SCOTT DETROW, HOST:
The decades-long reign of Bashar al-Assad is officially over. The now former Syrian leader has fled the country less than two weeks after a shocking offensive by rebel groups reignited a stagnant civil war. The rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, is responsible for toppling the Assad family's five-decade grip on power. But who exactly are the leaders of HTS, which is designated as a terrorist group by the U.S. and other governments? And what might that tell us about where Syria is headed? Hassan Hassan is the founder and editor-in-chief of New Lines magazine, which focuses on global affairs. He's a Syria analyst and coauthor of the book "ISIS: Inside The Army Of Terror." Welcome to ALL THINGS CONSIDERED.
HASSAN HASSAN: Thank you, Scott. Thanks for having me.
DETROW: So Assad is in Moscow. And I mostly want to look forward, but before we do that, how would you describe his rule over Syria in one or two sentences?
HASSAN: One of the most brutal dictatorships in the world - you could kind of get a sense of that through the scenes of the dungeons that have been opened by the rebels when they stormed different parts of Syria.
DETROW: Yeah. And I think this sudden surge, this sudden march through Syria really caught so many people around the world off guard. What had HTS been doing to prepare for this moment during this long period where the war seemed stagnant?
HASSAN: They've been ruling parts of Syria for about 10 years, so they have experience. They've been preparing. A big part of their strategy is the long war - to prepare for setbacks and then come back again and so on, so forth. They are more better prepared to do that than most other rebel forces. So they've been preparing for this fight as the Assad regime was really fraying and kind of weakening, especially over the past year with the Israeli relentless attacks against Iranian proxies and allies in the region, such as Hezbollah and other militias inside Syria and Lebanon.
DETROW: What do we need to know about HTS in this moment as the group seems to take control of Syria?
HASSAN: Well, HTS has been - has gone through different fractures and evolutions over the past - over the course of their existence in Syria. They changed their names - the name at least three times. They started as a branch of ISIS in Syria, and then they fought ISIS because they didn't agree on strategy. And then they joined al-Qaida, and then they did the same. And they helped fight both of them. And then basically with time, they evolved into this kind of Syria-focused Jihadist organization where they emphasize their fight is in Syria and only in Syria, and they ban any kind of planning for attacks outside the country.
DETROW: You wrote about this recently. You have ties to the leader of HTS, Abu Mohammed al-Golani, who you went to college with. What is your sense of his political vision in this moment?
HASSAN: Yeah, he - I mean, I was in Damascus University studying when he was there. In fact, he - I think he shared the same year of birth as mine. So he comes from that generation.
DETROW: Yeah.
HASSAN: When the - when Bashar Assad started his presidency, I was sitting my exams, my high school exams. So we were that - we call it the transition generation from the - from his father regime into Bashar Assad. Bashar Assad was this young president who promised a lot for Syrians from opening up the country and so on and so forth. So he - Abu Mohammed al-Golani - or Ahmad al-Sharaa, his real name - was part of this kind of generation that was - for him, he was inspired to go and fight in Iraq. And he left his studies, and two decades later, he went back to topple the regime that allowed him to go into Iraq to fight the Americans there.
DETROW: I mean, Assad led a brutal regime, but you're talking about somebody now who, as we go through his biography and as you talk about HTS, at times tied to al-Qaida, at times tied to the Islamic State, that certainly raises - would raise concerns for a lot of people hearing that as well. Do you think HTS is thinking about this moment differently? How do you think it's evolved when it comes to those previous ties and its approach?
HASSAN: So one of the things he has been trying to sell to others and kind of urge the United States and others to do is to not really focus too much on his resume and focus on what he's doing now. So he's basically saying, I have evolved. I'm no longer part of this kind of thinking. In fact, I fought it. I was young, and, you know, I was driven to go and fight. And I was influenced by this path. And that he - over the past five, six years, especially since 2016, he abandoned these organizations, started to kind of go against their will. And like I said, he fought against them, and then he wants to basically chart a new path for Syrians. And he wants to be part of this. He wants to basically be a Syrian leader and nothing more than that.
DETROW: That is Hassan Hassan, coauthor of "ISIS: Inside The Army Of Terror." Thank you so much for walking us through this moment and giving us your insights.
HASSAN: Thank you, Scott. Thanks a lot. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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