How has Syria changed since the Assad regime collapsed?

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This is the script for my video posted on May 26, 2026. Watch it on TikTok.

The regime of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad collapsed in December 2024. Since then, Ahmed Hussein al-Sharaa, the man who led the rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham to victory against Assad, has led the country into uncharted territory. Without Assad, Syria is a fundamentally different place. But how exactly has Syria changed since his regime fell?

In December 2024, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, led an 11-day offensive to take the capital city of Damascus. After that, Assad fled to Russia, the old constitution was repealed, and al-Sharaa was formally appointed president as the country’s rebel factions dissolved into a new Ministry of Defense. In March of 2025, an interim five-year constitution was declared, making Islam the official religion of the head of state, and making Islamic jurisprudence the main source of legislation. Beyond this, it concentrated power with the president, who appoints all cabinet ministers, all seven justices on the Supreme Constitutional Court, and one-third of the People’s Assembly directly. There is no impeachment mechanism and the president can unilaterally declare an emergency.

In March 2025, armed groups affiliated with the former regime launched coordinated attacks on government sites in Latakia and Tartus, killing hundreds of security personnel, and the counter-offensive escalated into roughly 1400 people killed, predominantly civilians. After an inquiry, the government indicated there was no evidence that military leaders gave orders to commit human rights violations, but frankly there have been many other incidents and there is no reason to believe the results of the inquiry.

Crucially, President al-Sharaa issued a decree in February 2026 granting general amnesty for specific crimes committed before that date, intended to facilitate social reintegration and to relieve overcrowding at prisons, though there have been concerns from legal and human rights organizations that the constitution doesn’t actually allow for this. Only recently has al-Sharaa actually finalized his list of appointees, and parliament still isn’t set to convene for the first time until June 2026.

Al-Sharaa has also been working to integrate the Syrian Democratic Forces, or SDF, into the state. The SDF is a Kurdish-led and US-backed coalition of left-wing ethnic militias and rebel groups that acts as the armed wing of Rojava, the de facto autonomous government of northeastern Syria. The SDF is a fundamentally secular and mostly democratic organization, which is obviously counter to the Islamic and authoritarian bent of the new Syrian government. Unfortunately, this tension has caused repeated issues in the integration effort, with SDF and government troops directly fighting to the point that the Syrian Army fully seized about 80% of Rojava’s territory before a ceasefire was reached in January 2026. There’s a new integration deal in place, but its success is uncertain and the ceasefire is highly tenuous.

Meanwhile, the regional balance of power has fundamentally shifted around Syria. Under Assad, the country was aligned with Iran, but now Turkiye is the government’s primary patron. Al-Sharaa has visited Turkiye several times since taking power, including a visit Turkish president Erdogan in Ankara less than two months into his role. They’ve discussed putting together a joint defense pact, absorbing the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army into the military, and sharing intelligence.

All of this is taking place as Israel has been seizing Syrian territory in the southern parts of the country outside the Golan Heights and establishing permanent military bases there in violation of existing agreements. Israel is basically building an expanded buffer between the Syrian government and its own territory, and diplomatic negotiations have failed. In September 2025, a leak gave insight into the terms of Israel’s proposal to the Syrian government, which included Syrian territory being partitioned into three zones, a 2km extension of the buffer, a no-fly zone for the Syrian air force south of Damascus, and a preserved air corridor for Israel to conduct strikes against Iran.

Apart from the Houthis in Yemen and Hezbollah in Lebanon, the Assad regime was one of Iran’s greatest regional proxies, and its collapse had a serious impact on Iran’s broader goals. Some Iranian leaders described it as a strategic disaster, in part because the Assad regime had received tens of billions of dollars in funds from Iran, and Syria imported up 2.5 billion USD of Iranian oil every year. Iran had about 15000 military personnel and tens of thousands of Shia militia members in Syria under Assad, but now Iran has effectively lost its entire investment, and the Syrian government is reportedly preparing to request 300 billion dollars in reparations from Iran. Additionally, losing Syria reduced the retaliation the US and Israel faced for striking Iran directly in 2026 because the Assad regime was a backstop for Hezbollah, which itself has been massively undermined. In effect, the fall of the Assad regime reduced a lot of pressure that Iran relied on for leverage.

You may recall that Russia also had a major presence in Syria under Assad, but their commercial lease on the port of Tartus was cancelled shortly after al-Sharaa took power and most troops have left. Al-Sharaa visited Putin to communicate Syria’s intent to respect prior agreements, but the dynamic is radically different, with Russia’s new stated aim focusing more on humanitarian aid than actual military operations. Notably, Israel also pressured the US to tolerate Russian bases in Syria as a counterbalance against Turkiye, which now wields outsized influence.

There are a couple of counterintuitive dynamics at play there though. Al-Sharaa seems to be cooperating with Israel to keep Turkiye in check, because if Turkiye overreaches, Syria can just move closer to Israel, and Turkiye can’t risk being isolated and losing influence. Meanwhile, Iran is still attempting to resupply Hezbollah through Syrian territory, but the Syrian government has been praised by Israel for interdicting these shipments. The US has also pulled out of the country almost completely, having closed its primary base at al-Tanf after the current US administration met with al-Sharaa.

Syria continues to actively evolve. It’s unclear how the government will really work in a year, let alone the next decade. The new government is still authoritarian, inefficient, and responsible for atrocities just like its predecessor, only now it is motivated by religion and it is willing to play every side simultaneously to benefit itself. About 2.8m Syrians have returned home, sanctions are lifting, and the barrel bombing, chemical attacks, and horrifying prisons are gone, but Syria still faces a truly uncertain future.

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