Syria has moved to strengthen its relations with its neighbour, Lebanon, with Foreign Minister Asaad Al-Shibani visiting Beirut this week. The visit involved signing an agreement for the repatriation of convicted Syrians and included talks with President Joseph Aoun, Prime Minister Nawaf Salam, and Foreign Minister Youssef Hatti. Several media outlets have described relations with Beirut as a top priority for Damascus and its new Islamist government. Before looking to internal affairs, the regime in Damascus, led by Ahmed Al-Sharaa, head of Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (formerly the Al-Nusra Front, which pledged allegiance to Al-Qaeda), faces several issues that need to be resolved. Foremost among those are relations with both Lebanon and Israel, with all the attendant complexities.
Al-Shibani’s visit to Beirut marked the highest-level Syrian presence in the Lebanese capital in many years. He was accompanied by Justice Minister Mazhar Al-Wees and Intelligence Director Hussein Al-Salama.
The two sides reached an agreement on the return of Syrian prisoners to their homeland, excluding those convicted of murder. The fate of Syrian detainees had been a key topic of discussion between the two delegations. Lebanon’s overcrowded prisons currently hold some 2,000 Syrian detainees. Beirut welcomed the return of many of them to Syria to complete their sentences there, depending on the nature of their convictions.
The issue of Syrian refugees returning to the towns they fled during the Civil War — between the Syrian army and jihadist groups — was also raised. Lebanese sources estimate that the number of Syrians in the country has exceeded one million, most of whom live in harsh conditions. Beirut continues to call for their return to ease the burden on the Lebanese government, which is facing its most severe economic crisis in decades. The World Bank has described Lebanon’s economic situation as the worst in more than 150 years.
Although Al-Shibani and his accompanying delegation focused in their discussions with senior Lebanese officials on the issues of prisoners and the gradual voluntary return of refugees, the question of Hizbullah and its weapons remains the most pressing file.
The new Syrian regime, rooted in extremist jihadist groups, holds deeply hostile views towards the Shia community. Hostility is intensified by Hizbullah’s participation in the fighting alongside the Syrian army to protect the rule of former president Bashar Al-Assad. Thousands of members of these militant groups are believed to harbour a desire for revenge against Hizbullah and the Shia sects in general, particularly the Alawites, to whom Al-Assad belongs.
Nevertheless, Syria’s new leadership is aware of the grave risks of confronting Hizbullah — a force that is well-trained and supported by Iran — and the potential consequences such a confrontation could entail. At the same time, the Al-Sharaa regime cannot remain idle in the face of Hizbullah’s presence, as it faces growing pressure from its own followers on one hand, and concerns about the regime’s stability on the other.
Al-Sharaa and his regime are also wary of appearing aligned with Israel, which continues to launch repeated air strikes on Hizbullah strongholds in Southern Lebanon and Beirut’s southern suburb, leading to more than 100 civilian deaths, according to the United Nations, since the US-brokered ceasefire with Israel in November 2024.
Since the end of the 14-month war — which erupted in October 2023 in support of Gaza and Hamas and continued until the ceasefire — Hizbullah’s arsenal has become the central issue in Lebanon. Today, Lebanon is experiencing an unprecedented state of tension that could escalate into a new civil war unless all parties reach a settlement that guarantees coexistence and security for everyone.
Within a few months of the outbreak of the Lebanese Civil War (1974-1990), Syrian forces entered the Land of the Cedars, engaging in a conflict that claimed the lives of around 150,000 people — Lebanese, Palestinians, Syrians, and others. Those forces remained in Lebanon until 2005, an episode many Lebanese opponents of the late Syrian president Hafez Al-Assad (1970-2000) and his son Bashar view as an occupation, arguing that Syria did not truly recognise Lebanon as an independent, sovereign state until its withdrawal in 2005.
Today, many fear renewed turmoil over the issue of disarming Hizbullah. The Lebanese government, which has adopted the US-backed plan on the matter, insists that all weapons must be placed under the authority of the state and has tasked the army with preparing a plan to that end — an initiative that has received strong support from Europe, the Gulf states, and Syria.
Hizbullah, however – backed by Iran and, to some extent, Iraqi Shia factions – firmly rejects this move. Although Iraqi Prime Minister Mohamed Shiaa Al-Sudani has not commented directly on Lebanese affairs, he cannot ignore possible public pressure in Iraq in support of Hizbullah, despite the group not representing the full spectrum of Iraq’s Shia community.
Meanwhile, Israel has continued its air strikes on Lebanon, particularly targeting Shia-populated areas, in an attempt to inflict losses on Hizbullah supporters and weaken the group’s popularity among them. Should Syria intervene militarily in Lebanon in support of its Western-backed government against Hizbullah, which is being bombed by Israel with tacit American approval, the image of Damascus and its jihadist-aligned ruling groups would suffer severely in Arab and Islamic circles, especially in the light of Israel’s war of extermination in Gaza, which only came to an end following the signing of the Sharm El-Sheikh agreement.
If Al-Sharaa’s regime chooses not to intervene in support of the Lebanese government’s efforts to disarm Hizbullah, on the other hand, it could find itself confronting the group much closer to Damascus. But it is unlikely that the Beirut government could compel Hizbullah to surrender its weapons on its own without sparking another civil war.
Syria’s relationship with Tel Aviv is even more complex than its ties with Lebanon. Israel has occupied the Syrian Golan Heights since the June 1967 War, and following the fall of Al-Assad on 8 December 2024, Israeli forces advanced deep into Syrian territory, reaching the outskirts of Damascus and crossing the 1974 ceasefire line. It is obvious that the new regime in Damascus seeks peace with Israel. However, its official discourse avoids any mention of the Golan Heights, focusing instead on the 1974 disengagement zone between the two sides. Some people even accuse Damascus of being uninterested in reclaiming that area, believing instead that its primary aim is to halt Israeli air strikes on Syrian territory so the Al-Sharaa regime can consolidate control over the entire country and eliminate its Alawite and Druze opponents.
There is, however, no concrete evidence to support such claims. Since Al-Assad’s fall, the Israeli army has carried out hundreds of air strikes, destroying all of Syria’s remaining air power, air defence systems, and heavy artillery. For its part, the Al-Sharaa regime has cancelled the commemoration of the October 1973 War, Martyrs’ Day, and minority cultural holidays such as the Kurdish Nowruz. The cancellation of October War celebrations appears to stem from the regime’s desire to erase Bashar Al-Assad from Syria’s national memory and to deny him any symbolic political legacy, while also trying to appease Israel.
The cancellation of Martyrs’ Day, which marks the execution of dozens of Syrian and Lebanese Arab nationalists by the Ottoman authorities in Damascus and Beirut, is viewed as an attempt to appease Turkey. Similarly, the rejection of Nowruz reflects the extremist Sunni ideology of the ruling factions, which regard the holiday as a remnant of the ancient Zoroastrian faith once universally practised in Persia, Kurdistan, and Azerbaijan. The Al-Sharaa regime’s rapprochement with Israel and its confrontation with Hizbullah are likely to unsettle Islamist movements such as Hamas. One of its leaders, Khaled Meshaal, described the fall of Al-Assad and the rise of an Islamist government in Damascus as the beginning of what he called “a new conquest.”
* A version of this article appears in print in the 16 October, 2025 edition of Al-Ahram Weekly
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