Middle East transformation following Assad’s tight grip: the U.S. adopts a nonlinear approach to building relationships with key influencers in the Near East Region

On December 14, 2024, at a press conference in Aqaba, Jordan, US Secretary of State Anthony Blinken said that US officials had begun contacting the Syrian rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which led the overthrow of the Bashar al-Assad regime.

The establishment of contact between the U.S. administration and the HTS, which is currently ensuring the transfer of political power in Syria to the opposition coalition, proves that a new phase of confrontation has begun in the country after Assad’s fall.

A key part of the new phase of the conflict is now the struggle for the “power vacuum” that has arisen after the rapid change of power in the country.