Amnesty International recounted scenes from this nightmare (we know this account is long and likely upsetting, but it’s difficult for many of us in America to truly picture the atrocities involved here – and it’s important that we do, at least occasionally):
The Syrian government, backed by its ally Russia, subjected civilians in opposition-held areas in northwest Syria to a new wave of horrors. In an all-too-familiar pattern, attacks from the air and the ground repeatedly struck residential areas and crucial infrastructure. Yet even by the standards of this calamitous nine-year crisis, the resulting displacement and humanitarian emergency were unprecedented.
In towns and villages in Idlib and western Aleppo governorates, the barrage of attacks emptied out entire communities; the escalation was evidently a continuation of an offensive that began in April 2019 targeting the last pocket under the control of armed opposition groups. Cornered, and with nowhere left to go, civilians flooded already overstretched displacement camps, pitched tents in farms and schools, or ended up in the open in brutal weather.
Amnesty International documented a total of 18 attacks on medical facilities and schools that happened between May 5, 2019 and February 25, 2020 in Idlib, northwestern Hama and western Aleppo governorates. Of those, Syrian government forces carried out three ground attacks and two-barrel bomb attacks. The remaining 13 attacks were air strike attacks: two by Syrian government forces, seven by Russian government forces, and four by Syrian or Russian government forces.
A doctor who survived one of the documented attacks – three air strikes in the vicinity of al-Shami hospital in Ariha on January 29, 2020 – told Amnesty International how the strikes flattened at least two residential buildings around the hospital, killed 11 civilians including one of his colleagues, and injured more than 30 others. ‘I felt so helpless. My friend and colleague dying, children and women screaming outside… We were all paralyzed,’ he said. ‘It took the civil defense two days to remove the bodies’ from underneath the rubble of one the flattened buildings, he added.
Based on corroborating witness statements and other credible information, particularly observations by flight spotters, Amnesty International concluded this unlawful attack was carried out by Russian government forces. A teacher who witnessed an attack on a school in Idlib city on February 25, 2020 described to Amnesty International how a cluster munition explosion injured her and killed a student before her eyes. As soon as she had finished teaching the first period that day, the principal ordered everyone to evacuate the school due to a wave of attacks on the city.
She and others who evacuated were walking past another nearby school when it was hit by a cluster munition. ‘A bomblet exploded close to my feet, blowing the flesh off… The pain was unbearable… Two students were walking in front of me. One died instantly and the other one, miraculously, survived… I know the sound of a cluster munition attack very well. You hear a series of small explosions. As if the sky were raining shrapnel instead of water,’ she said. In total, three people were killed, and five others injured.
Amnesty International concluded this unlawful attack was carried out by Syrian government forces; it identified the remnant as a surface-fired, 220mm 9M27K cargo rocket, manufactured in Russia and transferred to the Syrian army, containing 9N210 or 9N235 cluster munitions, which are prohibited under international law.
Evidence shows that, in their entirety, the documented attacks by Syrian and Russian government forces entailed a myriad of serious violations of international humanitarian law. To name a few, the attacks were not directed at a specific military object, and they violated the immunity from direct attack of civilians and civilian objects, as well as the special protection afforded to specific persons and objects, particularly medical facilities, medical personnel and children.
These violations amount to war crimes. The attacks must also be viewed in the context of the well-established pattern of Syrian government forces targeting civilian infrastructure and civilians in areas under the control of armed opposition groups as part of a widespread and systematic attack on the civilian population, therefore constituting crimes against humanity.
It was against this highly volatile and murderous backdrop that, reportedly bored in the White House on a Sunday in October, Donald Trump decided to insert himself into the drama – which, as we all know, is always super helpful.
Nine months prior to this day, in December 2018, President Trump randomly announced that the U.S. was going to pull 2,000 troops out of Syria – a proclamation that came as such an offense to some people in his administration that two of them resigned (Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and Special Presidential Envoy to the Coalition Fighting the Islamic State Brett McGurk). The primary reason for their adamant dissent was the immense danger the Syrian Democratic Forces – our fearless and faithful allies – would face if America abruptly left Syria.
Thankfully, President Trump was talked out of this monumentally terrible idea and around 1,000 U.S. Special Operations forces remained.
Fast forward nine months to that boring October Sunday in the White House. In typical schizophrenic fashion, Donald Trump again announced that U.S. forces would withdraw from the border between Syria and Turkey – an out of the blue, unilateral announcement that, without question, is one of the single most ill-informed, irresponsible, and shameful foreign policy failures of Donald Trump’s first term (and that’s saying something).
It cannot be overstated what an amateur move this was. Clearly, the sitting President of the United States knew nothing about the situation on the ground in Syria and cared about nothing more than making his boyfriend Erdoğan happy, which he certainly did by handing Erdoğan exactly what he had always longed for… American allies and soldiers be damned. President Trump’s Sunday Surprise also gave Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his Iranian and Russian allies – who had already proven they would go to any lengths necessary to regain total control of Syria – free rein to continue committing mass murder and other vicious war crimes.
But, BY FAR, the absolute worst – and most heartbreaking – part of this insanely irresponsible decision was the immeasurable danger the SDF were immediately put in by Donald Trump. It’s impossible to imagine how betrayed they felt by his actions. < Note: At the time, we thought this was one of the most disgraceful foreign policy actions in U.S. history, at least in our lifetimes. We never imagined that this shameful episode would be matched by the actions of the very next American president, who outright abandoned many of our dedicated and faithful allies in Afghanistan with what seemed like zero conscious or compassion. >
To make matters far worse, American troops were standing right next to SDF forces when they learned of their commander-in-chief’s decision, placing our service members squarely in the crosshairs of an incredibly hostile and dangerous situation. The entire episode is just outrageous.
Almost immediately – and entirely predictably – the Islamic State started murdering local SDF leaders, and within three days, Turkey launched air and ground operations against them. To protect themselves – and given no other choice by the United States – the SDF, one of the most loyal partners America has even known, was soon forced to announce a partnership with the Russian and Iran-backed government in Damascus. To add insult to injury, over a hundred extremely dangerous ISIS fighters that were previously being held by the SDF escaped, a consequence that SDF leadership had long warned of in the event of an American exit.
Well, fellow Americans, after living through an entire term under President Trump, we all should have guessed where this was heading. After creating colossal chaos, his specialty, President Trump – under enormous domestic pressure and international outrage – suddenly changed his mind and reversed course yet again. Within two months of his Sunday Surprise troop-withdrawal proclamation, the U.S. military resumed large-scale counter-terrorism missions against the Islamic State in northern Syria.
Thirteen years after the Syrian people began to openly protest the horrendous treatment they suffered at the hands of their government – a move that prompted Bashar al-Assad to unleash the holy hounds of hell on them – he still ruled the two-thirds of the country he controlled like the murderous tyrant that he is. Three million terrified, displaced Syrians remained stranded in the northwestern province of Idlib while, using food as an instrument of war, Assad literally starved them to death as he continued to rain bombs down on them. < Giving credit where it’s due, Turkish President Erdoğan came through big time for Idlib, providing Syrians not only clothes, blankets, and food, but military protection as well. In Afrin, a district of north-western Syria that borders Turkey, Erdoğan’s government provided electricity, cell phone service, education, and health care services for the Syrian people. This is in addition to already hosting 3.6 million Syrian refugees inside Turkey. With Erdoğan, nothing is purely altruistic. But still, that’s good work. >
Bashar al-Assad’s henchman Vladimir Putin continually threatened to close off access to Bab al-Hawa, a cross-border humanitarian aid route that brought food and critical medical supplies to the one-third of Syria that was not under Assad’s rule. This, at a time when the United Nations World Food Program reported that 12.4 million Syrians – 60 percent of the population – couldn’t survive without food assistance.
Meanwhile, the fallout from stiff international sanctions and the pandemic were brutal for Syria. The economy was in shambles and the currency collapsed, causing food and fuel to skyrocket and wages to plummet. Medical doctors there were making less than $50 a month.
The New York Times reported that a Syrian mother of three told the story of having to sell her hair: “I had to sell my hair or my body.’ Her husband, a carpenter, was ill and only sporadically employed, she said, and she needed heating oil for the house and winter coats for her children. With the $55 she got for her hair, which will be used to make wigs, she bought two gallons of heating oil, clothes for her children and a roast chicken, the first her family had tasted in three months.”
Because of their own domestic crises, Russia and Iran were unable to help Assad as much financially, so he resorted to kidnapping and blackmail. When an Israeli woman inadvertently found herself in Syria, for instance, the Assad regime arrested her and blackmailed Israel, eventually releasing the woman in exchange for two Syrian shepherds and 60,000 doses of the COVID vaccine (which Israel was forced to buy from Russia for $1.2 million).
But that’s all over now, thank God. On December 8, 2024, Bashar al-Assad fled Damascus as his opposition, led by Hayʼat Tahrir al-Sham (H.T.S.) – a powerful Islamist rebel faction – finally overthrew his regime after fifty years of Assad family rule. After a triumphant eleven-day blitz, the leader of H.T.S., Ahmed al-Sharaa, now leads 23 million diverse Syrians that include Kurds, Alawites, and Christians.
< Although a formal announcement said that Sharaa had “assumed the presidency of the country in the transitional phase,” Syria is deeply divided and there are still several armed factions competing for power. These include the Rijal al Karama group in the southwest; Ahmed al-Awda and his independent Sunni Arab militia; several groups loyal to the Assad regime in the west; and, of course, the SDF. On March 30, 2025, al-Sharaa announced his new government – swearing in 23 cabinet ministers – in what seems to be a compromise. Even though he filled the most powerful ministries with his allies, he appointed nine independent ministers and five ministers who served in the early years of the Assad regime (before the war). He also named ministers from each of the main ethnic minorities – Kurds, Druze, Christians and Alawites – and even a Chrisitan female minister to lead the Ministry of Social Affairs. >
Even though Sharaa fought as an anti-American jihadist with al Qaeda in Iraq, he has repositioned himself as a more moderate Islamic leader, endorsing a more reasonable brand of politics and publicly committing to an inclusive government that tolerates minorities. Although conversions like this are usually suspicious, this one seems (fingers-crossed) plausible. Sharaa was originally sent to Syria in 2011 by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the leader of what eventually became the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL), but their two paths diverged when Sharaa rejected Baghdadi’s orders to purge adversarial activists and competing rebel groups.
In 2013, after Baghdadi announced his intention to establish a caliphate, Sharaa left the group and renewed his alliance with al Qaeda and its leader Ayman Al-Zawahari. Three years after that, Sharaa split from al Qaeda and began to unify with other rebel groups with the intention of overthrowing the Assad regime, diminishing Russian and Iranian influence in Syria, and bringing displaced Syrians home. After H.T.S. gained control, Mohamed Khaled, part of the group’s political affairs bureau, outlined its goals, including plans to unite rebel groups to form a national army, write a constitution, and develop government ministries.
It’s far too early to know how this is going to turn out but, in the early days, things looked promising. Statues of both Bashar al-Assad and his father, a tyrant who took power in a 1970 coup, were removed and images from the Assad regime were torn down or covered by colorful murals. Although contentious issues like the dress code for women, the treatment of LGBT people, and other social issues like drinking alcohol had yet to be addressed – and any talk of future elections was on hold – positivity was plentiful as women and children roamed freely and Damascus thrived once again.
By early March 2025, however, clashes between government forces and gunmen loyal to the Assad regime started flaring up across Latakia and Tartus Provinces on Syria’s Mediterranean coast, where many of the Alawite minority live. In response to the unrest, Sharaa made a plea for calm saying, “We must preserve national unity and civil peace. We call on Syrians to be reassured because the country has the fundamentals for survival.”
Hopefully, this dream will be realized for the Syrian people, not only for their peace, but because this also presents a huge opportunity for the United States. If we play our cards right, the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime could signal the beginning of a major geopolitical rebalancing in the Middle East.