WhatsappSyria’s Ministry of Defense recently attended the IDEF 2025. The IDEF 2025, hosted by Turkey, is an international event showcasing the latest technological advancements and products in defense industry. With their country in ruin and sectarian violence raging, the Ahmed al-Shaara regime’s first goal appears to be to beef up its army’s ability to wage war.
Given the fact, that the regime has spent its first few months in power massacring Allawites, Christians and now Druze, it is not surprising that Ahmed al-Sharaa would want his regime to be fully stocked with the latest weapons. So what does this mean for Israel and the minorities in the region?
Ever since the Trump administration lifted the sanctions on Ahmed al-Sharaa’s regime, the former ISIS leader has allowed his militias to go on a rampage. After all, why not, the new regime is flush with international cash and backed by Turkey.
In fact, it was announced that the Ahmed al-Sharaa regime has formally invited Turkey and help it rebuild its military. “As long as our brotherly country, Syria, requests it, Turkey will continue to stand firmly by its side,” Omer Celik, spokesman for Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s ruling party, told reporters. “The heroic Turkish armed forces will fulfill this both to assist our Syrian brothers and to prevent instability there, which is vital for Turkey’s national security,” he said.
After the Sweida massacre perpetrated by Ahmed al-Sharaa’s regime forces and Turkish backed Jihadists, it is no wonder that the Kurdish SDF has decided not to disarm and merge into the main Syrian fighting forces. In a sense Syria is become partitioned into three sectors:
- Salafist Regime – the Turkish backed regime in Damascus that is in control of everything in Syria’s west from north of Damascus to Turkey.
- Rojava – the Kurdish majority area East of the Euphrates and run by the American backed SDF.
- Sweida and Bashan – the Druze majority areas under some type of Israeli control or influence. The Bashan is the area buttressing Israel Golan Heights including the Hermon Mountain range. This area is now militarily controlled by Israel Sweida is further to the East, but receives air support from Israel and humanitarian assistance by helicopter.
This unofficial partition has been obvious since Assad’s fall, so the real question is why is America working so hard to keep Syria unified under a former ISIS leader? As I discussed in a previous post, an ISIS run Syria is a Qatari-Turkish project with the aim of rebuilding a Salafi caliphate.
Qatar has been able to influence the foreign policy of both American political parties and in a strange way even more influential in the current Trump White House due to Trump’s inner circle of business partners and friends having financial entanglements with Qatar. This coupled with Trump’s appreciation for Turkey’s strong man President Erdogan, has allowed Ahmed al-Sharaa to turn Syria into an ISIS stronghold in a way never thought imaginable.
Israel’s foothold in southern Syria and backing of the Druze in Sweida along with covert relations with the Kurdish SDF has been the biggest stumbling back for the Qataris and Turks in their desire to build a caliphate stretching from the Gulf of Arabia to the Mediterranean and beyond.
America is in a bind. It may not be willing to help Israel stop the ISIS regime in Damascus from stabilizing, but if it openly moves against Israel, the Trump administration will face a reckoning for supporting a regime rooted in ISIS against the Kurds and Druse - the first being an American proxy that receives positive backing for taking our ISIS when no other was able to do it.
What Should Israel Do?
Israel must be the regional power it is meant to be and has to find a way to navigate between an American administration compromised by Arab oil money while not abandoning its natural Druze and Kurdish partners. If it cannot, then not only will the rest of Syria’s minorities be wiped out like the Yazidis in Iraq, but a Jihadist army backed by Turkey and Qatar will be flooding into Israel’s North, making October 7th appear calm in comparison.
Israel can encourage a confederation between the Druze of Sweida and the Kurds in the East. Along side that, the IDF can extend its current buffer zone which is primarily from the Druze areas in the Bashan all the way to Sweida, cutting off the M5 highway that would strangle the Jihadist Bedouin communities in Daraa. More than that, Israel should supply cutting edge drone technology and other high level defense equipment and training to the Kurdish SDF and the Sweida Military council. The time is now to free Syria from its Jihadist overlords whether not America wants to help or not.
