Conflict in Syria

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Syria Terminates Russian Naval Base Deal

Syria’s new government terminated a treaty granting Russia a long-term military presence in the Mediterranean, a deal brokered under ousted leader Bashar al-Assad, Syrian media reported Tuesday. The agreement, signed in 2017, extended the Russian Navy’s lease on the port of Tartus for 49 years. However, its future became uncertain after Assad was overthrown by Islamist rebels last month.

The de facto authorities in Tartus reportedly annulled the agreement and demanded the immediate withdrawal of Russian forces, the Syrian opposition news outlet Shaam reported Monday, citing the regime’s ministry of information. Authorities also said that revenue from the port would “now benefit the Syrian state,” reversing the previous agreement under which Russia received 65% of Tartus’ profits. The report added that Syria’s new leadership may investigate the treaty’s economic impact on the country.

Moscow has not yet issued a statement regarding the reported termination of the Tartus lease. Russian President Vladimir Putin, who ordered military intervention in Syria in 2015 to bolster Assad’s regime during the civil war, has sought to downplay the fall of Assad. Putin claimed that Russia had achieved its objectives in Syria despite the regime change.

On Sunday, the new Syrian government reportedly imposed bans on imports from Russia, Iran and Israel. https://www.themoscowtimes.com/2025/...reports-a87690

[Jimbuna]

Hopefully they'll maintain their stance but I suspect they'll reverse their position after they've sucked as much as they can get out of the West.

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The outbreak of violence in western Syria has reportedly left more than a thousand dead in a matter of days. There are reports of dozens of summary executions of civilians and militants. Middle East expert Kawa Hassan of US think tank Stimson fears a new chapter in the 14-year civil war. After all, how much violence will the country's new rulers use to defeat opponents? ‘The situation is spiralling out of control,’ he says. The violence began when former soldiers from the army of ousted dictator Assad took up arms against the new rulers. Last Thursday, they carried out a full-scale attack on order troops of interim president Ahmad al-Sharaa.

The armed group calls itself the Military Council for the Liberation of Syria (MRBS). Their leader is a former general, Gaith Dalah, who they say ‘wants to liberate the country’. ‘But he is just a killer from Assad's fourth army division,’ says Hassan. The US imposed sanctions against Dalah over the infamous poison gas attack in Ghouta in 2014, which killed an estimated 1,400 civilians. Following Thursday's attack by MRBS, Al-Sharaa launched a counter-offensive. ‘You have attacked all Syrians,’ the interim president said on Friday, “by targeting those who protect Syria, storming hospitals and terrorising innocents”. He announced that ‘the remnants of the fallen regime’ will be hunted down and stated that ‘criminals will be given a fair trial’.

Today, Al-Sharaa called the violence ‘one of the challenges already expected’ by the new ruler. His forces managed to defeat Assad's forces in December with relatively little resistance, but supporters of the former dictator still remain in the country. Coastal towns of Latakia, Tartous and some surrounding villages are now occupied by military and armed groups loyal to Al-Sharaa. A curfew has been imposed due to a manhunt for MRBS fighters. Access roads have been closed. According to eyewitnesses, militias linked to the current regime have committed massacres on a large scale. However, there are few, if any, independent journalists in the area to verify this information. The reported victims are Alawites, the minority to which Assad also belongs. Thousands of them have fled for fear of new reprisals. There is still hard fighting between MRBS and the patchwork of forces supporting the interim president.

A fleeing resident of the city of Baniyas told news agency AP that bodies were lying in the streets. ‘It was very bad,’ 57-year-old Ali Sheha said. According to him, at least 20 local residents were killed, some in their shops or homes. He claims that at least one person was asked for an identity card to check what religion the person had, before being killed. There was also alleged looting and theft. In Latakia, a body was dragged through the streets behind a car, the BBC has established from two videos on social media.

According to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR), several hundred civilians have been killed, although even these figures are unconfirmed. An anonymous government source speaks to Syrian state media of ‘individual violations’. It is unclear what exactly is meant by this and whether the regime has done anything about it. There should be a UN commission of enquiry as soon as possible to establish what happened, Hassan says. According to him, it is already clear that leaders affiliated with the al-Sharaa government were inciting their supporters to violence against alawites in inflammatory videos. ‘Even the intelligence chief and the defence ministry have called on people to go to the coastal area. Pro-regime demonstrators have also said live on TV: Syria is Sunni and will remain so for the next thousand years.’

Al-Sharaa heads the Sunni group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a militia that emerged from terror movement al-Qaida. Al-Sharaa presents himself as moderate towards the international community. When he took office as interim president in late January, it was hoped that he could unite Syria's many ethnic groups, although there were also concerns what that would mean for minorities in the country, such as Kurds, Druze, Christians and Shiites. According to Hassan, divisions have actually grown under Al-Sharaas transitional government. ‘In the past three months, there were already more liquidations, which were always attributed to individuals. Most of the killings seem to be carried out by foreign jihadists, especially from Uzbekistan and Chechnya. I wonder if the regime is in control of all the armed groups.’ Hassan hopes European and Arab countries will put pressure on Al-Sharaa to act against men who carried out executions. He thinks more international pressure is also needed to make the interim government representative of all people groups in Syria.

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