Why the Assad regime collapsed in Syria – and why so fast

Syrian insurgents toppled President Bashar al-Assad's on Sunday after a stunning, two-week offensive that saw major cities slip from the regime’s fingers one by one, until rebel forces captured the capital Damascus almost without a fight.  

More than 50 years of Assad family rule in Syria collapsed with astonishing speed after insurgents burst out of a rebel-held enclave in the country’s north, capturing Aleppo and a string of other cities in a matter of days, before converging on Damascus.  

Opposition forces entered the capital with little or no resistance on Sunday as the Syrian army melted away and President Bashar al-Assad, Syria’s ruler for 24 years, fled the country. His sudden demise marks a stunning development in Syria’s devastating 14-year conflict, which began with Assad’s brutal crackdown on anti-government protests in 2011, at the height of the Arab Spring. 

The speed of the rebels' victory has highlighted Islamist leader Abu Mohammed al-Jolani's success in shoring up a rebellion that looked to be cornered in its last bastion in northwestern Syria. It also exposed the weakness of the Assad regime and just how reliant it was on support from Iran and Russia – which at the crucial moment did not come.

Army hollowed out 

Assad's army has been reduced to little more than a hollow shell after a 14-war war that killed more than half a million people, displaced half of Syria’s prewar population of 23 million, and devastated the country's economy and infrastructure.  

In the war's early years, experts said a combination of casualties, defections and draft-dodging saw the military lose around half of its 300,000-strong force. Corrupt and demoralised, the army was caught unawares when rebels suddenly burst out of their redoubt in Idlib province on November 27, meeting little resistance.

The Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, a war monitor, reported soldiers repeatedly evacuating positions across the country as the insurgents pushed forward, seizing one city after another.  

"Since 2011, Syria's army has faced attrition in manpower, equipment and morale," said David Rigoulet-Roze, a Syria expert at the French Institute for International and Strategic Affairs. Underpaid soldiers reportedly looted resources to survive, and many young men evaded conscription, he told AFP.    

On Wednesday, Assad ordered a 50 percent raise in career soldiers' pay in a desperate effort to bolster his crumbling army. But with Syria's economy in tatters, soldiers' salaries are almost worthless and the move had little impact. 

• Allies weakened and distracted  

Over the years, Assad has relied heavily on military, political and diplomatic support from key allies Russia and Iran, without whom his regime would almost certainly have collapsed much earlier in the war. With their help, the regime clawed back territory lost after the conflict erupted in 2011, and Russia's 2015 intervention with air power changed the tide of the war in Assad's favour.  

However, last month's rebel offensive came as Russia remains mired in its war in Ukraine, and its air strikes this time failed to hold back the Islamist-led rebels who swept across swathes of the country.  

Read moreIn pictures: Syrians celebrate end of half a century of Assad family rule

“The Russians would have liked to help the Syrian regime more – but their military resources in Syria are much reduced as a result of the ongoing war in Ukraine,” said FRANCE 24’s Middle East expert Wassim Nasr.  

Assad's other key ally Iran has long provided military advisers to Syria's armed forces and supported pro-government armed groups on the ground. But Iran and its allied groups suffered huge setbacks in fighting with Israel this year and this presented Syria’s insurgents with a window of opportunity to strike at an isolated Assad.   

“The Syrian rebels have a long blood debt with Iran and the offensive happened now because Iran and its allies were too weak to keep bolstering the Syrian regime,” explained FRANCE 24’s Nasr.  

• Hezbollah out of action  

Iran’s Lebanese proxy force Hezbollah has openly backed Damascus on the ground since 2013, sending thousands of fighters across the border to bolster the Syrian army. But the rebels launched their offensive late last month on the same day that a ceasefire went into effect between Israel and Hezbollah, after more than a year of hostilities in Lebanon.  

Hezbollah had shifted many of its fighters from Syria to south Lebanon to face off with Israel, weakening its presence in the neighbouring country. The fighting decimated Hezbollah's leadership, with the group's longtime chief Hassan Nasrallah, his presumed successor and a string of senior commanders killed in Israeli air strikes.  

On Sunday, as Syrian insurgents surged into Damascus unopposed, a source close to Hezbollah said the group was pulling its remaining forces from the outskirts of the capital and the Homs area near the border.

Reacting to Assad’s demise, Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu described the Syrian regime’s fall as “a direct result of the blows we have inflicted on Iran and Hezbollah, Assad's main supporters”.   

US President Joe Biden has also claimed that the US and its allies had weakened Syria's backers – Russia, Iran and Hezbollah. He said that “for the first time” Assad’s allies could no longer defend his grip on power, adding: “Our approach has shifted the balance of power in the Middle East.”  

Reference: France24: