The March Massacres Show That Syria Urgently Needs Solutions, Not Sanctions
Early March 2025 was when Syria’s post-Assad transition turned sour. In scenes that resembled the worst moments of Syria’s civil war, hundreds of Alawite civilians were killed, probably by a combination of pro-government forces and extra-judicial Sunni death squads.
The violence began as an anti-government uprising in Syria’s coastal, Alawite-dominated Latakia province. But the subsequent massacres were a country-wide event, with reports of Sunni militias killing Alawite civilians in Homs, Tartous, Hama and elsewhere.
These systemic acts of sectarian murder apparently vindicated the long-held view by some observers that Syrian President Ahmed al-Sharaa — despite his apparent transformation from militant to statesman — remains an unreconstituted jihadist. In the words of Secretary of State Marco Rubio, al-Sharaa’s past ties to al-Qaeda and the Islamic State “is not one that gives us comfort.” The West has apparently been duped again: Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and al-Sharaa have used Western engagement to consolidate power. The March massacres are the thin end of the sectarian, Islamist wedge.
This perspective is deeply flawed. To be sure, the new Syria government is far from blameless, but the events of early March took place not because the new government is too strong, but because it is too weak. The best way to stop Syria from falling further into the abyss of sectarian violence is through more sanctions relief, not less. Al-Sharaa is neither a democrat, nor a liberal. He is an Islamist. But his long militant and political career shows that he is also a pragmatist. Western countries and responsible regional actors should engage with the new regime to encourage al-Sharaa’s pragmatism to take precedence over his Islamism.
The Chameleon Jihadist?
One source of al-Sharaa’s mystique is his unlikely transformation from jihadist warlord to responsible statesman. He began his “political” career as a jihadist fighter in Iraq. His claim that he was only a foot soldier in al-Qaeda is not credible, given that he was trusted with setting up a branch of the organization in Syria. That group, which in 2017 re-branded itself as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, employed suicide bombings, kidnapping, and extortion, whilst routinely torturing its opponents. Even as late as 2021, Al-Sharaa inferred that the 9/11 attacks made him “happy.”
It is therefore no surprise that al-Sharaa has gone from being one of the Middle East’s most wanted militants, to one of its most watched leaders. Since the Assad regime fell in December 2024, observers have pored over every statement and gesture by Syria’s enigmatic new president to determine whether he is still an Islamist, or has become a pragmatist, or even a democrat. According to skeptics, the new Syrian president and his Hayat Tahrir al-Sham militant group are nothing new. Instead, they have adopted the “opportunistic and gradual playbook” of Hamas, the Taliban, and other Islamist groups.
But this oversimplification ignores that al-Sharaa’s transformation did not take place overnight. Al-Sharaa returned to Syria in 2011 from Iraq, as an al-Qaeda operative. He later turned his group’s guns on al-Qaeda and the Islamic State. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham went from fighting Turkish proxies, to counting Ankara as a key partner. Despite having spent five years in coalition jails in Iraq, he apparently bore the United States no ill will in 2024, when meeting with Biden administration officials.
These changes in the group’s foreign relations correspond to shifts in Hayat Tahrir al-Sham’s actions in Syria itself. The militant group was previously known as Jabhat Fatah al-Sham and before that as Jabhat al-Nusra. These were not just rebranding exercises. Instead, they reflected political and ideological shifts as al-Sharaa purged his group of al-Qaeda sympathizers, whilst incorporating — through force and diplomacy — other rebel groups. One such group was the Islamist-nationalist Ahrar al-Sham, whom Hayat Tahrir al-Sham displaced as the rulers of Syria’s Idlib province in 2017. But illustrating that this was less absorption and more osmosis, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham then continued Ahrar al-Sham’s emphasis on public service provision over religious dogma — an approach that served it and Idlib’s residents well.
Explaining al-Sharaa’s Adaptability
Al-Sharaa and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham did not change after a self-indulgent journey of self-discovery. Instead, they did so when external dynamics convinced them that it was in their own interests. Initially, al-Sharaa sought to establish a launching pad for al-Qaeda attacks outside the country. But this goal lost its utility after Russia and the United States put their disagreements aside to coordinate airstrikes against jihadist groups. It was this event which caused al-Sharaa to sever ties with global jihadists, because these allegiances now demonstrably harmed his group’s interests and power projection by inviting Russian and American airstrikes.
Similarly, after Hayat Tahrir al-Sham seized power in Idlib, al-Sharaa was willing to forgive and forget and cultivate close ties with Syria’s neighbor and his group’s former rival Turkey. This fateful decision shaped Syria’s future. Al-Sharaa reached an accommodation with Turkey that allowed the latter to position its troops inside Idlib province. This act constrained the Assad regime’s freedom of action and earned Hayat Tahrir al-Sham Turkey’s protection, allowing the group to not just survive but also thrive. Whilst sanctions and civil war decimated the rest of Syria, Turkey opened its border to trade. As a result, Idlib’s residents were soon better paid and had greater access to electricity than their counterparts in most other parts of Syria.
After Hayat Tahrir al-Sham hardliners objected, al-Sharaa purged and replaced them with civilian technocrats. This, in turn, engendered a more hands-off approach to governance — Hayat Tahrir al-Sham abolished its “sharia patrols.” This and a broader focus on everyday governance bolstered Hayat Tahrir al-Sham’s support beyond its narrow jihadist base. Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and al-Sharaa were now seen less as a Syrian Taliban and more as competent rulers who keep the lights on, the garbage collected, and the streets safe.
In sum, whilst al-Sharaa’s trajectory appears inconsistent, it was in fact consistently defined by two immutable characteristics: flexibility and pragmatism. It is this unlikely combination that has enabled him to be a jihadist and Islamist, whilst building and maintaining support beyond the narrow base of more austere interpretations of Islam. If British statesman Lord Palmerston did indeed say that “we have no eternal allies, only eternal interests,” he would have approved of al-Sharaa’s willingness to align with, abandon, and incorporate a diversity of actors, all for the perpetual pursuit of power. In so doing, he and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham have demonstrated more flexibility and political acumen then any active jihadist movement inside or outside of Syria.
Skeptics may argue that extremist groups have long adapted to face adversity or obscured their own bloody tactics and uncompromising goals with inclusive rhetoric. They would be correct. But Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and al-Sharaa are different, in that they are unencumbered by a rigid vision and instead have changed allegiances, policy, and even ideology when it suited their interests. This also explains why al-Sharaa is talking and acting the way he is as Syria’s president: Seamlessly changing ideological positions and allegiances has served his interests in the past, so there is every possibility that he expects it to allow him to consolidate his power today.
Sanctions and the Conditionality Problem
Rather than seek to prevent this outcome, Western countries should show al-Sharaa — if this is his goal and motivation — that he is right. The way to achieve this is through sanctions relief, aid provision, and — more proactively — by establishing political and economic partnerships with the new government.
But external actors have failed to rise to this low bar. The Biden administration issued a six-month sanctions waiver for financial transactions with the new government and its central bank. President Donald Trump, though, has approached Syria with disengagement and apathy. This is counterintuitive for a president who loves making business deals, given that the Syrian government is desperate to facilitate new commercial, political, and cultural ties.
Europe’s record is slightly better. In February 2025, the European Union announced sanctions relief for Syria’s banking, energy, and transport sectors. After the Trump administration backed off, European countries and the European Union have taken up the mantle in continuing their dialogue with al-Sharaa and his government. In January 2025 alone, the French, Italian, and German governments sent their foreign ministers to Damascus. A member of the European Union’s commission also joined them.
But the European Union’s strategy remains fundamentally flawed. It took nearly eight weeks after Assad’s departure for Brussels to rescind some sanctions. With most restrictions still in place and the United States sanctions waiver expiring soon, businesses have largely stayed away. The European Union and its member states remain bound to conditionality — the principle that sanctions relief should only come as a reward after the government’s deeds match al-Sharaa’s words. This is not how Hayat Tahrir al-Sham works — it changes far more frequently and fundamentally than other jihadist groups, but only when offered concrete incentives to do so. Turkey understood this when it opened its border to trade and stationed its troops in Idlib. It is, as a result, the most powerful external actor in Syria today.
The Right Response to the March Massacres
There are few signs that the West will follow Turkey’s lead. The European Union and United States were right to condemn the March 2025 massacres, but they are learning the wrong lessons from this tragic event. One commentator lamented that the chances of further sanctions relief are now “effectively zero.”
Apparently vindicating this claim, Washington’s response failed to contextualize the violence within Syria’s increasingly dire downward economic spiral and the role that the continuing sanctions regime played in perpetuating status quo. Approximately 90 percent of Syrians live below the poverty line. It will cost an estimated $800 billion to return Syria to pre-civil war levels of prosperity — even then, it was hardly a prosperous country. Since 2011, 13 million Syrians have been displaced, and returnees are dying daily from unexploded munitions. Syria is a country awash with weapons and full of combat-trained young men with uncertain futures and few opportunities. Europe may feel it can afford to wait by making sanctions relief conditional, but the bloodshed shows that the Syrian people cannot. Whilst there is no evidence that the government ordered the massacres, the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham-led regime’s inability to share power played a contributing role. The militant group’s shift away from enforcing religious dogma and towards technocratic state building in Idlib won it friends beyond its base. Yet there was little corresponding shift towards power-sharing or inclusive governance. When they seized power in Damascus, observers warned that what worked in Idlib would not work for the whole of Syria. This is because the rest of the country was bigger, less conservative, and more ethnically, religiously, and politically diverse than one border province.
But Hayat Tahrir al-Sham did not listen. From prime ministers to traffic policemen and teachers, the group transplanted its own people from Idlib and sent them to do the same roles on a much larger scale. The result was a power vacuum, since Hayat Tahrir al-Sham simply did not have enough loyal members to keep the streets safe and the power on throughout Syria. It precipitated a trust breakdown between Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and other rebel militias and political groups, who either refused to integrate into the new government’s security forces, or dragged their feet in the hope that they could practice “reflagging” — professing loyalty to a new regime whilst retaining their original structure and organizational distinctiveness.
It was this dynamic that precipitated the March massacres. Syria’s government claims it directed its forces to fight the pro-Assad remnant forces, not slaughter Alawite civilians. But Hayat Tahrir al-Sham is a relatively small Syrian militia, with between 20,000 and 30,000 fighters. The central government was therefore forced to rely on other armed groups that were pro-government, but outside of al-Sharaa’s control. It was mostly these groups — foreign jihadists and Sunni militias under Turkish protection — that deliberately massacred Alawite civilians. Even though al-Sharaa announced an independent inquiry, its ability to sanction the perpetrators remains unclear. What is undeniable is that it will be unable to do much without Turkey’s buy-in, given that the government is reliant on Ankara’s political, diplomatic, and security support.
The Price of Inaction
The events of early March 2025 stem from and illustrate the government’s weakness, not its strength. Equally, fears that al-Sharaa will become a strongman are overblown. This is less by his own design and more by organizational limitations. Al-Sharaa as a brand is bigger than Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. This masks a weakness: he has far more soft power than hard power. Skeptics are right that al-Sharaa and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham are not democrats. Yet to stay in power and prevent a further descent into sectarian violence they now have no choice but to become more inclusive. This goes against all the group’s past experiences governing Idlib and its limited time in power in Damascus, which is why engagement to push them in this direction is more important than ever.
The West, in turn, should help the government establish a monopoly on violence, rather than fear this outcome. They should provide al-Sharaa with an alternative patron to Turkey, which — given the Erdoğan administration’s own authoritarian record — is unlikely to promote good governance in Syria. The European demand that Hayat Tahrir al-Sham act first to institute democracy as well as women’s and minority rights locks the status quo of sanctions in place and makes a return to sectarian violence more likely. It is playing the fiddle of ideological purity whilst Syria burns. It is morally indefensible that whilst Assad and his family luxuriate in Moscow, it is the Syrian people who continue to suffer the consequences of the former regime’s sectarianism and authoritarianism.
Sanctions relief alone will not banish the ghost of sectarianism from Syria. Ethno-religious tension is hardwired into the country’s DNA. As a young man, Hafez al-Assad’s personal experiences of discrimination shaped his perception that the country’s Sunni elites would never willingly share power with his own Alawite sect or Syria’s other’s minority groups. Syria under Hafez and his son Bashar, in turn, disproportionately featured minorities — particularly Alawites — within its governing echelons. These historical dynamics explain why it was Sunni militias that carried out the March massacres and why their targets were Alawites. But this does not mean, as some skeptics insinuate, that the United States has no good options in Syria today.
The West and its regional allies should acknowledge the post-Assad Syria that exists, rather than wait for the one that they want and won’t get. Given that al-Sharaa previously professed loyalty to the Islamic State and al-Qaeda, it is perfectly reasonable to doubt whether a free country can emerge from the ashes of the Assad regime’s authoritarianism. That al-Sharaa has kept his vision for a post-Assad Syria so murky and undefined has only exacerbated these existing fears. But if the West and its partners opt to engage with the new government, they can engineer an incremental shift towards a better, albeit imperfect, Syria. The way to do so is to reward al-Sharaa’s pragmatism and relentless drive for power at the expense of his Islamism. Throughout his long militant and political career, he has routinely chosen the former tendencies over the latter. This does not mean that he is a democrat, a liberal or a “good guy.” But it does mean that he responds to inducements to change his behavior.
Whilst the country still reeled massacres of early March 2025, Syrians received some respite when al-Sharaa announced an integration and reconciliation deal with the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, who have run a state-within-a-state in the country’s east since 2011. Illustrating how external engagement is critical for getting Syria to a better place even at the direst of times, the deal would have been impossible without intensive U.S. mediation.
But the West, and particularly the European Union’s conditional approach, suggests that time is on their side. This fatally misreads al-Sharaa’s history and his contemporary political constraints. Al-Sharaa urgently needs to deliver for the Syrian people. He cares less about how he gets the resources to do so. This runs the risk of allowing other actors to fill the void, who lack any expectations of inclusive governance. At the same time, the West should be clear-eyed as to who al-Sharaa is, where he has come from, and what motivates his actions today. One seasoned Syria watcher noted that al-Sharaa “has gone where the wind has blown.” This illustrates that immediate sanctions relief can shape the direction of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, al-Sharaa, and Syria for the better. Disengagement or incrementalism, though, will only do so for the worse.
Rob Geist Pinfold is a lecturer in international security at King’s College London’s Defence Studies Department, a research fellow at Charles University’s Peace Research Center Prague, and an adjunct professor at Johns Hopkins School of Advanced International Studies in Bologna.
Image: Voice of America via Wikimedia Commons
