Syrian leader visits former Assad strongholds

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00:00For more on this story, we can bring in Waseem and Nasser. Waseem, good to see you. So where

00:04exactly did Al-Sharra go? We're going to look at a map to see the itinerary he took out of

00:09Damascus. This is the first trip in Syria after the fall of the regime and the takeover of

00:14Damascus. Maybe we can see it on a map. And here you see all the towns that he visited.

00:20So first Idlib, then Afrin, third Azaz, fourth Aleppo, and then at the end Latakia and Tartus,

00:27as you said. We're going to see footage of some of those trips he made. It's just to see how the

00:34crowd was present in all locations. We'll start with Idlib maybe. The video out of Idlib where

00:42we see him, where actually people were surprised to see him arrive because that wasn't a planned

00:49trip. And here he is in one of the squares of Idlib, which I visited actually in 2023. This

00:55is the main square of Idlib. And we have footage also of him, which was very surprising in Latakia,

01:02the town of Latakia. You may see it now. Here it is. And here, too, it wasn't like a planned visit

01:08or an advertised visit. He just like went in town and people saw him and crowds gathered around his

01:16convoy. And the most maybe telling videos are of out of Tartus. We'll have one during the day.

01:24We'll get to see it. So here is Tartus. You see the crowds. I don't know if you can listen to the sound.

01:34And then what's telling, too, is that he stayed in Tartus. And we have another footage of him

01:39at night where crowds were still, here it is, cheering him in Tartus.

01:46So he's received a rock star's welcome, clearly. But was there

01:51a strategy in the way he went around? Was there an order or method to it? Or was it picked randomly?

01:58It wasn't random at all. It was carefully chosen, the itinerary, because it reflects

02:05his priorities and the priorities that he should have internally in Syria. So first of all, Idlib,

02:11we have some pictures out of Idlib where he met like notabilities in Idlib.

02:19Why Idlib? Because those are the people who helped him actually win this war. And here he is at a

02:25camp of displaced people in Idlib. So he saw the people, representatives of Idlib, but he also went

02:31into the camps, not one camp, many camps of displaced people, because it is because of those displaced

02:38people who fought the fight that he was able to take actually Aleppo. And knowing that he was under

02:43a huge pressure in Idlib before the beginning of the fight from the displaced people, even

02:48demonstrating in the streets, asking him to open fronts and to take back their villages,

02:53you see. So it was really important for him to go back to Idlib, to go back to those displaced

02:58camps and to tell them, please have patience. We are going to reconstruct your villages and then

03:03you'll be able to go back. Knowing that, for example, the last presidential visit to Idlib

03:08goes back to 1971, when the father of Bashar al-Assad, Hafez al-Assad, went to Idlib and he

03:14wasn't welcomed at all at the time. Then he went to Afrin. And we have some pictures of Afrin. And

03:20why Afrin? Because Afrin is a town known for a Kurdish majority in it. And many people, many

03:26Kurdish people from Afrin were displaced due to the war and due to the fact that those who

03:32established themselves there were loyal to the Syrian National Army, which is local, run by

03:38Turkey, actually. And he went back to Afrin. And this is also politically very telling, because he

03:44came back to Afrin after his forces came back to Afrin and are controlling, actually, Afrin in order

03:50to allow the return of those displaced Kurdish people, which is part of the deal, which is going

03:55to maybe be cut with the Syrian Democratic Forces in return of getting back the dam of Tishrin.

04:03And so after Afrin, of course, Aleppo. We're going to see pictures of Aleppo. And here you

04:09saw Christian representatives, and among them Hanna Jallouf sitting. And you see women talking

04:14to him in Aleppo. And Aleppo echoes also the issue with the Syrian Democratic Forces, because the

04:19Tishrin Dam gives electricity and water to all Aleppo. And it is controlled by the YPG and the

04:25Syrian Democratic Forces, meaning the Kurdish forces. And also because two or three neighborhoods

04:30inside the town of Aleppo are still run by the Kurdish YPG. And this is really an exception

04:36that is made, because he doesn't want to go into a fight with them. It is also interesting to see

04:41that in Aleppo, he talked about his own experience of imprisonment in Iraq during seven years,

04:48where he said, my mother did not know where I was, talking to the mothers of the disappeared

04:52people, actually, in Syria under the regime. And she got to know that I was still alive after seven

04:57years of being in custody in Iraq, knowing that in Iraq, he didn't say he was Syrian. He said that

05:03he was an Iraqi from Mosul. So he could not get in touch with his family. Then Latakia,

05:08as you said, a stronghold of the Assad rule. And we have some pictures of Latakia, where you see

05:14the Alawite minority also. Here you are, and the Christian representatives talking to him.

05:22It is important, because it is marking the fact that he is the power now. He is ruling Syria,

05:29but that he is still open to the minority, the Alawite minority, which was really the nerve of

05:36the war of the Assad family, and to mark that he has no animosity towards the Alawite as a

05:42religious group. And Tartus, of course. Why Tartus? Because Tartus, they still have the

05:49naval Russian base there, and he is still discussing with Russia the fate of this base,

05:54knowing that Russia sent Bogdanov a few weeks back to meet Al-Sharaa in Damascus.

06:01Now, during Al-Sharaa's first visit to Idlib, the US conducted a drone strike. Who exactly

06:06did they target? Well, actually, of course, they conducted the strikes on the 15th,

06:10and they conducted this strike on the road M4, which Al-Sharaa took from Aleppo to Latakia. We

06:16have the footage here. And actually, they targeted two Libyan al-Qaeda fighters,

06:24knowing that Haras al-Din, the offshoot of al-Qaeda in Syria, was dissolved a few weeks back.

06:30And it's interesting to see that they did it the day before Al-Sharaa took this road,

06:34knowing that they also conducted a drone strike in Idlib the day that he was pronouncing the

06:38victory speech in Damascus. It reflects, actually, the stand of the US, who did not accept also to

06:46sign the declaration of the Paris conference a few days ago. The new US administration is still

06:55wondering how to tackle this new regime in Damascus. They are not decided, as the European

07:02and the French are. They are still thinking about it. And I think that, of course, we may think

07:07they had the opportunity, so they did it. And others think that they had the opportunity due

07:12to the help, maybe, of the new regime. But politically, it does not fit to conduct a hit

07:19on the day that Al-Sharaa is pronouncing his victory speech, and also the day before he takes

07:25this same road. So it's a political message, because some in the West are pushing Al-Sharaa

07:32and the new administration to really get into the coalition, like, legally and effectively

07:39against the Islamic State and al-Qaeda in this region. So despite the fact that he is fighting

07:43the Islamic State since 2013, that he is in war with al-Qaeda since at least 2017, that he's

07:50collaborating with Western and local agencies against them, some want him really to get inside

07:56this coalition without any space for doubt. And the Americans are looking for this, knowing that,

08:02for example, his minister of foreign affairs was, a few days after the Paris conference,

08:06went to the Munich security conference, which is really important in the regard,

08:10when we know where they come from and where are they heading to.

08:13Indeed. Wasim, thank you very much for that, Wasim Nasrallah.

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