At the beginning of the war, I interviewed Syrian militias – they will listen if other countries get involved in their activities

On Sunday, the world received news that it might not have thought possible. The murderous regime of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad is not any more, and after 13 years of suffering, the Syrian civil war could also be coming to an end.

In just a couple of days, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) – an armed Islamist group based in Idlib in northern Syria – moved south, capturing Aleppo and Homs, after which capturing the capital Damascus. Meanwhile, Assad is reported he fled together with his family to Moscow.

The most optimistic observers see this moment as a probability for peace. Assad has finally been toppled, his key allies Russia and Iran are involved elsewhere, and a fragile peace is emerging between Syria’s various armed factions. Others warn that the resulting vacuum may lead to a continuation of the chaotic violence that has plagued Libya since the overthrow and killing of the country’s dictator Muammar Gaddafi in 2011.

What happens next will depend as much on forces outside Syria as on those inside it. I was in Syria in 2013, interviews with fighters and commanders from several groups that got here together to form HTS, including Al-Qaeda’s Syrian affiliate. As I learned from talking to them, armed groups like HTS are likely to listen when the international community tries to interact with them.

HTS was formed in 2017 as an alliance of a number of Islamist armed groups in northwestern Syria, including the Syrian affiliate of al-Qaeda often known as Jabhat Fatah al-Sham. In previous years, HTS was in a difficult situation in the Idlib region. Yet it stubbornly persevered while many other armed groups collapsed under the onslaught of a regime backed by Russian warplanes and Hezbollah fighters.

Syria is at a crossroads with many potential paths ahead. Some point The Islamist roots of HTS. For these people, the nightmare scenario that the world has been trying to stop since 2011 got here true: a radical Islamist group got here to power in Syria.

Others say the group has separated from its more radical roots. As the saying goes, Jabhat Fateh al-Sham divorced Al-Qaeda in 2016 he didn’t wish to be tainted anymore as a consequence of its negative global image and merged with other groups to form HTS.

And HTS has recently sought to advertise a more moderate image, even encouraging religious tolerance. If his assurances are to be believed, it might aim to construct a peaceful and stable Syria.

The key to determining Syria’s future will be the actions of other countries that want to interact HTS and its affiliates. My research shows that sometimes they will make changes in consequence of this dialogue. Groups with a history of violating the laws of war may reply to international pressure and cause changes in their behavior.

They will also sometimes respond positively to involvement by participating in negotiations and conflict resolution. However, when isolated, siled or ignored, these groups can do exactly the opposite.

While in Syria, I spoke to many alternative insurgent factions and the common thread was that they felt ignored by the international community. The general of the Free Syrian Army (then a U.S.-backed coalition of rebel groups) complained about the difficulty of complying with international humanitarian law without international support.

Fighters from Islamist groups complained about the hypocrisy of international organizations. When they tried to contact states and organizations, they felt ignored, forcing them to ally with more hard-line groups as a substitute of moderates. An Islamic State commander even asked me to send positive messages about them to my family and friends, hoping it will encourage more international contacts.

It could be a mistake to wholeheartedly imagine armed groups in their declared willingness to cooperate peacefully. But by the same token, completely ignoring them is unlikely to finish the fighting.

Is peace possible?

Explaining how we got thus far could also be easier than predicting what will occur next. The Assad regime has long been supported by its allies. So, with Russia engaged in a war of attrition in Ukraine and each Hezbollah and Iran fighting conflict with Israel, HTS saw a possibility and seized it.

While many have fun the failure of Iranian and Russian interventions in Syria, it’s unlikely that either power’s influence in Syria will end. Recent developments may even bring the two sides closer to a partnership that would include interventions elsewhere or exchanges of weapons technology.

No country will simply quit its goals in Syria. Russia, for instance, has strategic air and naval bases there which are essential for the Kremlin to project power in the Middle East, the Mediterranean and Africa. Russia will not abandon them easily.

Türkiye appears to have been an extended-time supporter of HTS a robust position to influence events. This may include using its advantage in a sustained attack on the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) in northeastern Syria.

Although the SDF are nominal allies of America, it’s unlikely that they have forgotten about Donald Trump sudden abandonment of them in 2019. When the US president announced the withdrawal of US military forces from Syria, it created an influence vacuum that Turkey used as a reason to launch a military operation against the Syrian Kurds. The future of Kurdish autonomy may due to this fact be in query, although the battle-hardened SDF will probably not quit and not using a fight.

It is just not yet clear how the Trump administration will cooperate with Syria under HTS control. While it’s unlikely that we will see a rise in American involvement on the ground, it’s difficult to assume that Trump will grow to be an ally of HTS, an armed group with historical ties to Islamists.

Meanwhile, Israel took over temporary control of a demilitarized buffer zone in Syrian-controlled areas of the Golan Heights. Some fear that this may increasingly result in a rise in conflict in the country. The Israeli military has warned Syrians living in five villages near the occupied areas to “stay at home.” Some schools have switched to online classes in anticipation of the unrest.

These events in Syria have enormous consequences for the country and the region, and HTS is at the center of them. It is unclear whether the group will manage to take care of power in Syria, and if so, what type of regime it will try to construct.

The response from regional and global powers will be crucial at this juncture where commitment to HTS is crucial if the opportunity for peace is to be realized.