Military analysts in the German Defense Ministry assess that Russian forces in the bases in Tartus and Latakia (Khmeimim) are preparing their complete withdrawal. Security guarantees are only limited to their peaceful withdrawal. They also asses that the port of Tartus has already been abandoned.

How the rebels governed Idlib, in northwest Syria, offers insight into how they might rule the country. Experts and residents of Idlib describe their governance as pragmatic and influenced by both internal and external pressure, with efforts to distance themselves from a jihadist past and gain international acceptance. However, their rule was far from democratic or liberal. Governing a large, diverse nation like Syria, they warn, will be an entirely different challenge.
 
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Dr. Walid Tamer, a resident of Idlib who witnessed the province’s transformation under rebel rule and said he personally interacted with Jolani, commended the SSG’s governance in Idlib, saying freedom of expression was protected. But he cautioned that the rebels aren’t prepared to rule the rest of the country.
 
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Idlib was “very safe” under the SSG, he said, adding that the rebels placed no restrictions on travel and movement inside the HTS-controlled province.
 
“Syria as a whole was a difficult place to live in, but the (SSG) never interfered in your personal life. Products were available and no limitations were imposed on your clothing or how you lived your life,” he said.
 
Life in the province was not one of prosperity, however. Abdel Latif Zakoor, a resident of Idlib who lived under rebel rule but has now moved to Turkey, told CNN the economic conditions under the SSG were “very difficult.”
 
“There wasn’t enough work, and a lot of people just stayed at home,” he said.
 
When Jolani, who now goes by his real name Ahmed al-Sharaa, expanded his influence in Idlib in 2017, he eliminated rival Islamist groups and backed a new project to install a civilian government made up of local technocrats and academics, breaking from other jihadist methods that saw religious coercion under the rule of the sword in territories they captured.
 
“Before the Salvation Government you had many different factions that had their own courts of justice, prisons and social services,” Jerome Drevon, a senior analyst who has researched HTS for the Brussels-based International Crisis Group think tank, told CNN. “It imposed itself on other factions and took out their governing responsibilities.”
 
Upon its establishment in 2017, the SSG issued a communique outlining four principles, one of which was that Islamic Sharia law is the “sole source of legislation,” emphasizing the need to “maintain the people’s Syrian and Islamic identity,” Al Jazeera reported.
 
The SSG operated as a functional government, holding publicized cabinet meetings with suited officials, issuing press statements and overseeing eleven ministries, including justice, sports, and education. It collected taxes, managed Idlib’s limited resources to govern 4 million people, and coordinated with international humanitarian groups to deliver aid to the 3 million displaced people in the region.
 
But the government wasn’t democratically elected, with ministers appointed through the approval of the shura, or consultative council, made up of prominent local figures, some of whom were selected by Jolani’s HTS. No women served in SSG leadership positions during its seven years of rule.
 
“It’s an Islamic governance in a technocratic way. What they wanted to do is control how religion is understood and how it’s implemented,” said Drevon.
 
A United Nations report from 2022 painted a grim picture of what life under HTS’ leadership was like.
 
“People were detained following comments made in private conversations pertaining to the cost of living or religious matters,” the UN Human Rights Council report on Syria said. “These comments were qualified as slander and blasphemy, with the latter leading to a sentence of one year of imprisonment.” Authorities “continued to arrest women for being ‘inappropriately’ dressed, and for non-compliance with entertainment-related bans.”
 
Tamer, who said he negotiated with HTS and SSG officials over medical matters, said that over the years, Jolani took a back seat in the daily affairs of the government and gave it more agency, only intervening on larger issues that endangered his group’s influence.
 
Lacking a constitution or an elected legislature, the rebels ruled Idlib by decree, setting up a hybrid civil-Islamic court structure that included defense lawyers, a prosecutor and an appeals process.
 
Jolani was pragmatic in adapting to the requirements of the society he ruled over, Drevon said. Responding to the public’s displeasure, he slowly phased out the strict application of Islamic law, turned a blind eye to gender mixing and smoking and allowed protests against him. A Sharia law-based morality unit was disbanded but women were encouraged to cover their hair.
 
“It was a successful project in practice because there was also some buy in from the population. It was stable, the economy was working better (than the rest of Syria) and even the type of authoritarianism was nothing compared to Assad’s family,” Drevon said.
 
But there were exceptions. Last year, the SSG issued a “morality decree” instructing children to adhere to an Islamic dress code and limiting music in educational facilities. Jolani intervened to freeze the decree, fearing that an international uproar could affect aid donations, Drevon said.
 
Another issue was the arrest and alleged torture of dissidents that caused significant protests against Jolani in Idlib last year. Jolani told CNN last week that abuses in prisons “were not done under our orders or directions” and that HTS had already penalized the perpetrators.

DUBAI, Dec 13 (Reuters) - Bashar al-Assad confided in almost no one about his plans to flee Syria as his reign collapsed. Instead, aides, officials and even relatives were deceived or kept in the dark, more than a dozen people with knowledge of the events told Reuters.
 
Hours before he escaped for Moscow, Assad assured a meeting of about 30 army and security chiefs at the defence ministry on Saturday that Russian military support was on its way and urged ground forces to hold out, according to a commander who was present and requested anonymity to speak about the briefing.
 
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Assad told his presidential office manager on Saturday when he finished work he was going home but instead headed to the airport, according to an aide in his inner circle.
 
He also called his media adviser, Buthaina Shaaban, and asked her to come to his home to write him a speech, the aide said. She arrived to find no one was there.
 
"Assad didn't even make a last stand. He didn't even rally his own troops," said Nadim Houri, executive director of the Arab Reform Initiative regional think-tank. "He let his supporters face their own fate."
 
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Assad didn't even inform his younger brother, Maher, commander of the Army's elite 4th Armoured Division, about his exit plan, according to three aides. Maher flew a helicopter to Iraq and then to Russia, one of the people said.
 
Assad's maternal cousins, Ehab and Eyad Makhlouf, were similarly left behind as Damascus fell to the rebels, according to a Syrian aide and Lebanese security official. The pair tried to flee by car to Lebanon but were ambushed on the way by rebels who shot Ehab dead and wounded Eyad, they said. There was no official confirmation of the death and Reuters was unable to independently verify the incident.
 
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Assad's immediate family, wife Asma and their three children, were already waiting for him in the Russian capital, according to three former close aides and a senior regional official.
 
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Hadi al-Bahra, the head of Syria's main opposition abroad, said that Assad didn't convey the reality of the situation to aides back home, citing a source within Assad's close circle and a regional official.
 
"He told his commanders and associates after his Moscow trip that military support was coming," Bahra added. "He was lying to them. The message he received from Moscow was negative."
 
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters on Wednesday that Russia had spent a lot of effort in helping stabilise Syria in the past but its priority now was the conflict in Ukraine.
 
Four days after that trip, on Dec. 2, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi met with Assad in Damascus. By that time, the rebels from the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) Islamist group had taken control of Syria's second-largest city Aleppo and were sweeping southwards as government forces crumbled.
 
Assad was visibly distressed during the meeting, and conceded that his army was too weakened to mount an effective resistance, a senior Iranian diplomat told Reuters.
 
Assad never requested that Tehran deploy forces in Syria though, according to two senior Iranian officials who said he understood that Israel could use any such intervention as a reason to target Iranian forces in Syria or even Iran itself.
 
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Three members of Assad's inner circle said he initially wanted to seek refuge in the United Arab Emirates, as rebels seized Aleppo and Homs and were advancing towards Damascus.
 
They said he was rebuffed by the Emiratis who feared an international backlash for harbouring a figure subject to U.S. and European sanctions for allegedly using chemical weapons in a crackdown on insurgents, accusations that Assad has rejected as a fabrication.
 
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Qatar and Turkey made arrangements with HTS to facilitate Assad's exit, three of the sources said, despite official claim by both countries that they had no contacts with HTS, which is designated by the U.S. and the U.N. as a terrorist organisation.
Moscow also coordinated with neighbouring states to ensure that a Russian plane leaving Syrian airspace with Assad on board would not be intercepted or targeted, three of the sources said.