With a lightning-fast push in late November and early December 2024, militants from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) surged into the Syrian capital of Damascus, surrounding it within days and forcing President Bashar al-Assad into what appeared to be a permanent exile in Moscow, a collapse as sudden and total as a sandcastle swept away by a rogue wave. On Dec. 8, HTS leader Ahmed al-Sharāʿa, better known as Mohammed al-Jolani, stood on the battered steps of the presidential palace and declared himself interim head of state. He pledged to rebuild Syria from its fractured foundations and begin healing the rifts that had torn its people apart.
This swift regime implosion, which ended more than five decades of Assad family rule in under two weeks, left the region stunned and set the stage for a precarious new experiment in postwar nation-building.
Imagine Syria as a great old house, long battered by seismic shocks. Its walls are cracked, windows shattered, and the families once sheltered beneath its roof now scattered across neighboring countries. Today, HTS casts itself as both architect and contractor, promising to reinforce the walls, rewire the circuits, and welcome back every displaced resident—Sunni, Alawite, Kurdish, Christian, Druze—under one roof. But as the neighbors peer through the broken windows, they ask the obvious question: Can those who once lit the fires be trusted to handle the repairs?
At the heart of HTS’s public transformation is a promise: to move from militancy to governance, from exclusivity to inclusion. Al-Jolani has repeatedly pledged to dissolve the group’s armed wing and reassign former fighters, including regime soldiers, HTS loyalists and Kurdish militiamen, into a single “National Guard” accountable to civilian authority. The task is Herculean. It’s the political equivalent of fusing three rival sports teams into one cohesive unit: They’ll need to study the same playbook, trust a common coaching staff, and share locker rooms without their resentments reigniting.
Pulling that off would signal the possible end of Syria’s era of armed factions. Failing would risk plunging the country back into chaos.
Money, inevitably, is the fuel for reconstruction. Qatar was first to fill the tank, pledging $29 million a month for three months through the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) to pay public salaries. Gulf states quietly paid down portions of Syria’s World Bank debt to clear a path for larger loans. At a Brussels summit last week, donors pledged $6.5 billion to repair roads, power grids, and water systems. But these funds come with strings: HTS must prove itself transparent, adopt meaningful anti-corruption measures, and uphold basic labor rights. In short, it must act like a contractor who honors the blueprint and accepts constant oversight.
Signs of tentative renewal are beginning to show. Inflation, which soared to over 120 percent in early 2024, had fallen to 36.8 percent by February 2025, a rare moment of stability on supermarket shelves. Refugees have started to return, slowly and cautiously. By mid-2025, the U.N. High Commissioner for Refugees estimated nearly half a million Syrians had come back, clinging to hope as tightly as the modest belongings they brought with them.
But the truest tests go beyond economics. They lie in the country’s fraying social fabric and its contested political legitimacy. Kurds, who have governed autonomous enclaves in the northeast since 2012, are now demanding constitutional guarantees for their language, culture, and local self-rule. Turkey—HTS’s de facto patron across the border—views such autonomy as a threat to its own security and has gently urged al-Jolani to curb Kurdish aspirations. Any lasting compromise will require mutual concessions: The Kurds must buy into a unified Syrian state, and HTS must enshrine real autonomy in the national constitution. Without that, another eruption is likely.
Religious minorities are watching HTS’s evolution with wary eyes. In Damascus, Christian leaders received HTS envoys offering reassurances: churches would be protected, confiscated properties returned, religious freedoms upheld. In Suwayda, Druze councils were invited to join national dialogue sessions. In Salamiyah, Ismaili elders sought—and received—local governance guarantees. To many, al-Jolani’s recent statement that “nobody has the right to wipe out a group” sounded like long-overdue music. But in the absence of binding protections and independent monitoring, such pledges could prove as ephemeral as morning mist.
Women’s rights are proving an early litmus test. The promotion of Shadi al-Waisi, a former HTS judge linked to executions for moral offenses, sparked fierce protests. Al-Jolani has spoken of gender equality under the law, but turning rhetoric into law requires more than eloquence. It means legislating clearly against violence toward women, guaranteeing due process, and empowering independent watchdogs. Think of it as installing smoke detectors and running fire drills after a deadly blaze—without such systems, the next spark could burn whole communities down.
The economic outlook remains bleak. Syria’s GDP has already contracted by nearly 60 percent and is projected to shrink further in 2025. Foreign currency reserves are near depletion. In response, al-Jolani’s economic team proposed a three-part strategy: relaunch oil exports under HTS oversight, establish special tax-exempt economic zones around Idlib to attract investment, and offer microloans to women and returning refugees. But unless the central bank regains independence and corruption is rooted out, these initiatives may amount to turning the engine over without ever getting a spark.
Meanwhile, Syria’s infrastructure lies in ruins. The proposed $250 billion “Rebuild Syria” plan aims to restore roads from Latakia to Damascus, rebuild Aleppo and Homs’ electricity grids, and upgrade Raqqa’s water systems. But success depends on aligning scores of donors, NGOs and private contractors under one umbrella. It’s a difficult feat. The lesson from Iraq and Afghanistan is sobering: Without strict procurement standards and anti-fraud enforcement, billions can disappear into profiteers’ pockets while entire towns remain in the dark.
Al-Jolani, for his part, has shown surprising political dexterity. In January 2025, he met with French President Emmanuel Macron in Paris and secured a phased easing of sanctions tied to human rights benchmarks. The European Union is moving toward lifting travel bans and unfreezing assets. The U.K. is considering removing HTS from its terrorist list. In a gesture toward regional pragmatism, HTS expelled Iranian Revolutionary Guard officials—a concession aimed at placating both Israel and the Gulf. Each move is a calculated step on a geopolitical chessboard: Lean too far in one direction, and another ally may walk away.
Still, HTS remains a pariah in the eyes of international law. Both the U.S. State Department and the United Nations classify it as a Foreign Terrorist Organization under Executive Order 13224, meaning any aid that passes through HTS-linked channels risks triggering sanctions. For now, reconstruction funds are routed through neutral agencies like UNDP and UNICEF, creating financial firewalls. But scaling up this model will require those agencies to expand their oversight and ensure that every dollar reaches its intended destination.
Perhaps the most daunting challenge is justice. After 14 years of war, that is bombings, torture, mass displacements, Syrians are demanding accountability. HTS has proposed a Truth and Reconciliation Commission to document abuses, recommend institutional reforms, and guide reparations. A hybrid tribunal—part Syrian, part international—would prosecute top war criminals. But unless HTS relinquishes control over its detention network and allows U.N. monitors inside, the promise of justice may remain an abstraction, a slogan rather than a system.
In late February 2025, more than 4,000 Syrians took part in the first National Dialogue Conference, representing all 14 regions. Some minority groups—Alawites and Kurds among them—voiced concern about underrepresentation in the lead-up. But the summit was unprecedented: former enemies sharing the same table to debate religious freedom and executive limits. The next sessions must go further, ensuring that constitutional rights aren’t negotiated through handshake deals, but enshrined in law.
In the end, the true measure of Syria’s transformation won’t be found in summit communiqués or diplomatic meetings. It will be found in the daily rhythms of life. Are teachers paid on time so schools can open? Are checkpoints staffed by mixed patrols instead of sectarian enforcers? Do grocery prices stay stable for more than a day? Do the lights come on at dusk? Do returning families find homes—or rubble?
Syria’s long road from battleground to ballot box is fraught, but not hopeless. The HTS experiment may offer lessons to the wider world: that legitimacy is earned through action, not declarations; that reconstruction depends as much on neighborhood trust as on macroeconomic policy; and that adaptive sanctions regimes must calibrate to measurable outcomes—not wishful thinking.
Ultimately, Syria’s fate hinges on whether HTS can translate its battlefield victory into lasting legitimacy. The irony is stark: a group once known for suicide bombs now aspiring to enshrine minority rights, integrate rival factions, and draft a democratic constitution. If successful, HTS could redraw the blueprint for how armed non-state actors claim the mantle of governance. If it fails, Syria risks yet another spiral into violence—one that could be even harder to stop.
In the meantime, the next chapters are being written quietly: in reopened schools after a decade of silence, in women launching businesses with small loans, in engineers restoring electricity to Aleppo, in families rebuilding homes that no longer exist. The light of peace is flickering. Whether it shines or fades will depend not on declarations, but on a thousand small acts of reconstruction—and the will to carry them through.
