well we can now speak to our security correspondent Frank Gardner and Frank I just wanted you to talk us through what's happened over the last few hours because we saw crucially that meeting between turkey Russia and Iran and then now we're hearing from the rebel leader saying that there will be some kind of managed transition happening in Syria how how has this transition been managed by the external actors but also within Syria at the moment well uh I think the important stuff has happened on the ground not at Doha where these foreign ministers were meeting
because um turkey uh the foreign Ministers of turkey Iran and Russia were the key players in this but really the situation in the last 24 hours has moved so rapidly as the rebels Advanced both from da in the South and from humps in the north to close in on the capital um and it's very clear that the Syrian Army had no stomach for this fight they defected they had surrendered they retreated they tore off their uniforms put down their guns and disguised themselves as civilians this regime has crumbled very quickly indeed now um those foreign
ministers I mentioned were part of a something known as the estana process um as in um the meetings that people have held in Central Asia to try and thres out a political future for Syria Bashar Al Assad was not interested in talking about any transition of power whatsoever and he has now paid the price um the early signs are quite encouraging that there could be an orderly transition of power why because the leader of the main Rebel group HDs that's this is somebody called Abu Muhammad jolani he has said we are going to respect minorities
there's not going to be a great big blood letting of Vengeance and so on but he is only one person at the head of a very large sprawling Coalition of Rebel groups and there are some pretty hardcore jihadists in amongst them let's not forget that HTS is still a prescribed terrorist organization prescribed by the UN and by many governments it's going to have to prove itself in the coming days weeks and months that it is absolutely true to its word and has left its terrorist groups behind because people will be thinking about what happened in
Afghanistan when the Taliban seized the capital caral and the whole country um and the International Community disappeared Taliban spokespeople were going on television saying nothing to fear don't worry we're going to respect women's rights there going to you know we're not like we were in the past and they're exactly like they were in the past it's been an absolute Basket Case for human rights and women's rights so there are any number of ways in which Syria could now go down a very dark path it could go the way of Libya with rival factions armed groups
descending into sort of tribal and religious friction but so far it's looking quite promising and the West is largely staying out of it it's going to be for Syria's own people to sort this one out with the backing hopefully the United Nations um and hopefully without too much meddling from outside countries and Frank what do we know about hds's cap abilities to handle what is really a tense and fluid security situation across Syria yeah I mean it's always very difficult where you've got Rebel groups that have been in opposition for years and years and have
been operating in a very small tightly controlled area in the case of HTS they've just been in idlip they've been confined up to the far Northwest of the country they don't have any experience of governing nons Sunni Muslims uh and a wider cross spectrum of of people because Syria is a patchwork of Kurds of Christians of Sunni Muslims of Shia Muslims and I think perhaps one of the biggest threats is friction between the the the alawite minority from which Bashar Al Assad's Dynasty comes they are Shia they're based in the northwest of the country to
the south of itlb um there could be friction between them and the the Sun militants and that's not sorry Frank I just wanted to add that we've got some images that have come in from Damascus which show damage to the Iranian Embassy in the country what do we know about this incident and what does it tell us about perhaps people's feelings towards Iran in Syria at the moment well many syrians felt that um their country had become a sort of captive of Iran Syria was the big Arab Ally of the Islam Islamic Republic of Iran
um it was their Big Basics from which they channeled a lot of the weapons that went through to Hezbollah and Lebanon there were very close relations between Bashar Al Assad's regime and the the rulers of the Islamic Republic in in Iran so this is a huge blow for Iran and Bashar would not have survived this long without the assistance he had in 2015 both from the Russian Air Force but on the ground from troops and advisors and Military help from the Iranian revolutionary guards call plus hasb up both of those last two were absent this
time because Iran and hasbalah have been severely weakened by their conflict with Israel and all of this Gates dates back really to the October the 7th 2023 hamas-led raid into Southern Israel that triggered all sorts of chain reactions obviously the Israeli assault on Gaza which has resulted in the crushing of Hamas but also the deaths of tens of thousands of Palestinian civilians but the far-reaching consequences of this have spread well beyond the borders of Gaza or of Israel it is meant that Syria opposition this Rebel group was able to seize the opportunity they could see
the opportunity and they took it with both hands to do this rapid lightening Advance first to Aleppo then to hmer then to HPS and finally to Damascus knowing that Russia was preoccupied fighting a war in Ukraine and Iran and Hezbollah were too weak to give Bashar the help he needed because his own Army wasn't up for it and talk to us about Russia's interests in Syria especially it access to the Mediterranean Sea why is that important for Russia and why would it want to hold on to that well this is Russia's Southern Flank In some
ways um Russia entered the war in 2015 and lots of so-called Middle East experts probably I was one of them I don't know a lot of people predicted this is going to be a disaster for Russia it's going to be there Afghanistan it really wasn't um up until now um Russia's intervention in Syria was largely successful it was a showcase for Russian weapons it boosted their arms export uh unpleasantly um but most importantly rulers around the region particularly in the Gulf they looked at the cont with how quickly America dropped their Ally in Egypt hos
mabarak when the Arab Spring protests erupted in 2011 soon as those crowds came out into the streets of T square and so on America dropped him um but when the the Arab Spring protest broke out in uh Syria as as in other countries Russia stood by their man Bashar alassad now Russia's got its own interest there I don't think there's any particular sort of wasn't any great War Affinity on a personal basis but Russia wanted to keep its base on the Mediterranean tatus its Naval facility it's also got an air base or has had at
a place called Alim the future of those bases is now uncertain but Russia does have a fallback position in the form of Libya it's got very close relations with General Khalifa haftar in eastern Libya based in Bazi it's got the use of air bases in Libya so if it loses Syria it still has a Mediterranean base but by and large this is a net loss for Russia it looks weakened by it and it's it's a setback geopolitically geost strategically for Russia and uh in the midst of all of this I guess the foreign power that
might think their actions have been successful is turkey just talk to us about turkey's role in what's been happening over the last few days but also crucially how it could shape what's going to happen next in Syria yeah I think you're absolutely right I mean turkey has backed the islamist rebels um I think we should just define this word islamist it's not the same as Islamic islamist means somebody who believes that Islam the religion should be an integral part of government shouldn't be separate um and so these Rebels are islamists that doesn't mean they're the
same as jihadists there are some jihadists amongst them I know this is slightly complicated there is an overlap between them turkey is also largely an it's pretty much an islamist government um it's Friends of the Muslim Brotherhood for example so turkey is has been backing the rebels and will be very much um involved I think in the future shape of Syria it shares a long border with Syria a fairly porous Border in places and it's got a vested interest in having a stable Southern neighbor um I think a big question mark also hang over what
happens with the Kurds because the Kurds control much or the Syrian Kurds control much of the northeast of Syria and that includes their control of a number of camps prison camps that are containing both members of Isis so-call Islamic State and their families if that control was to be lost through attacks by turkey then there is a risk that Isis could become resurgent in Syria and and and a point on that Frank sorry to interrupt you we've had a statement coming in from a US Pentagon official saying we are aware that the chaotic and dynamic
circumstances on the ground in Syria could give Isis space to find the ability to become active to plan external operations Donald Trump had says has said that the US should stay out of what's happening in Syria but you think that's going to be the case going forward well the US has a base in southeast Syria to a place called tum it's right by the triple border with Jordan and Iraq and there's about 900 US Special Forces and support Logistics people there their job is to keep an eye on Isis and and every now and then
centcom the US Central Command will issue a press statement saying that they've carried out an air strike on suspected Isis or Al-Qaeda positions so even though Isis was defeated in 2019 it lost its last stand at a place called Baho in Syria and it lost its physical caliphate ideologically it hasn't gone away and organizations like Isis and Al-Qaeda absolutely pre on pray with P they pray on chaos confusion um breakdown of Law and Order where people feel dispossessed that they've got no future that's where they tend to step in and take advantage of it so
there is a risk if Syria starts to spiral if jolani and the rest of his Rebel group if they don't establish a smooth transition of power very quickly and move to elections and basically calm the place down if they don't do that there is absolutely the risk that Isis and Al-Qaeda could become resurgent um and form new bases and start planning International Terror attacks from Syria and Frank I guess it's important to remind our audience about just how deadly the civil war in Syria has been you know this is a war where we saw the
emergence of Isis as we were discussing but we also chem saw chemical attacks and intense Russian bombardments of cities like Aleppo this really is a defining moment for syrians we've heard from people who are saying they're just grateful that perhaps they will have some days without being under bombardments in the country yeah I mean Russian Air Force was bombing the rebels only few days ago right up to the last minute so you know they um I don't think there's going to be much love lost between them I can't under state or overstate rather the extent
of the kind of prison Gulag that Bashar Al Assad's regime um oversaw and it wasn't just him it was his father as well half Al Assad so for older syrians and older people in the Middle East the name hmer um is synonymous with that of a mass where half isad bashar's father essentially lay Siege to a Muslim Brotherhood Uprising in the city of hamama in which well over 10,000 people civilians died um there is an entire network of Prisons not just Seda s NAA which is the the famous one just outside Damascus there were so
many different branches of the military intelligence deep state that Bashar oversaw you know Air Force intelligence home security intelligence Military Intelligence political intelligence they all had their torture chambers and the extent of organized systemic torture in Syria's jails is off the scale so many thousands died under torture so I'm afraid there are an awful lot of scores that people will want to settle um and but for now with those prisons being opened and these are in many cases Poli IAL prisoners we're not talking about people who've you know done a bit of burglary on the
side we're talking about people who have perhaps scrolled some graffiti on the wall and if you remember back how this all started back in 2011 15 school boys in a town called D in the south of Syria scrolled on a wall the Arabic phrase meaning the people would the people demand the downfall of the regime that got them arrested beaten up abused and one of them was very badly mutilated that so horrified the people of D that they came out in protest that was met with bullets and repression and then the protest took off and
Bashar could have listened to them King hammed in Bahrain far from a perfect democracy but he did at least listen to some reforms and put in a few reforms but Bashar alassad refused all um he decided to tough it out and he repressed everything with bombs and bullets and tanks and prison and he's paid the price for it and Frank I just want to share a line with you on the audience that we're getting which is that the Syrian Rebel Coalition say they have started an attack on Kurdish forces in the northern town of Mage
and I guess this goes back to those discussions we were having about perhaps what turkey might want to see happening in Syria And So It Begins you know that that that is not good news um the last thing Syria needs right now is another internal conflict um but yeah I mean I'm not surprised to hear that I mean if you if you look at the um the map um of Syria you will see the different areas under different control there are turkish-backed islamist groups there is this main Rebel group that has taken Damascus there is
the Kurdish area and there was up until a few hours ago the government controlled areas um but the Kurds I think will be quite worried about this because turkey considers that its main enemy essentially is the pkk the Kurdistan Workers Party which is Allied to some Syrian groups and it has been bombarding some of the Syrian kurtish groups the one of the things that the West worries about is that turkey a NATO member could end up so damaging the Syrian Kurds that they can no longer keep control of those is prison camps I was talking
about in which case we are going to see Isis resurgent in Northeast Syria again the last thing Syria needs and wants indeed and just shows how this conflict could further spiral and Frank we just wanted to show our audience some pictures that we have coming in from Bill in Iraq they show people out celebrating waving Syrian Flags we' also seen similar scenes in Turkey as well really pointing to you know the millions of people who've been displaced out of Syria following the war but now we've also seen images of some of them trying to get
back home as soon as they can yeah and you know I I did the 10:00 news last night uh in BBC and I drove drove home through Oxford Street and I heard what it sounded like gunfire it wasn't I'm glad to say somebody basically there was a kind of Convoy of syrians celebrating waving the flag of free Syrian area which has got is black white and green rather than black white and red and they were honking their horns and letting off the sound of it was some kind of fireworks I think but it sounded like
automatic weapons fire um and they were celebrating already last night at about 10:30 at night there will be a lot of people very relieved I think the big question is what happens to the great Syrian diaspora all those millions of syrians who left Syria because of the Civil War they're not going to come back immediately I mean some people are already there's convoys that have been coming from Lebanon back into Syria but it's very early days yet you know I think the world needs to see that this transition can be peaceful and orderly and that
it's going to work and that Syria is not going to go the way of Libya and descend into chaos
