The year opened with an intensification of the conflict between Israel and Hamas in Gaza. Since the war’s outbreak in October 2023, over 45,000 Palestinians have lost their lives.
According to the United Nations, a child was killed every hour in Gaza. Despite months of negotiations, ceasefire talks collapsed, with both sides blaming each other for the stalemate.
Tensions escalated further when Israel assassinated Iran-backed Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in Beirut, Lebanon. Iran retaliated with a salvo of 180 missiles, heightening fears of a regional war.
Israel also launched a military campaign against Hezbollah in Lebanon. After weeks of intense conflict, a 60-day ceasefire agreement was reached on November 27. However, multiple violations have marred the fragile truce.
Meanwhile, another conflict reignited in the region as rebels mounted an offensive to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Syria continues to suffer from a profound humanitarian crisis amidst the ongoing war.
The question remains: will the Middle East find a path to peace? CNBC-TV18 sought insights from Anju Gupta, Former Cabinet Secretariat Official, on the future of these conflicts.
Below are the excerpts of the interview.
Q: Let me straight away ask you about the situation in Syria. How bad are things there? How could this contribute to more tension in the Middle East, and also, could this lead to a revival of the ISIS?
Gupta: Currently different parts of Syria are being held by different state and non-state actors. I think we need to really unpack Syria to understand the picture today and how we can expect it to pan out in 2025 and beyond. So up until the Arab Spring, which was about 2011 the dictatorial regime of Bashar al-Assad pretty much controlled whole of Syria. But when the dissent began, when the Arab Spring unfolded, the Arab neighbours also kind of pumped in their resources to support these protesters, and Assad’s regime used brutal force against their own people. The Arab states also started pumping in arms, and that is how so called Free Syrian Army came into being, and it became an armed insurgency, or armed protest, if you like to call it so. Of course, there are different factions that were loyal to different state actors. It’s very important to emphasise that there were state actors involved in supporting this Arab Spring in Syria, like the other places in the Arab world.
But at the same time, the Al-Qaeda in Iraq started rebuilding itself, especially after the US pull out in December 2011 and with that, they started governing territory, and they started calling it a state. They started calling it Islamic State in Iraq. And in 2012 they sent Abu Mohammed al-Julani to Syria to set up the Syrian branch of Daesh. So, Al-Qaeda in Iraq started capturing territories on both sides. And after that, they declared ISIS independent, and the caliphate came into being in June 2014 which attracted, thousands of foreign fighters from all over the world. When that was the situation the revolution had kind of morphed into, I wouldn’t say, the people, but revolution had been hijacked by the terror group. And the first terror group that hijacked it was Daesh. After that, US started backing the Kurdish Syrian alliance called the SDF, and Russia and Iran started backing the Assad regime against Daesh.
Around the same time, Al-Qaeda declared independence of Daesh headed by Julani, and they started capturing territory closer to the Turkish border, especially the province of Idlib. And at that point in time, the revolution had morphed into fight by Assad regime and by the SDF against Daesh as well as Al-Qaeda groups. And very interestingly, US and Russia could actually manage to deconflict their air strikes, etc. And rest is known. So, the civilian revolution, which had which became armed, was hijacked by these terror groups because of strange geopolitics of this region,
Turkey, which has a very important role to play, with the help of some elements of the Free Syrian Army captured some of the Kurdish areas closer to the Turkish border. Now we all know after the caliphate Assad regime and the SDF have been kind of coordinating so as not to allow the Daesh to rebuild itself in Syria, which is a real threat.
We also know that US has carried out air strikes after air strikes, drone strikes into Idlib, which is the territory held by HTS killing Al-Qaeda top leadership. So, the interesting thing is that by around 2016 Julani, who was a leader of HTS, declared independence from Al-Qaeda, saying that I’ve cut my ties with Al-Qaeda and now I’m a simple, plain armed insurgency against Assad regime. And HTS has now taken over the area that was held by Assad. So now we have three players – HTS, Al-Qaeda linked group, which is the main player. And then we have the SDF. And then we have the Turkish backed Free Syrian Army.
Second, there are about 10,000 ISIS fighters in the custody of SDF and about 50,000 family members, women and children of ISIS fighters in the custody of SDF. The SDF is under pressure to disarm by HTS and also by Turkey, which are the two important players. The only way SDF can survive is with the support of US.
So, the last point I want to make is that if US policy decides, if President Trump draws down from Syria, that would mean that SDF will collapse, and these ISIS fighter can escape, and the number is simply too large, which means that apart from Al-Qaeda aligned group ruling Damascus, we would also see ISIS rebuilding itself in Syria. So, the threat that Syria poses today, I would say this is much more than what Afghanistan posed in August 2021.
Q: Let me also ask you about Israel’s next plan of action. They have gone after Iran’s proxies in the region. What could they do next?
Gupta: If we look at where Israeli’s have succeeded. They have succeeded in, taking out top leadership of Hamas and Hezbollah. But we need to also look at the fact that Israel has not been able to free all the hostages. The fighting is still going on. I think after 14 months, the cease fire with Hezbollah was affected, because one month into ground operation, Israeli forces were facing heavy casualties, so that ceasefire is very tenuous. The point I’m making is that these two fronts are already open for Israel. Third, in the last couple of days, Israel has mounted very serious air strikes into Yemen, hitting Houthi targets, as in the airport, etc. What does that tell us? I think it tells us that probably, with the incoming US administration, Israel is now not too sure whether new administration and then President Trump will stay involved in manning the transportation through Red Sea because US led, coalition has been taking action against Houthis, preemptive and proactive. But now Israel is taking on that role, which probably tells us that they’re not sure that US will continue with that role.
Watch accompanying video for entire conversation.
