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Revealed: How Israel's plan to carve up Syria was thwarted by Assad's downfall

The overthrow of Bashar al-Assad’s government thwarted an Israeli plan to divide Syria into three blocks in order to sever its ties with Iran and Hezbollah, according to regional security sources briefed about the plot.

Israel planned to establish military and strategic ties with the Kurds in the northeast and the Druze in the south, leaving Assad in power in Damascus under Emirati funding and control.

This would have also served to limit Turkey’s influence in Syria to Idlib and the northwest, the stronghold of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and Turkish-backed rebel groups whose lightning offensive earlier this month led to Assad’s downfall.

The plan was hinted at in a speech by Israeli Foreign Minister Gideon Saar a month ago in which he said Israel needed to reach out to the Kurds and the Druze in Syria and Lebanon, adding that there were “political and security aspects” that needed to be considered.

“We must look at developments in this context and understand that in a region where we will always be a minority we can have natural alliances with other minorities,” Saar said.

But the plan was overtaken by events when forces loyal to Assad crumbled in Homs and Hama, leaving the road to Damascus open.

Rebels by then had already smashed through frontlines and captured Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, without a fight, transforming the balance of power in the country’s 13-year civil war.

In the early hours of Sunday 8 December, Mohammad Ghazi al-Jalali, the Syrian prime minister, appeared on video saying he was willing to hand over power peacefully.

Ahmed al-Sharaa, the HTS leader better known by his nom de guerre Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, swiftly replied that he was ready to keep Jalili in power until a transition was organised.

But even as HTS was approaching the capital, the Emirati and Jordanian ambassadors in Syria were making desperate attempts to stop HTS from gaining control of Damascus, security sources revealed.

Jordan encouraged the Free Syrian Army and allied groups from the south to get to Damascus before HTS.

“Before Jolani arrived, the two ambassadors arranged for fighters from the Free Syrian Army to pick the Syrian prime minister up from his home and take him to the Four Seasons Hotel where they were to officially hand over the state institutions to the armed groups from the south,” security sources told Middle East Eye, speaking on condition of anonymity.

Jalali was filmed being escorted to the hotel by soldiers from the Hauran region in southern Syria belonging to the Fifth Corps, a military force made up of former rebels who had previously reconciled with the Syrian government.

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“Jalali stalled and phoned Jolani. Jolani told him: ‘Don’t do it’ and Jalali heeded that advice,” a source said.

When Israel realised it could not thwart HTS’s takeover of the country it began destroying Syria’s military assets, including sinking its fleet in Latakia and occupying territory including Mount Hermon, Syria's highest mountain near the border with Lebanon and the occupied Golan Heights.

“These weapons were safe under Assad. That is how much Israel was invested in keeping him in control. But they became unsafe in the hands of the rebels,” a source said.

Officials in both Jordan and the UAE have expressed alarm at the HTS takeover, and the prospects of an Islamist-led government in Syria, even if, as has been promised by Sharaa, all factions and religions are represented. 

Since the eruption of the Arab Spring revolutions in 2011, the Emiratis have been at the forefront of anti-democratic counter-revolutionary efforts in Egypt, Libya, Tunisia and Yemen.

Jordan has over one million Syrian refugees and shares a long desert border with Syria which is straddled by tribes who live on both sides of the frontier.

In response to events in Damascus, Jordan last weekend convened an Arab Ministerial Contact Committee on Syria in Aqaba.

A statement released afterwards talked of the need to “oversee the transition process” and “enhance efforts to combat terrorism… given that it poses a danger to Syria and the security of the region”.

Assad's last hours in Damascus

Details about the final moments of Assad’s rule appears to have been partially corroborated by the editor of the Al Akbar newspaper, Ibrahim al-Amin, who is known to reflect the view of Hezbollah.

Amin wrote that Assad had been so convinced that the Emiratis would come to his rescue that he waited “until the last hours” before leaving Damascus.

“One of Assad’s associates, who stayed with him until the last hours before he left Damascus, says that the man was still hoping for something big to happen to stop the armed factions’ attack. He believed that ‘the Arab and international community’ would prefer that he remain in power, rather than Islamists take over the administration of Syria,” Amin wrote.

'As soon as the Russians and Iranians informed Bashar al-Assad that they would not be in the heart of the battle, the man realised that defeat was coming'

- Ibrahim al-Amin, al-Akbar newspaper

Assad realised the game was up after Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan persuaded his Russian and Iranian counterparts, Sergei Lavrov and Abbas Araghchi, who were all attending a conference in Qatar, not to intervene.

“As soon as the Russians and Iranians informed Bashar al-Assad that they would not be in the heart of the battle, the man realised that defeat was coming.” Amin wrote.

Hezbollah had come to its own conclusions about the futility of coming to Assad’s help when they saw that his own army was not prepared to fight for him, he added.

The Israeli government plan for the division of Syria had been taking shape for weeks previously in the knowledge that a ceasefire with Hezbollah in Lebanon, which was agreed at the end of last month, was on the way.

UAE President Mohammed bin Zayed stepped up his contacts with the Druze community in Israel. He met Sheikh Mowafaq Tarif, the spiritual leader of the Druze in Israel, in Abu Dhabi on December 7.

A week earlier, the US and the UAE had held talks on using the prospect of lifting sanctions as a lever to persuade Assad to cut ties with Iran and close the routes that Iranian weapons take through Syria to resupply Hezbollah.