Uploaded September 2025 | Updated September 2026, 3 weeks ago
The dramatic fall of Bashar al-Assad's regime in late 2024 promised an end to decades of tyranny. The new government of the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) movement, however, appears to be in the process of reshaping Syria into a Turkish satellite. The new government is sidelining the U.S.-aligned Kurds and igniting sectarian strife in the south and west of the country, under Ankara's shadow. Turkey, meanwhile, is building a military infrastructure in Syria, while maintaining control over its own client militias. What perils await the West if Turkey's grip tightens over the Levant?
Efrat Aviv is an associate professor in the department of general history at Bar-Ilan University and a senior research fellow at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies. She is an expert in Turkish religious movements, Israeli-Turkish relations, antisemitism in Turkey, and Ottoman-Turkish Jewry. She holds a B.A., an M.A., and a Ph.D. from Bar-Ilan University.
The dramatic fall of Bashar al-Assad's regime in late 2024 promised an end to decades of tyranny. The new government of the Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) movement, however, appears to be in the process of reshaping Syria into a Turkish satellite. The new government is sidelining the U.S.-aligned Kurds and igniting sectarian strife in the south and west of the country, under Ankara's shadow. Turkey, meanwhile, is building a military infrastructure in Syria, while maintaining control over its own client militias. What perils await the West if Turkey's grip tightens over the Levant?
Efrat Aviv is an associate professor in the department of general history at Bar-Ilan University and a senior research fellow at the Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies. She is an expert in Turkish religious movements, Israeli-Turkish relations, antisemitism in Turkey, and Ottoman-Turkish Jewry. She holds a B.A., an M.A., and a Ph.D. from Bar-Ilan University.
