85% of Syria’s Borders in Hands of Regime’s Enemies and Allies

With various foreign forces at play in Syria, the current government effectively only controls 15 percent of its borders with neighboring countries and half of their land crossings, most of which are shared with Lebanon.

For the first time since 2011, the frontlines in Syria hardly shifted in 2020. The country is split between three “regions of influence”. Sixty-five percent of territories are controlled by the regime, with Russian and Iranian backing. The government controls the capital Damascus, Aleppo, Homs, Hama, Latakia, Daraa, Tartus and Deir Ezzor.

The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), backed by the US-led anti-ISIS coalition, control 25 percent of territories that boast the majority of Syria’s gas, oil and water wealth. The Idlib province and cities of Jarablus, Afrin, Tal Abyad and Ras al-Ain, all of which are mostly populated by refugees and comprise some 10 percent of Syria, are controlled by Turkish-backed opposition factions.

Illusory control
French researcher Fabrice Balanche said in a report earlier this week that the control of borders is a reflection of sovereignty. “The regime’s scorecard remains nearly blank on that front. The Syrian army controls only 15 percent of the country’s international land borders; the rest are divided between foreign actors,” he said in the report published by the Washington Institute.

“Hezbollah and other Iranian-backed militias currently control around 20 percent of the country’s borders. Although Syrian customs authorities are officially in charge of the crossings with Iraq (Abu Kamal), Jordan (Nassib), and Lebanon (al-Arida, Jdeidat, al-Jousiyah and al-Dabousiyah), the reality is that true control lies elsewhere,” he stated.

“The Lebanese border is occupied by Hezbollah, which has established bases on the Syrian side (Zabadani, al-Qusayr) from which it dominates the Qalamoun mountainous region. Similarly, Iraqi militias manage both sides of their border from Abu Kamal to al-Tanf. The stranglehold of pro-Iranian forces also extends to several of Syria’s military airports, which often serve as receptacles for Iranian weapons destined for Hezbollah and the Golan Heights frontline with Israel. This situation reveals Syria’s complete integration into the Iranian axis,” he continued.

The government regained control of the Nassib crossing with Jordan in mid-2018 in line with a Russian-American-Jordanian agreement. The deal called for Washington to abandon opposition factions in exchange for a return of the regime and expulsion of Iranian forces from the area. However, Russian-backed factions currently control vast areas near the border with Jordan.

Balanche noted that despite the regime’s reopening of the Nassib crossing “traffic remains very limited today, and the army’s presence in the Daraa province is superficial. To quickly tamp down growing resistance in the area, the regime was forced to sign reconciliation agreements brokered by Russia, leaving local rebels with temporary autonomy and the right to keep light weapons. Ex-rebels have also maintained strong cross-border links via the Jordanian frontier, giving them a potential source of logistical support in the event of a new conflict (and very lucrative smuggling income in the meantime).”

Russian officers deployed at the Hmeimim base recently agreed a new settlement that allows the Syrian army to enter Tafas in western Daraa.

The government controls the illegal and five official border crossings with Lebanon. On the Golan front with Israel, Syria boasts no official crossings. The area is divided by a disengagement line. After 2011, the area fell in the hands of opposition factions. The regime, with Russian support, however, recaptured the area in early 2018.

Proxies and borders
“In 2013, Turkey began construction of a border wall in the Qamishli area, a stronghold of the Syrian Kurds; it has since extended this barrier along the entire northern frontier,” continued Balanche. One objective was to prevent infiltration: first by the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK), a group that Ankara regards as its chief domestic enemy and the parent organization of the Kurdish factions that control large parts of north Syria; and later by ISIS, after a wave of extremist terrorist attacks rocked Turkey in 2015.”

“Another objective was to block the flow of additional Syrian refugees into Turkey, where 3.6 million are already being hosted. Individual crossings are still possible via ladders and tunnels, but Turkish police stop most such migrants and bluntly send them back to Syria,” he added.

“In October 2019, Turkey launched a cross-border offensive in the north, spurring American forces to withdraw from most of the territory controlled by the Kurdish-led Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria. Russia then took control of the contact zones between the SDF, Turkey, and its Syrian National Army auxiliaries in accordance with the ceasefire agreement concluded in Sochi that same month. Russian-Turkish patrols replaced US-Turkish patrols on these contact lines to ensure that the SDF withdrew from the Turkish border area,” he said.

“Although (Syrian president Bashar) Assad’s forces have been asked to deploy a few hundred troops along that frontier, their presence is merely symbolic. Russian patrols have since ventured further east, trying to set up a post at al-Malikiyah (Derik in Kurdish) and take control of the crossing with Iraq at Semalka/Peshkhabur, the only land supply route available to American troops in northeast Syria,” Balanche explained.

“In effect, the only portion of the northern border under Assad’s control is the Kasab crossing north of Latakia, and even that has been closed on the Turkish side since 2012,” he noted. From Kasab to the far eastern border, the Syrian side of the frontier is successively controlled as follows:

- By pro-Turkish Turkmen fighters until Khirbet al-Joz
- By the extremist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham between Jisr al-Shughour and Bab al-Hawa
- By pro-Turkish rebels of the so-called “Syrian National Army” (SNA) up to the Euphrates River
- By the Russian army and the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) around Kobane
- By the SNA between Tal Abyad and Ras al-Ain
- By the Russian army and SDF from Ras al-Ain to the Tigris River

From Tehran to Damascus
“All of the northern crossings into Turkey remain closed, and the border wall blocks smuggling activities. This makes Semalka/Peshkhabur the only international window open to the autonomous Kurdish administration. On the Iraqi side of Syria’s eastern border, militias have been in charge of most areas since fall 2017, when the Kurdistan Regional Government lost control over disputed territory between Kirkuk and Sinjar,” stated Balanche.

“Crucially, though, this lost territory did not include Peshkhabur. The SDF control the Syrian side of the border with the support of US troops, but Iranian proxies have prohibited them and other actors from using any other crossing points, partly with the help of Russian diplomatic cooperation,” he said.

“For instance, the official al-Yarubiya border crossing has been closed to UN humanitarian aid ever since Russia vetoed its renewal at the Security Council in December 2019. Another consequence of this decision is that all UN aid to the entire autonomous Kurdish administration must first be sent to Damascus before it can be transferred to the northeast,” he explained.

“The Semalka/Peshkhabur crossing is therefore vital to the autonomous region’s political and economic survival, serving as the only entry point for the numerous NGOs who operate there and provide indispensable support to the local population,” Balanche said. “Yet the Syrian government still considers entry via that crossing to be a crime punishable by up to five years in prison, so NGOs entering the autonomous administration from Iraq must be careful not to conduct any activities in regime-controlled areas.”

The regime’s intransigence on humanitarian issues is likely Assad’s way of trying to reassert at least one aspect of border sovereignty, speculated Balanche.

Open skies
“In addition to ceding most of its land borders to Russia, Turkey, Iran and the United States, the Assad regime has also failed to reestablish control over Syria’s skies and territorial waters,” continued the report. “Its maritime zones are monitored by forces from Russia’s base in Tartus, and most of its airspace is controlled from the Russian base at Hmeimim. Iran relies on Moscow’s air assets for protection from Israeli strikes—a limited safeguard at best, since Russia does not shield Tehran’s more provocative activities such as transferring missiles to Hezbollah or strengthening its positions in the Golan. For its part, the United States maintains an air corridor between the Khabur River and the Iraqi border, where its last ground troops are located.”

“Despite its occasional public declarations about reconquering all of Syria, Damascus seems content to submit to this game of foreign powers and hold limited sovereignty over reduced territory for the long term,” said Balanche. “Even if US troops fully withdraw from the east, the country will remain in the hands of the ‘Astana triumvirate,’ so Assad has little choice in the matter.”

In the Mazzeh 86 neighborhood, west of the Syrian capital Damascus, the names of many shops, grocery stores, and public squares still serve as a reminder of the era of ousted Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and his late father, Hafez al-Assad.

This is evident in landmarks like the “Al-Hafez Restaurant,” one of the prominent features of this area. Squares such as “Al-Areen,” “Officers,” and “Bride of the Mountain” evoke memories of the buildings surrounding them, which once housed influential officials and high-ranking officers in intelligence and security agencies. These individuals instilled fear in Syrians for five decades until their historic escape on the night of the regime’s collapse last month.

In this neighborhood, the effects of Israeli bombing are clearly visible, as it was targeted multiple times. Meanwhile, its narrow streets and alleys were strewn with military uniforms abandoned by leaders who fled before military operations arrived and liberated the area from their grip on December 8 of last year.

Here, stark contradictions come to light during a tour by Asharq Al-Awsat in a district that, until recently, was largely loyal to the former president. Muaz, a 42-year-old resident of the area, recounts how most officers and security personnel shed their military uniforms and discarded them in the streets on the night of Assad’s escape.

He said: “Many of them brought down their weapons and military ranks in the streets and fled to their hometowns along the Syrian coast.”

Administratively part of Damascus, Mazzeh 86 consists of concrete blocks randomly built between the Mazzeh Western Villas area, the Mazzeh Highway, and the well-known Sheikh Saad commercial district. Its ownership originally belonged to the residents of the Mazzeh area in Damascus. The region was once agricultural land and rocky mountain terrain. The peaks extending toward Mount Qasioun were previously seized by the Ministry of Defense, which instructed security and army personnel to build homes there without requiring property ownership documents.

Suleiman, a 30-year-old shop owner, who sells white meat and chicken, hails from the city of Jableh in the coastal province of Latakia. His father moved to this neighborhood in the 1970s to work as an army assistant.

Suleiman says he hears the sound of gunfire every evening, while General Security patrols roam the streets “searching for remnants of the former regime and wanted individuals who refuse to surrender their weapons. We fear reprisals and just want to live in peace.”

He mentioned that prices before December 8 were exorbitant and beyond the purchasing power of Syrians, with the price of a kilogram of chicken exceeding 60,000 Syrian pounds and a carton of eggs reaching 75,000.

“A single egg was sold for 2,500 pounds, which is far beyond the purchasing power of any employee in the public or private sector,” due to low salaries and the deteriorating living conditions across the country,” Suleiman added.

On the sides of the roads, pictures of the fugitive president and his father, Hafez al-Assad, were torn down, while military vehicles were parked, awaiting instructions.

Maram, 46, who previously worked as a civilian employee in the Ministry of Defense, says she is waiting for the resolution of employment statuses for workers in army institutions. She stated: “So far, there are no instructions regarding our situation. The army forces and security personnel have been given the opportunity for settlement, but there is no talk about us.”

The neighborhood, in its current form, dates back to the 1980s when Rifaat al-Assad, the younger brother of former President Hafez al-Assad, was allowed to construct the “Defense Palace,” which was referred to as “Brigade 86.” Its location is the same area now known as Mazzeh Jabal 86.

The area is divided into two parts: Mazzeh Madrasa (School) and Mazzeh Khazan (Tank). The first takes its name from the first school built and opened in the area, while the second is named after the water tank that supplies the entire Mazzeh region.

Two sources from the Mazzeh Municipality and the Mukhtar’s office estimate the neighborhood’s current population at approximately 200,000, down from over 300,000 before Assad’s fall. Most residents originate from Syria’s coastal regions, followed by those from interior provinces like Homs and Hama. There was also a portion of Kurds who had moved from the Jazira region in northeastern Syria to live there, but most returned to their areas due to the security grip and after the “Crisis Cell” bombing that killed senior security officials in mid-2012.

Along the main street connecting Al-Huda Square to Al-Sahla Pharmacy, torn images of President Hafez al-Assad are visible for the first time in this area in five decades. On balconies and walls, traces of Bashar al-Assad’s posters remain, bearing witness to his 24-year era.

85% of Syria’s Borders in Hands of Regime’s Enemies and Allies