came under the control of the Ba'athist Party in 1963 in a bloodless coup.
This itself was part of a wave of political changes in the region associated with decolonization and Ba'athism. This nationalist and pan-Arab ideology advocated socialism, secularism, and the development of an enlightened Arab cultural renaissance. This was to be done under one-party rule.
Syrian intellectuals and philosophers, including Salah al-Din al-Bitar and Michel Aflaq, developed the movement. However, the two Ba'athist states that existed, Syria and Iraq, both turned into conservative authoritarian regimes that were widely criticized in the international community.
In 1970, the government was overthrown by Hafez al-Assad, a prominent official who at the time served as the defense minister.
Since then, Assad has heavily consolidated power within the country as his regime has slid into authoritarianism.
Hafez al-Assad ruled for 30 years before being succeeded by his son, Bashar al-Assad, who continued many of his father's policies.
Both Assads were widely linked to corruption and cracking down on dissent through forced disappearances, censorship, and the use of secret police. They launched military campaigns against Israel and Lebanon and further provided backing to extremist insurgent groups in the Middle East.
The Assad family was also noted for religious policies, as while the regime professed to be secular, its members were also Alawites, an ethnoreligious group that, until 1970, was said by experts to be one of Syria's most marginalized and impoverished demographics.
The Assads soon showed favoritism to the Alawites, with them occupying most high-level political and military posts. This is despite Syria having a Sunni Muslim majority, though also containing sizeable minorities of Druze and Shi'ite Muslims.
After a major insurgency by the Muslim Brotherhood in 1982 was suppressed by Syrian forces, the country still experienced simmering tensions between the Alawites and Sunnis. However, the situation exploded into further conflict in 2011.
The Syrian Civil War: The start of the Assad regime's slow demise
In 2011, the Arab Spring was in full swing, with Arabs all across the region protesting against their governments. These met with varying degrees of success, with regimes responding in different ways.
In Syria, Assad began a ruthless crackdown on protesters and pro-democracy groups, causing tens of thousands of deaths and the detention of thousands more.
This soon escalated into a full-fledged civil war, a conflict that would ultimately rage for 14 years.
The war saw a number of armed factions rising and battling for control of the country, with external powers such as Russia, Turkey, the US, and Iran all playing a part in supporting their proxies.
Soon, the primary players in the conflict included the Assad regime itself; the Syrian Interim Government's Syrian National Army and allies; the autonomous Rojava polity with its US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), itself made up largely of Kurdish fighters; and the Syrian Salvation Government and its mix of Sunni armed groups led by HTS.
The conflict saw widespread atrocities and destruction in the country, including the Assad regime's highly criticized use of sarin gas in chemical attacks.
The civil war became further complicated in 2014 when the conflict against ISIS spread into the country, becoming a major theater in the fight.
Foreign troops also repeatedly entered the country, with Turkish, Russian, Iranian, American, and Hezbollah forces all having a presence at one point or another in the country, as well as repeated Israeli airstrikes against Hezbollah and Iranian forces in the country.
The war soon began to grind to a stalemate, with Russian and Iranian backing seeming to prop up Assad's regime against the opposition.
But that would not last.
HTS: The rebels who ousted Assad
HTS did not formally emerge until 2017, following the unification of numerous pre-existing Sunni groups.
Its founder, Ahmed al-Shaara, who went under the nom de guerre of Abu Mohammad al-Julani, was a longtime member of numerous armed insurgent groups. He was a member of al-Qaeda in the early 2000s and eventually created the al-Qaeda-backed al-Nusra Front in 2012 to fight in the Syrian Civil War. Based in the Idlib Governorate, this Sunni Jihadist group was widely criticized for carrying out numerous war crimes against Syria's ethnic minorities, including ethnic cleansing, forced conversions, and outright massacres of Christians, Shi'ite Muslims, Alawites, and Druze.
However, the al-Nusra Front soon came into conflict with ISIS, and by 2016, it had cut all ties with al-Qaeda, too. The next year, the group merged with others to form HTS, with Shaara serving as the group's emir.
Also in 2017, HTS soon became the largest force within the Idlib Governorate. While it fought numerous battles for control of the province against Assad regime troops and lost numerous swathes of territory, it still retained control over at least half of Idlib.
At this time, the Assad regime's offenses had seen it gain control over a majority of the country. By 2023, a little under a third of the country was under the control of opposition groups, but the Assads were consolidating power further. Most of the conflict in Syria at the time was now not between the factions in the war, but with foreign forces, such as Turkish troops fighting Kurdish elements such as the SDF, and Israel attacking Iranian and Hezbollah forces.
However, some fighting still took place, especially between HTS and the Assad regime. In 2022, HTS carried out numerous sniper attacks and infiltrations on government forces, which led to Russian and Syrian retaliatory strikes in response.
According to some analysts, this was all with the goal of keeping any peace agreements with the Assad regime from occurring, with the attacks having been dubbed We Will Not Reconcile.
The 11-day downfall: HTS overthrows the Assad regime
The military situation in Syria changed so drastically in 2024 for several reasons. On the one hand, HTS had been bolstering its forces to carry out military operations at the level of a conventional army. In an interview with the Guardian, HTS military leader Abu Hassan al-Hamwi explained that the offensive had been planned for a year and that restructuring of HTS's military forces began in 2019. This included developing its own weapons, drones, and other vehicles. They further formalized alliances with other groups, forming an operational command known as Al-Fatah al-Mubin, which, by November 2024, became the Military Operations Command.
On the other hand, the Assad regime was struggling internally. Corruption was widespread, and the country became dominated by the drug trade, in particular, Captagon. This led to Syria being dubbed a narco-state, operating numerous production and smuggling networks for Captagon, crystal meth, and more.
But ultimately, the main reason is said to be the result of the Assad regime losing its backing.
For years, Assad was propped up by his Iranian and Russian allies. Syria served as a major location for Moscow to project power, and it was the linchpin in Tehran's axis of resistance, a network of proxy forces that fought for regional hegemony. This was incredibly significant, as it provided the Assad regime with an air force and crack troops from Iran and Hezbollah, giving them an overall military advantage.
But by late 2024, both countries were busy.
Russia had been distracted for two years at this point by the conflict in Ukraine, a stalemate conflict that caused the country to divert much of its military forces away from Syria, and even to recruit Syrian fighters for aid.
Iran was also overextended. Since October 7, 2023, it and its proxies have been engaged in war with Israel, which has caused Tehran to need to redistribute its resources to bolster itself and its allies.
This left Assad with far less support from his allies. HTS knew it.
As Hamwi explained to the Guardian, this opening was the chance HTS needed.
On November 27, HTS began its offensive, with the stated goal of targeting the Aleppo Governorate. These forces swept through the province, capturing numerous towns in a matter of hours. The next day, they also launched an offensive to retake parts of the Idlib Governorate that they had lost.
This saw HTS win numerous engagements with regime, Russian, and Iranian forces as they rapidly pushed through.
On November 27, the attack on Aleppo began, with Syria's second-largest city falling in just three days. According to Russian sources, HTS attacked the city with just 350 fighters, while the city was defended by a force of 30,000, most of whom retreated. While these figures are unconfirmed, numerous other reports, such as those from Reuters and the Spectator, have said that HTS had the overwhelming edge in organization, supplies, and morale, and that it had already infiltrated the city with its own forces in advance. By contrast, the city's defenders faced severe morale problems, corruption, and supply issues. Further, as Reuters noted, Aleppo's troops allegedly relied on Iran and Hezbollah for organization and command, most of whom had already left.
This, some experts have noted, was further compounded by Syrians in the city already having tensions with the Iranian and Hezbollah officials sent, with many noting a violent incident where a Syrian officer killed an Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) general in what was supposed to be a strategy meeting. As a result, the soldiers in Aleppo were not highly motivated to actually fight for the Assad regime, nor were the foreign allies.
Meanwhile, HTS forces also pushed into the Hama Governorate on November 30. They pushed through the province at a rapid pace, engaging in numerous conflicts with regime, Russian, and Hezbollah troops. On December 5, they managed to enter the city of Hama itself, and within hours, the city was fully under their control.
This soon led to conflict in the Homs Governorate in Syria's West, with the eponymous city fully falling shortly after. Iran began withdrawing its forces, and the conquest of Homs caused Assad to be entirely cut off from the west coast, where Russia's presence was centered.
Meanwhile, other Syrian factions sprang into action, also trying to seize territory from the rapidly collapsing Assad regime. The SDF seized numerous swathes of land, including the city of Deir ez-Zor. Local opposition forces liberated Sweida and Daara in the South, while another US-backed faction took control of Palmyra. Pro-Assad troops also had to abandon the Quneitra Governorate.
Within the span of a little over a week, the Assad regime went from controlling most of Syria to losing nearly everything.
The opposition groups in Sweida, Daraa, and Quneitra then established a coalition known as the Southern Operations Room. However, the process had been underway since 2023 with the help of HTS advisers from the Military Operation Command. In fact, HTS had notified the members of what would become the Southern Operations Room a year in advance, in preparation for the offensive, as the Guardian reported.
This preparation and organization by HTS enabled the Southern Operations Room forces to quickly mobilize and march on the main prize of the conflict: the national capital, Damascus.
The capital's situation was untenable, with Assad himself, along with his wife, fleeing the country entirely and going to Russia. On December 8, the entire city fell, and the Assad regime officially collapsed.
Sharaa in charge: Syria's new present and uncertain future
The fall of the Assad regime after over 50 years has rewritten regional geopolitics entirely. Sharaa assumed control over most of the country, becoming the de facto leader before being officially appointed president in late January 2025.
The overall ousting of the Assad regime was widely praised internationally, with statements ranging from liberal Western nations to Muslim nations all criticizing the regime's rule.
French President Emmanuel Macron and UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer both referred to the Assad regime as "barbaric," while the Taliban dubbed it "the cause of war and instability." German Foreign Minister Annalena Baerbock called the regime's downfall "a big relief for millions of people," while US President Joe Biden said it was "a fundamental act of justice."
However, there is more widespread concern about the new regime.
Shortly after the regime change, Israeli forces undertook targeted strikes to destroy Syria's arsenal of weapons in order to keep them out of HTS' hands. The IDF struck anti-aircraft batteries, air force fields belonging to the Syrian military, and weapons production facilities in Damascus, Homs, Latakia, Palmyra, and Tartus. They also degraded cruise missiles, surface-to-sea missiles, UAVs, fighter jets, radars, tanks, and attack helicopters, among other things.
Earlier, it was reported that most of the strikes were in southern Syria and around the city of Damascus, targeting Syrian army bases, with an emphasis on air defense systems and stores of surface-to-surface and surface-to-air missiles.
The IDF further struck an Assad regime chemical weapons plant to keep the rebels from using it, and even occupied the Syrian side of Mount Hermon to create a demilitarized buffer.
This is all due to uncertainty over Sharaa's current views and goals. The man himself has renounced his jihadist ideology and instead promised to focus on establishing stability and safety in Syria itself. He has professed numerous domestic objectives to help rebuild the country's economy and infrastructure, and has said he is against renewed conflict with Israel while also opposing Iran's influence. He has also made overtures of reconciliation to the SDF, which currently remains separate and controls its own sections of Syria, and has cracked down on the Captagon trade in the country.
However, there have also been reports of massacres against minority groups in the country, most notably against the Alawites, and with violent clashes erupting in Sweida between Sunni Bedouin groups and the majority Druze population.
In addition, according to Israeli media reports, Sharaa's regime was behind attacks on IDF soldiers in the region and earlier attacks against the Druze in eastern Syria.
International views on Sharaa are still hesitant one year later. Many countries, such as Qatar, Saudi Arabia, and Turkey, have recognized the new regime and expressed support. The US and other countries lifted many sanctions against Syria that had been in place since 2011, and Sharaa himself was removed from a UN sanctions list and a US-designated terrorist list.
It remains to be seen what the future holds for Syria, as the status quo is set to be rewritten.
Amir Bohbot, Danielle Greyman-Kennard and Reuters contributed to this report.