Assad’s ouster has raised urgent questions about the 2,000 troops who serve as a bulwark against ISIS and Iran.

The new Islamist-led government promises moderation, but officials aren’t committing to such issues as women’s rights or free elections.

Tensions in northeast Syria between Kurdish-led authorities and Turkish-backed groups should be resolved politically or risk "dramatic consequences" for all of Syria, the United Nations envoy for the country Geir Pedersen told Reuters on Monday.

Years of strife ruined the energy sector, battered the currency and strangled growth. The West must ease financial controls to help the economy, experts say.

The Pentagon announced the US currently has “approximately 2,000” troops in Syria, more than double the previously disclosed number of 900, a Defense Department spokesperson said at a press briefing on Thursday.

Will he walk the walk and not just talk the talk? And if he doesn’t win in the elections, will he peacefully stand aside for whoever does win?” one analyst said.

A Pentagon spokesman said the increase was unrelated to the fall of President Bashar al-Assad to rebel forces in early December.

"I believe there will be violent fighting, the end of which we do not know," a top Syrian Democratic Council official told Newsweek.

During the course of Syria’s brutal civil war, Assad used chemical weapons more than 300 times against his own citizens, causing thousands of casualties. The worst such attack was a barrage of sarin-filled rockets launched against the Damascus suburb of Ghouta in August 2013 that killed an estimated 1,

Sham, or HTS, made a lightning assault across Syria. Where did the rebels get the cash, weapons and training that made their takeover possible?

For much of the past decade, Assad’s regime, bolstered by unwavering support from Iran and Russia, brutally suppressed dissent. What began as an uprising in 2011 evolved into a devastating civil war that eventually settled into an uneasy stalemate.