All language subtitles for Frontline 2025 S44E08 Syria After Assad 1080p

The dictatorship of Bashar al -Assad is
crumbling.

Correspondent Martin Smith investigates
the rise of Ahmed al -Shara from al

-Qaeda commander to Syrian leader.

I don't know of anyone who accurately
predicted he was likely to pose a real

threat to the Assad regime.

And the country's uncertain future. You
can't say for us all today, I am Angel

and forget my history. There are still
extremist elements.

Mr. al -Shara is walking a tightrope.

Now on Frontline, Syria after Assad.

this program contains graphic content
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I've been seeing these amazing images
all day coming out of Syria, right, of

tens of thousands of people.

out on the street celebrating a new
Syria and also tasting freedom after

of repression.

Quite

simply, no

one saw this coming.

Bashar al -Assad has clung on to power
through years of civil war.

But now a new rebel movement has managed
to topple his regime in less than two

weeks.

What we've been seeing from the rebel
leadership is a clear attempt to signal

that they want an inclusive Syria and
that they want to avoid more conflict.

leader, al -Jilani, has even
interestingly dropped his jihadi nom de

now calls himself by his original birth
name, Ahmad al -Shara.

Even that is a signal that he is not
trying to impose his jihadist position.

We are tracking

one of the most extraordinary events in
Middle East history.

It will have a profound impact on the
region and beyond.

There is real joy here, but there's also
real concern.

No one knows what's going to happen
then.

I met Ahmed Alshara in 2021 in Syria's
Idlib province.

My cameraman and I were the first
Western journalists to meet him.

At the time, he went by his nom de
guerre, Abu Muhammad al -Jalani.

He was also then a wanted man with a $10
million bounty on his head, and he had

a long history as a jihadist.

At age 21, al -Jalani joined al -Qaeda
in Iraq to fight and kill Americans.

Captured by U .S. forces, he spent five
years in Iraqi prisons.

including Abu Ghraib and Camp Buka.

Soon after he was released, he came back
to Syria and formed an al -Qaeda branch

to fight Assad.

By the time we met, al -Jilani had
broken

ties with al -Qaeda and was trying to
moderate his image.

to get the world to reconsider him.

He took us to a camp of internally
displaced Syrians where he assured the

residents that he was planning to defeat
Assad and send them home.

Al -Jalani's key ally in the region was
Turkey.

It was Turkish intelligence that had
taken us into Idlib so Al -Jalani could

heard. But at the time, Jalani's odds of
victory were very long.

Assad controlled most of the country.

However, with his army, Hayat Tahrir al
-Sham, or HTS,

al -Jilani was determined to strike at
the heart of the Assad regime and march

straight to the capital.

All together, I spent seven days in
Idlib.

Al -Jilani struck me as remarkably open.

At one point, we were taken to his
military command headquarters.

Al -Jilani had come to review the
current situation on their front line.

They were facing pressure from Assad's
principal allies, Iran and Russia.

So are the Russians flying drones over
this area?

I hear it.

I hear it.

The

day

after showing me his map, al -Jalani sat
down for an interview.

You are in a box, it seems to me, with
the Russians, with the Iranians,

with the regime.

What is your strategy?

After I left

Idlib, I posted a picture of al -Jilani
and me on Twitter.

The post went viral.

Al -Jilani was ridiculed for wearing a
suit.

I was criticized for talking to a
terrorist.

So how did an obscure, besieged rebel
leader manage to topple a dictator?

It began three years after I met Al
-Jilani.

In November 2024, when his forces
launched an assault on Aleppo, Syria's

largest city, they entered from above
and below ground, a coordinated

ambush utilizing a vast network of
tunnels.

The attack blindsided everyone.

I don't know of anyone who accurately
predicted that Jolani was likely to pose

real threat to the Assad regime.

And I was the deputy national security
advisor, had access to all the

intelligence information, analytic
information the U .S. government has. I

heard that we should be watching Aleppo
from somebody outside of the U .S.

government.

He said, you might want to pay attention
to what is happening here. It is

different from what we've seen before.

The city fell to al -Jolani in three
days.

I truly think that they only thought
that they were going to take over Aleppo

and then hold there and see how that
went and then try to build themselves up

strong enough to then move on elsewhere
and that it might take some time. But in

fact, because there was no true
counteroffensive, the military people

all right.

Nobody's going after us. Let's keep on
going.

Syrian rebel fighters are advancing
southward after seizing control of

That's one of Syria's largest cities.

As al -Jalani's forces headed south
toward Damascus, the assumption was

that Iran and Russia would come to
Assad's rescue. Those rebels have just

blitzed through the countryside and made
enormous gains in the east, in the

south.

More celebrations today in the city of
Hama.

The rebels advance across the country.
There's been lightning fast.

But where's the Syrian army in all of
this? Because they mostly seem to be

surrendering or defecting. The Syrian
regime completely gave up.

Assad's officers on the front line were
getting paid $30 a month.

Enlisted men, about $10 a month.

Joshua Landis is a professor at the
University of Oklahoma, director of

Center for Middle East Studies.

American sanctions had really hollowed
out that regime.

And when we saw the rebel soldiers come
down, and many of them had night vision

goggles on their, and these fantastic
uniforms, much better than anything

Assad's soldiers had, it was clear that
Turkey had been really building up these

militias.

And also, Assad lost all of his allies.

Hezbollah had been decapitated by
Israel. They were major supporters of

Assad regime.

Hezbollah and its patron, Iran, became
increasingly engaged with Israel.

They had shifted their focus away from
Syria.

And Assad's other ally was also
distracted.

And Russia, of course, was completely
preoccupied in the Ukraine and had not

been resupplying him. So Assad was cut
off. And after decades in the country,

Russia is pulling back. This video shows
military vehicles and Russian flags

leaving the Damascus region.

According to my contacts, Russians were
ready to go back to the bombing campaign

that had been so effective in beating
down the Syrian opposition.

However, they immediately saw, A, that
there was no real effective infantry

because there was almost no Iranian
proxy forces from Hezbollah. And once

fell, it was obvious that whether the
Russians dropped bombs or not, it wasn't

going to stop this massive offensive.

Last week it was Aleppo, yesterday the
city of Homs, last night the outskirts

Damascus. At this point it appears that
the dictatorship of Bashar al -Assad is

crumbling. Nobody read what was
happening on the ground correctly, not

outsiders, not Assad and his backers.

So Jalani finds himself pushing on an
open door.

Exactly.

Everyone misread the situation except al
-Jalani.

In this meeting with followers nearly
five years earlier, He predicted

how he would achieve victory.

So al -Jilani, in less than two weeks,
conquered Syria, just as he had

Why should Americans care about what
happens in Syria? Why should Americans

about the fall of Assad or the rise of
al -Sharaf?

It's not that Syria per se is important,
it's that what happens in Syria impacts

all of the Middle East.

Syria can generate massive refugee
flows, and it has terrorism that does

stay in the region, as we saw all over
Europe in 2015 -16 with the Islamic

State. These are issues at the center of
the Middle East.

And Syria sits squarely in the center of
the Middle East.

sharing borders with five U .S.
strategic partners in the region,

Jordan, Israel, and Lebanon.

Should it be considered an intelligence
failure that we didn't see either that

Jalani at that time was a potent force
to be dealt with or that Assad,

the regime, was rotting from within?

Look, I think...

Anyone you might have asked, either in
the policy side, the intel side, whether

in state, NSC, DOD, our folks in the
field, people would have been easily

to reckon, yes, the regime is stagnant.

You know things are brittle, but you
don't know how brittle they are. And you

don't know what kind of punch knocks the
whole thing to pieces.

More than two weeks after Assad fled
Syria, Syrian families are still

for answers about so many of their loved
ones taken by Assad's secret police

over the years. At least 200 ,000 people
are missing.

I have trouble thinking of the collapse
of the Assad regime.

It's 54 years.

54 years that the Syrians have been
repressed.

And so when in 11 days a regime like
this collapses, it takes you time to

understand it, to believe it.

And what we're identifying is multiple
mass graves. All these places where

hundreds of thousands of bodies, men,
women, children, elderly, had been not

just shot in the head, but mostly
tortured to death. Really a sadistic

Anything was better than the Assad
regime.

We saw the videos, how prisoners were
treated.

The brutality of the regime.

Children born from...

raped mothers in prisons that were born
in prisons.

Anything other than Assad is good, even
if it's the devil.

During his first weeks in power, Alshara
walked the streets of Damascus, talking

to people, reassuring everyone what his
plans were.

From day one, when Ahmed Alshara took
Damascus, he talked

about peace and reconciliation,
reunifying the country.

He talked about disarmament,
demobilization, reintegration. He used

phrases that you would read in a
textbook about a political transition.

The world's press soon arrived to meet
and talk with

the new leader.

As did a parade of foreign diplomats.

The world rushed to Damascus.

Foreign ministers, emirs, prime
ministers, presidents are seeking to

al -Sharaf's hand, amazed by this
historic opportunity, first time in more

50 years, to reshape the heart of the
Middle East for the better.

As we all turn to the question of what
comes next in Syria.

In Washington, the Biden administration
was weighing what it should do.

We've taken note of statements by the
leaders of these rebel groups in recent

days.

And they're saying the right things now.
We were struck by the interviews that

Jolani gave in the early days after
assuming power, in which, yes, he quote

-unquote said the right things, but said
them with a degree of sophistication

and conviction and detail.

He gave us some reason to believe that
this might be a different sort of

So we decided that at a certain point we
would need to engage.

Less than two weeks after Alshara's
victory, a U .S. State Department

headed by Barbara Leaf set out from
neighboring Jordan to meet with him.

We took off down the highway at speed,
and we drove through a very...

Dilapidated countryside, I will say.
Really looked beaten down.

As we got into Damascus, it was
difficult to measure what security would

like.

Were there militias roaming at will? Was
there any security? Had all the

remnants of the regime fled for good?

They arrived at the presidential palace
12 days after Assad had fled to Moscow.

So we were walked into this big
cavernous palace and taken

upstairs, and all of a sudden, there
they were.

Talk about how he struck you.

Having worked for many four -star
generals in the American military, I

I was talking to a very senior general,
not that different than an American

commander, who had a very deep
understanding of warfare, economics,

he wanted to achieve, how he might want
to achieve it.

I walked away impressed.

He just had this air of calm, quiet
authority and a whiff of charisma,

I mean, I had to almost close my eyes
and remind myself I was talking to a

Syrian official with the very easy way
he talked about Israel.

No diatribes, no recitation of 40 years
of history, you know, the way Hafez al

-Assad would let me tell you about 1948,
sort of start of the conversation.

And of course, at that time, The
Israelis had moved in up on the Golan

And they were bombing?

And they were bombing.

Israel, long in a state of war with
Syria, immediately started bombing and

dismantling Syria's remaining military
capabilities.

Israel's been bombarding every part of
Syria's military.

Fighter jets.

Naval assets, surface -to -surface
missiles, they have taken out

The Israelis say they told the Biden
administration what they were planning

do.

Alshara asked Barbara Leaf to get Israel
to stop.

He was very matter -of -fact in his
request.

He said, could you get the Israelis to
stop bombing? They're scaring my people.

And he was at pains to say repeatedly,
we have no argument with Israel.

I don't doubt that Ashara has no
interest in going to war with Israel.

Michael Herzog was Israeli ambassador to
the U .S. at the time.

He told me that Israel was particularly
worried about Assad's weapons and

chemical stockpiles falling into the
wrong hands.

We all know the background of Ashara and
the people around him.

They all come from the schools of Al
-Qaeda and ISIS.

They all have jihadi background, and
that was and remains a source of concern

Israel. How does continuing to strike
militarily with bombs

encourage al -Sharah's moderation? It
would seem to me the opposite is true,

that that encourages the jihadists.
Well, Israel is not going to...

Initially,

Israel did say the bombing campaign
would be brief.

It is a very limited and temporary step.

But Israel has continued striking
targets for months, killing an estimated

two dozen civilians in the process.

Israel has also seized land in southern
Syria, expanding what it calls its

security zone.

At an Arab summit in March, Al -Shara
asked for help.

I think behind Israel is an agenda, is
an intention to weaken

Syria, to break it up and to expand
Israeli boundaries.

without any accountability by the
international community.

And that is really the recipe for future
violence, not for peace.

They don't see it that way.

The French and the British, when they
carved up the Middle East, didn't see it

that way either.

By mid -January 2025, when I returned to
Syria, I was planning on seeing al

-Shara again, but it seemed he was
distracted.

His honeymoon was coming to an end.

Resistance to his government was
emerging around the country.

A large pocket was here in the south, in
the city of Sueda, the heartland of

Syria's Druze.

The Druze are a minority religious
group, an ancient offshoot of Shia

And since Al -Shara came to power, they
have been reluctant to support him or

trust his jihadist followers.

Saqiba Zahm is commander of a large
Druze militia called the Mountain

His people, he said, felt excluded.

He complained that the new government
was stacked with al -Shara's own people.

The complaint that I heard is that Shara
was talking his cabinet

with friends from his government in
Idlib and they were all fellow

Was it inevitable that al -Shara did
that?

Yeah, I think it is. You know, he's been
fighting a war since he's 20 years old.

He's been a warrior. He's been leading a
militia that is deeply Islamist.

When he first got to Idlib, he said,
this is going to be an entity for

And so there's this deep Sunni
supremacist attitude that comes along

Under scrutiny was one of al -Shara's
initial cabinet members.

His justice minister was filmed in 2015
overseeing the execution of two women in

Idlib accused of corruption and
prostitution.

How do you explain his appointment of a
justice minister who

is in video executing two women?

protests over this.

There are still extremist elements, and
this is the source of concern to many

secular Syrians.

Mr. Alshara is walking a tightrope.

Alshara has since replaced his justice
minister, and by the end of March, he

formed a new cabinet that was much more
inclusive.

Very interesting.

Do you speak English?

But these Druze leaders may not be
assuaged. They cite too much bad

You can't say for us, oh, today I am an
angel and forget my history.

You know?

It's not enough to say, OK, yesterday I
was with Qaeda, yesterday my leader is

Osama bin Laden, but today my leader is
the Syrian Muslim.

Ten years earlier, members of Al
-Shara's group executed 20 Druze in an

village accusing them of heresy.

Al -Shara's group later said the attack
went against his orders.

Today in Suwaida, the Druze are refusing
to give up their guns.

How many men do you have in arms?

The day

after my meeting with the mountain
brigade, we got a tip from a local

journalist.

There was a large convoy of al -Shara's
soldiers patrolling in the nearby

countryside.

They were going from town to town in a
show of

force, assuring Syrians that al -Shara
was restoring order in the country.

But the soldiers were also here
demanding loyalty, warning everyone

in no uncertain terms to cooperate in
the fight against any armed resistance

al -Shahr's government.

At the end of the day, these soldiers
pause to pray, a common Muslim ritual.

But al -Shara's forces are staunchly
conservative Sunnis.

As seen by the Druze from nearby Sueda
or by defeated Assad loyalists, rule by

band of Islamists is deeply troubling.

Under Assad, religion was downplayed.

Assad was an Alawite, a minority sect of
Islam.

but he promoted a largely secular vision
for Syria.

Assad's base was here along Syria's
Mediterranean coast, in communities with

concentration of Alawites.

After Assad's defeat, some coastal
residents feared for their safety, and

were reports that some were being
targeted.

Then, in early March, Some Assad
loyalists attacked one of Al -Shara's

government patrols.

Sixteen men lay dead, and more lethal
attacks followed.

And today we will say that huge...
security operations targeting forces

the Assad regime.

And so there was a general mobilization
of the military.

And then the mosques began to call for
jihad.

Tensions had been building for weeks
with provocative online threats like

against the Alawites.

Some linked to suspicious foreign
accounts.

Put hate in

your hearts, go to that coast, smash the
Alawites.

Thousands of militiamen joined al
-Shara's government forces and descended

the coast.

And then just a flood of videos began to
come out. And some of the soldiers and

these militiamen making alouettes, you
know, long strings of them, walk on

hands and knees, bark like a dog.

And then they started carrying out these
massacres.

Just shooting people up and down.

It was a free -for -all. They were
having a good time.

This eyewitness says three of his family
members were executed, were blurring

his face to protect his identity.

So you wake up to these images that are
then online and you and your wife are

together. Yeah.

She's Alawite. She's Alawite. You have
relatives, in -laws living there. Yeah.

And three of my wife's cousins wrote us
the next day. People came to their door.

Bang, bang, bang.

You open it up.

Who are you, Sidney or Alloway? It was
the first thing that each one of them

said. They were asked.

One cousin who grew up with my son, we
knew well, was shot at his doorstep. He

was 19, 20 years old.

Over the course of several days, An
estimated 1200 people were killed,

Alawites.

Al

-Shara called

for a thorough investigation.

This investigation committee, will they
actually provide reports with names?

Will those people be held accountable?

Those are real tests.

So look at them and ask Al -Shara. If
you do that, we trust you. If you don't,

no, we don't trust you.

Damascus says it has successfully
contained the offensive on the coast.

But while Ahmed al -Shara may be in
control of some of the men in uniforms,

is not in control of all of the men with
guns.

It is in Syria's far northeastern corner
where al -Shara faces perhaps his

biggest challenge.

This is the homeland of Syria's Kurds.

the largest non -Arab minority in Syria.

Kurds have long been subject to
systematic discrimination, including the

arbitrary denial of citizenship to
around 150 ,000 Syria -born Kurds who

not allowed to have passports, who can't
own property, get a marriage license or

find work, whose children are also
considered non -citizens.

Kurds have not fared well elsewhere
either.

They formed the largest stateless ethnic
group in the world, with 30 million

people concentrated in an area
straddling Turkey, Iran, Iraq, and

After Syria's civil war began in 2012,
Kurds here in the northeast broke free

Assad and established a semi -autonomous
region they call Rojava.

How did Syria ever lose control of the
northeast?

When Assad's forces faced massive armed
opposition during the Arab Spring,

they pulled troops out of the northeast
to hold off against the opposition, the

resistance in the rest of the country.

So the Kurds split off, and they're
currently a state within a state.

I went to Rojava in April 2025 to see
and hear the Kurds' powerful and

popular rebel leader, General Mazloum
Abdi Kobane.

Thank you very much.

Thank you very much.

After the conference, I met with General
Mazloum at his headquarters.

I want to begin by talking about this
unity conference that took place

yesterday. I was there.

What is the significance of the
declaration that came out of that

Do the people trust a former al -Qaeda
commander to rule Syria

or to preserve or to give you autonomy?

From al -Shara's perspective,

Integrating the Kurds back into Syria is
essential.

He needed to make a deal.

And why is northeast Syria important to
al -Sharraf?

I mean, northeast Syria contains 80 % of
Syria's natural energy resources.

So oil and gas, hugely significant, the
lifeblood of the Syrian economy.

And then on top of that, it's the
agricultural belt of the country. So if

is able to get anywhere close to feeding
itself, It needs that region of Syria.

Without that under Damascus' control,
there really is no hope.

And then there's water.

Rojava controls the Euphrates River in
part, and the dam.

So that northeast, very important for
the economy, oil, agriculture, water.

Mazloum also leads a 100 ,000 -man U
.S.-backed army, the Syrian Democratic

Forces, or SDF.

which is battle -hardened and well
-supplied.

The Americans trained and equipped the
SDF to help them defeat ISIS after a

large swath of Kurdish territory was
seized by ISIS in 2014.

The SDF definitely has some power in the
negotiation with Shara, not only in

terms of the resources, but also because
they have a pretty robust military

that's been trained by the United States
and the Global Coalition, too.

And some have said that it might even be
a larger military than the one that's

currently in Damascus.

But the Kurds still have an ISIS
problem.

They have around 10 ,000 suspected ISIS
fighters locked up in Kurdish prisons,

along with two massive camps filled with
40 ,000 women and children, the

families of these prisoners.

In the Kurdish city of Hasakah, I was
allowed a look inside one of these

prisons. This one, filled with foreign
fighters.

The

Kurds

need help repatriating these prisoners.

No one wants to take them.

29 prisons full of ISIS prisoners.

You're trying to repatriate them.

After weeks of

negotiations, Mazloum set out for
Damascus to meet al -Shara and hammer

agreement. on Kurdish rights, autonomy,
on resources, the military, and ISIS.

The broad outlines were that Muslim
would put the SDF, Syrian Democratic

under the authority of the Ministry of
Defense in Damascus.

And they came up with an agreement on
oil that was going to give Kurds a big

share of all oil revenues.

And finally, there were issues
concerning Kurdish status in the new

Al -Shara specifically agreed to
recognize Kurds as fully Syrian, and he

guaranteed their constitutional rights.

The Kurds wanted Syria to be called the
Syrian Republic, so it would be Syria

for all Syrians.

Traditionally, it's been the Syrian Arab
Republic.

Initially, Kurds celebrated the
agreement.

Then, three days later, al -Shara issued
a new Syrian constitution.

It was not what Mazloum envisioned.

It had Syrian Arab Republic right at the
top, and it didn't write the Kurds in.

It didn't give them representation.

It didn't outline the agreement.

The Constitution did promise to protect
minority rights, but the Kurds said the

language was too vague.

The document also contained Article 3,
which deals with Islamic jurisprudence.

It was changed from Islamic law will be
a source of law.

That's what it was under Assad. Now it's
Islamic law.

will be the source of law.

So this makes it very potentially Sharia
law will become the law of the land.

This sent a shudder through many of the
minority communities.

I would imagine you were tempted to pick
up the phone and call Al -Shara and

say, what's going on?

In an open letter, Kurdish authorities
laid out their complete rejection of the

new constitution and its attempt to
recreate a dictatorship.

Syria, they wrote, is a homeland for all
its people.

we will not accept the reconstruction of
an authoritarian regime.

To date, Al -Shara has decided not to
revise the constitution.

The question I have is how he could,
three days after having this deal signed

with Mazloum, come out with a
constitutional declaration. At the very

says the Syrian Arab Republic.

Yes. That is a glaring piece that has
not been fixed.

He's making mistakes.

I went back to speak via Zoom with
Ambassador Barbara Leaf.

If he wants a stable Syria, he's going
to be compelled to take into account the

changed landscape of Syria, changed by
14 years of this brutal civil war.

But he has to look at a longer scope of
history where these communities were.

pitted against one another.

So the high degree of mistrust is in
multiple directions, but they all

Damascus.

I wanted to hear al -Shahr's response to
all the turmoil around the country.

I repeatedly pressed for an interview,
to no avail.

We did visit this courthouse in the city
of Homs, central Syria.

We met this man, Chief Judge Hassan al
-Aqra, a staunch supporter of al -Shahr.

At the time, al -Aqra was systematically
going through all the files that were

seized from the Assad regime.

He said new laws were still being
written.

But the issue of justice requires a
little hesitation until new laws, new

regulations, and new measures come to
us.

And we are looking to build Syria for
all Syrians.

A Syria that is compatible with all
sects, the jurisprudence of Sayyid Ahmed

-Sharah, so that the whole world is
reassured that the next Syria is the

Syria.

Today, Syria has a new history to write.

You write it with your own hands.

In May, President Trump made a trip to
the Middle East.

There was a jolt of good news for Al
-Shara.

After discussing the situation in Syria
with the Crown Prince, your Crown

Prince, in Saudi Arabia, Trump announced
that economic sanctions imposed during

the Assad regime would finally be
lifted. I will be ordering the cessation

sanctions against Syria in order to give
them a chance at greatness.

Despite opposition from some hawks in D
.C., Trump was widely praised for the

move.

People in the administration were
opposed to this. So what was behind all

I think it's very clear what was behind
that. He heard over the last several

months consistently from the Saudis,
from Erdogan, from others, that this was

existential moment for Syria to get onto
a path, a long one, albeit, but a path

of recovery and successful political and
economic and security transition.

And that that would be good for regional
interests. That would be good for U .S.

interests.

The following day, Al -Shara and Trump
met.

The former al -Qaeda commander, who
spent years in American prison camps in

Iraq, accused of making powerful
roadside bombs, had come a long way.

Young, attractive guy, tough guy.

You know, strong pass.

A strong pass fighter.

The situation is very fluid.

We just have to wait and see what
happens.

We need to see this new administration
be inclusive of all Syrians.

We need to make sure that Syria will no
longer be a center of terrorism.

If Syria can be united and stable and
Iran can be kept out, then the

temporary tactical defeat of Iran and
proxies will become a permanent defeat.

If not...

If Syria becomes a failed state, if it
goes back to active fighting and various

outside forces intervening and split up,
it will open the door for Iran again.

As we were leaving Syria, events
underscored just how fragile al -Shara's

is.

Sectarian clashes erupted in several
cities after a Druze religious leader

falsely accused of insulting the Prophet
Muhammad.

Around 100 Druze militiamen and
government security forces were killed.

The Israelis, with a large Druze
minority

at home, have been issuing warnings to
al -Shara not to harm the Druze.

To make their point, an Israeli missile
landed right outside al -Shara's palace

gate.

to stop threatening the Druze community.

For now, al -Shara remains popular with
the majority of Syrians.

But he has been keeping a lower profile
of late, avoiding most interviews.

I mean, he enjoyed a honeymoon.

He talked to diplomats like yourself. He
talked to journalists. He visited other

regional states.

But he's been relatively quiet.

He's not in a honeymoon phase anymore.

No, and governance is hard.

The easy part is going on a foreign
trip, but the hardest part is

It's governance.

It's the daily slog of reconstructing an
administrative apparatus, which is

pretty worn and torn and riddled with
corruption from the years of destruction

of the Assad family rule.

It's a hard, hard road ahead.

For more on this and other Frontline
programs, visit our website at pbs .org.

Frontline's Syria After Assad is
available on Amazon Prime Video.