In December, a consortium of rebel factions led by the group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham unexpectedly toppled the dictator Bashar al-Assad, whose family had ruled Syria for five decades. The new regime in Damascus inherited a country ruined by a 13-year civil war. HTS’s leader, Ahmed al-Shara, has taken charge of Syria, and foreign powers are hoping to steer his behavior. Two of the country’s neighbors, Israel and Turkey, have taken advantage of the power vacuum by establishing a presence there—and have already begun to butt heads.
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