Above photo: AP/Omar Albam.
Syria’s de facto president is slowly dismantling the Syrian state.
In favor of extremist Sunni religious rule.
Syria is currently being ruled by a system of religious clerics and figures – or sheikhs – rather than by the official bureaucracy of the state, sources speaking with The Cradle on 3 July revealed.
Syria has been divided into regions and sub-regions ruled by extremist Sunni Muslim religious leaders who exert control over virtually every aspect of decision-making, including negotiations with Israel regarding the fate of the occupied Golan Heights, the sources explained.
In the Syrian areas now fully controlled by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), no transaction or service of the state is performed without the help of sheikhs, including the distribution of gas, flour, electricity, security at checkpoints, local disputes over real estate and land, and even legal disputes.
HTS, formerly known as the Nusra Front, was established in 2012 by Islamic State (ISIS) leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi. The ISIS leader dispatched Abu Mohammad al-Julani to Syria to found the group as part of the broader CIA operation to topple the government of former Syrian president Bashar al-Assad.
In December of last year, HTS ousted Assad and took power in Damascus.
HTS leader Julani, now known as Ahmad al-Sharaa, became Syria’s de facto president.
The sources stated that each local sheikh is administratively linked to a higher Sharia council overseen by a little-known body that has become an administrative cover for a system of religious rule with authority over legislative and military decision-making.
A former employee of a local council in Idlib told The Cradle, “We had no real power. Appointments, funding, relationships with organizations, and even food aid go through the sheikh, not the state. The sheikh’s decisions are more binding than any law.”
Since Ahmad al-Sharaa’s rise from ISIS leader to the de facto ruler of Syria, he has been working to build his own authoritarian model, one that bears no resemblance to the previous Syrian state and is not subject to a democratic or civil system.
It is a model that excessively “religiously legitimizes” power, undermining modern structures in favor of a bureaucratic religious rule run by extremist figures who view Syria’s minority religious groups as unbelievers who do not deserve equal rights with Muslims and can even be killed under certain circumstances.
In March, government-affiliated armed factions massacred at least 1,600 Alawite civilians over three days across Syria’s coast.
A source close to the “Committee” told The Cradle, “Sharaa runs a kind of supreme religious council, coordinating between sheikhs in the judiciary, economy, and education. Even negotiations with foreign powers do not take place outside this framework.”
Perhaps most consequential is the control of this religious leadership over matters regarding Syria’s sovereignty. With the gradual political shift under Damascus’s authority after Bashar al-Assad’s departure, reports emerged that Sharaa had begun – through intermediaries – opening channels of communication with Israel to negotiate the future of the Golan Heights.
European diplomatic sources confirmed to The Cradle that “Unofficial envoys close to Sharaa expressed, during closed meetings, their willingness to offer guarantees regarding the Golan Heights and open a conditional negotiation process in exchange for international recognition of Sharaa’s rule as an independent transitional authority.”
Israeli media reported on 28 June that Tel Aviv and Damascus will sign a peace agreement before the end of 2025.
“Under the terms of the agreement, Israel will gradually withdraw from all Syrian territories it occupied following its incursion into the buffer zone on 8 December 2024, including the summit of Mount Hermon,” i24NEWS wrote, citing Syrian sources.
Israel occupied the Syrian Golan Heights during the Six-Day War in 1967. A demilitarized buffer zone was established in the Golan following the 1973 Yom Kippur War.
Israeli forces occupied new territory in Syria in the buffer zone and beyond after militants from HTS toppled Assad in December.