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Syria’s hard-won freedom from a dictator · The Front

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  Speaker 1: From The Australian. Here's what's on the front. I'm Christinamio.
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  Speaker 1: It's Tuesday, December tenth. The former Israeli Foreign Minister Sippylivney
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  Speaker 1: says strong leadership is the antidote to antisemitism. Her comments
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  Speaker 1: followed the establishment of an antisemitism task Force by Prime
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  Speaker 1: Minister Anthony Albanesi. He capitulated to three days of demands
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  Speaker 1: to take decisive action after Melbourne's Great Synagogue was firebomb plus.
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  Speaker 1: Peter Dutton declared the Coalition will deport migrants who are
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  Speaker 1: deemed antisemitic if the Opposition gets up at the next election.
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  Speaker 1: That exclusive interview with Sippylivney is live right now at
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  Speaker 1: the Australian dot com dot au. It took Syrian rebels
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  Speaker 1: just twenty four hours to bring half a century of
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  Speaker 1: tyranny to a stunning conclusion. The world watches and waits
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  Speaker 1: to see who feels the massive political vacuum created by
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  Speaker 1: the end of the Assad regime. That's today's story. On
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  Speaker 1: Sunday evening, the streets of Southwest Sydney, the city's Syrian
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  Speaker 1: communities lit up. They were celebrating the fall of a
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  Speaker 1: ruthless regime. And the demise of a dictator who ruled
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  Speaker 1: Syria for more than five decades. For some residents who
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  Speaker 1: spoke to the Australians reporters Lea Mendez and Joanna Panagopolis,
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  Speaker 1: it was a moment of jubilation because the Catufrinda not
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  Speaker 1: in jail, because twenty four million people.
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  Speaker 2: Actually the.
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  Speaker 1: Mohammed el Humwi says he plans to return to his
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  Speaker 1: home country for the first time in four decades. But
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  Speaker 1: for others like Assyrian refugee Simon Shaheen, it's a time
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  Speaker 1: of fear, interrepidation.
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  Speaker 3: So when there's no government, no system in place to
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  Speaker 3: protect the innocent, it becomes like wilderness. It's a huge
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  Speaker 3: political vacuum. Who was going to fill it? It's going
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  Speaker 3: to be insurgents and rebels who are radical and extremist
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  Speaker 3: mentality and agendas, and they are armed to the teeth.
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  Speaker 2: Well Christian. It really means a new balance of power
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  Speaker 2: in the Middle East because Syria has been a stalwart
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  Speaker 2: companion ally of the so called Actus of Evil, which
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  Speaker 2: is between Hezbollah, Iran and Russia, who have been its
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  Speaker 2: three major allies.
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  Speaker 1: Karon Stewart is the Australian's Chief International correspondent.
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  Speaker 2: So, in other words, by Syria collapsing in a spectacular way,
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  Speaker 2: it has a Syrian regime. It's really robbed those three
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  Speaker 2: entities of their power in the Middle East, and that's
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  Speaker 2: a huge shift in the balance of power.
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  Speaker 1: If you tuned into Syria's state television station in the
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  Speaker 1: early hours of Sunday morning, you'd have heard a familiar tune.
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  Speaker 1: It was Tchaikowsky's Swan Lake playing on loop. The office
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  Speaker 1: of President Bashah al Assad said he was tied up
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  Speaker 1: with constitutional tasks. In reality, he was on the lamb
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  Speaker 1: his wife and children in tow as the regime his
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  Speaker 1: family spent fifty three years building crumbled.
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  Speaker 4: Syria's government has collapsed after a lightning offensive by rebel
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  Speaker 4: forces over the past week. People are celebrating the end
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  Speaker 4: to the fifty year a sad rule in the streets.
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  Speaker 4: After the capital Damascus fell.
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  Speaker 1: Rebel fighters took up officers in the Syrian capital's lavish
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  Speaker 1: presidential palace and gleefully looted a fleet of luxury cars
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  Speaker 1: from Assad's private collection. No they unlocked dungeon prisons, freeing
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  Speaker 1: those held captive for years under the regime. Civilians poured
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  Speaker 1: into the streets of Damascus waving flags and chanting in victory,
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  Speaker 1: and a week after rebel forces first swept into Aleppo,
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  Speaker 1: the leaders who toppled this brutal regime in less than
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  Speaker 1: twenty four hours joined in the celebrations. The ousted president
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  Speaker 1: re emerged in Russia on morning, having been granted political
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  Speaker 1: asylum by the Kremlin.
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  Speaker 2: He really was a truly brutal dictator. He didn't start
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  Speaker 2: out necessarily being like that. He was actually an eye doctor,
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  Speaker 2: but of course he got canapulted into that position, succeeding
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  Speaker 2: his father after his elder brother died, and he became
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  Speaker 2: harder and harder and harder as a dictator as the
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  Speaker 2: years went on, and the big threat to him of was,
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  Speaker 2: of course, the Arab Spring in twenty eleven, where pro
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  Speaker 2: democracy protesters looked like they might topple him, and he
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  Speaker 2: came back very very hard, got his allies Russia and
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  Speaker 2: Iran and Hezbollah to crush the resistance movement, but he
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  Speaker 2: used chemical weapons on his own people. Some three hundred
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  Speaker 2: thousand people arrestimated to have died during that conflict between
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  Speaker 2: twenty eleven and twenty eight, and he was one of
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  Speaker 2: the most dictators in the world, and even though there's
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  Speaker 2: a lot of uncertainty about what happens now in Syria,
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  Speaker 2: and you know, what are these rebels going to actually be? Like?
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  Speaker 2: I think there's general celebration in the West and certainly
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  Speaker 2: in Syria that this despot has been toppled.
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  Speaker 1: Coming up, what this historic defeat means for the Middle East.
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  Speaker 1: The demise of the Assad regime isn't a story about
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  Speaker 1: good triumphing over evil. There are several groups with a
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  Speaker 1: vested interest in what happens in Syria, but no clear winners.
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  Speaker 1: Chief among them is Higher to Rear al Sham or HTS,
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  Speaker 1: hardest group from northwest Syria with links to the terrorist
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  Speaker 1: group Al Qaeda. They're responsible for mounting the stunning resurgence
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  Speaker 1: that ultimately led to Assad's downfall. There's Russia, which has
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  Speaker 1: air and naval bases dotted along Syria's Mediterranean coast, but
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  Speaker 1: was otherwise occupied and failed to send back up as Aleppo,
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  Speaker 1: Hammer and Homs fell. In the southwest, Lebanon's proxy militia, Hezbollah,
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  Speaker 1: has lost a powerful ally and the land that connection
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  Speaker 1: affords it. To the north, Turkey has been given an
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  Speaker 1: opening to expand its influence in the region by backing
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  Speaker 1: the ascendant rebel groups like HTS in Iraq. There are
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  Speaker 1: concerns the Syrian revolt could inspire similar action by Sunni Muslims,
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  Speaker 1: and there are the Kurdish and Alouite Syrian factions whose
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  Speaker 1: fight for survival is not yet done. Further afield, the
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  Speaker 1: United States has already taken steps to prevent the koreation
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  Speaker 1: of a new extremist Islamic state, conducting air strikes on
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  Speaker 1: ISIS camps in central Syria.
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  Speaker 3: We're cleared eyed about the fact that ISIS will try
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  Speaker 3: to take advantages of the vacuum to re establish this
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  Speaker 3: capabilities to create a safe Hayman. We will not let
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  Speaker 3: that happen.
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  Speaker 1: And in Israel, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanya, who took credit
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  Speaker 1: for the chain of events he says ultimately led to
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  Speaker 1: Asad's demise.
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  Speaker 2: This is a.
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  Speaker 3: Historic day for the Middle East.
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  Speaker 1: It's set off a chain reaction of all those who
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  Speaker 1: want to free themselves from this tyranny and its oppression.
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  Speaker 2: No one knows how this group will govern. This is
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  Speaker 2: a massive vacuum of power. I mean they controlled a
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  Speaker 2: very small area up in the northwest of the country,
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  Speaker 2: very very different to control all of Syria. And what
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  Speaker 2: I think is really interesting in the last twenty four
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  Speaker 2: hours Christian Is we've seen the nations around Syria really
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  Speaker 2: take steps to protect their own interests. We've seen Israel
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  Speaker 2: go into the demilitarized zone between Syria and Israel that
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  Speaker 2: was created back in nineteen seventy four and move beyond that,
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  Speaker 2: moving its troops actually into Syrian soil. And they're saying
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  Speaker 2: this is a temporary move, but they are doing it
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  Speaker 2: because they don't want to be threatened on their border
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  Speaker 2: by a militant group. And then on the other side,
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  Speaker 2: we've had the Americans who've got a thousand troops in
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  Speaker 2: eastern Syria. They've been bombing Islamic State camps in eastern Syria,
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  Speaker 2: and the message they're trying to say there is don't
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  Speaker 2: let Islamic State join with this new rebel group that's
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  Speaker 2: taken over Syria. And on top of that, the Iraqis
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  Speaker 2: have closed their border and the Turkish forces had a
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  Speaker 2: skirmish with the Kurdish forces who are up in the
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  Speaker 2: northeast of the country. So, if you like, everyone suddenly
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  Speaker 2: reacting to this incredible victory by their Eble forces by
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  Speaker 2: protecting their own interests. And I think that goes to
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  Speaker 2: your original question. No one knows exactly what is going
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  Speaker 2: to happen next.
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  Speaker 1: And to that point, this is an one of those
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  Speaker 1: questions that likely doesn't yet have an answer. But there
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  Speaker 1: is a conflict already raging in the Middle East that
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  Speaker 1: is primarily Israel and Hamas in Gaza. How does that
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  Speaker 1: play into all of this? Is that dynamic likely to
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  Speaker 1: shift now or is this likely to become part of
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  Speaker 1: a wider conflict.
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  Speaker 2: Well, it's interesting because Israel is now conducting some air
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  Speaker 2: strikes as well in Syria to destroy some of the
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  Speaker 2: military apparatus that the Asarz regim had, and that's to
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  Speaker 2: make sure that this new rebel group doesn't get those
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  Speaker 2: armaments and if it was inclined to attack Israel, that
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  Speaker 2: it can't attack Israel. So Israel is trying to make
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  Speaker 2: sure that this new front in Syria doesn't become another
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  Speaker 2: front in its own conflicts against Kamas in Gaza and
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  Speaker 2: of course Hesbela in Lebanon. And of course the reason
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  Speaker 2: why Asad's infall in part was because Hesbellah backed him well.
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  Speaker 2: But now Hesbelar is completely and utterly frozen. In Lebanon.
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  Speaker 2: It's a ceasefire agreement and so there's not going to
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  Speaker 2: be any movement on that front. So I think Israel
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  Speaker 2: will now try and shore up Syria and then it
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  Speaker 2: will pay attention to Hamasin Gaza, which is really the
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  Speaker 2: biggest frat it has at the moment.
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  Speaker 1: Camaron Stewart is The Australian's chief international correspondent. This story
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  Speaker 1: is developing quickly. You can read our comprehensive reporting and
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  Speaker 1: analysis anytime at the Australian dot com dot au