“They parted my garments among them, and upon my vesture did they cast lots."

 “They parted my garments among them, and upon my vesture did they cast lots."

This is exactly what is happening now in Syria:

• Israel has already taken the Golan Height and Mount Hermon and is advancing on Damascus to fulfil the desires of the finance minister Smotrich and his extreme right-wing Zionist supporters as part of the push for the  “Greater Israel”; 

• Turkey holds the northwest of the country where it had been supporting the terrorists there;

• The Kurds, supported by the US, want the northeast and 

• the US installed its bases in the east of the country years ago and has no intention of leaving.

The mainstream media in the West is making much of this “liberation” and the joyous “celebrations” of the population. Let us remember that at the end of any war a large swathe of the population hails the victors not out of conviction but to ingratiate themselves or save their own hide.

Just in case anyone is labouring under some illusion, we shall take a look at who is poised to rule the country now.

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) is the largest of the terrorist groups which have been active in the country.  This group was formed in 2011 as part of the misnamed “Arab Spring” to fight in the equally misnamed Syrian “civil war” where the combatants were imported from Libya, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and many other places.

HTS was formerly known as Jabhat Fateh al-Nusra (Does that ring a bell?). Then it mutated into Jabhat Fateh al-Sham. It is a group of allied factions including Jabhat Fateh al-Sham, Liwa al-Haqq, Jabhat Ansar al-Din and Jaysh al-Sunna.

Jabhat al-Nusra was formed in 2012 by ISIL (ISIS) (Remember them?) but split away a year later declaring its allegiance to al-Qaeda (Sounds familiar?) They later cut their ties with al-Qaeda and in 2017 joined up with other factions to rebrand as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.

They held sway in the area of Idlib, financing their activities from the resources of the area, including oil. The hands and money of outside foreign powers provided great support.

These are the hands on which Syria‘s fate now depends.