Three months after ousting Syrian dictator Bashar al-Assad on December 8, 2024, the interim president, Ahmed al-Sharaa, is facing the first real test of his command. The efforts that the former leader of the Sunni Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) undertook to polish his image with Syrians and the international community, consolidate his rule of Syria and ensure a peaceful transition in a country bled dry by the al-Assad dictatorship, have been swept away in the space of three days.

The wounds of 13 years of civil war, temporarily obliterated by the euphoria of liberation from the clutches of the al-Assad regime, opened wide again on March 6. Threatened with losing control of Alawite strongholds in the center and west of the country under attacks from supporters of the deposed president, al-Sharaa fell into their trap. He could not keep control of the radical Islamist factions allied with him and by the Sunni supporters who responded to his call for general mobilization, due to a lack of sufficient numbers among the disciplined troops who responded to him.

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