Andrew Bolt: Terrorists are watching their power crumble in the Middle East

Hamas boss Yahya Sinwar foolishly ordered his terrorists to invade Israel from Gaza and kill and kidnap Jews on October 7. 14 months later, Hamas is virtually destroyed and Sinwar himself, dead.

The one good thing about terrorists is they’re fundamentally stupid. Result: Russia and Iran have been chased out of Syria, along with its bloody dictator.

Their power in the Middle East is crumbling. If it wasn’t for all the blood, you’d laugh.

We should thank probably the dumbest terrorist leader of our times – Hamas boss Yahya Sinwar.

On October 7 last year, he ordered his terrorists to invade Israel from Gaza and kill and kidnap Jews.

Day one went about as well as this idiot could have hoped – 1200 Jews dead and more than 250 people taken hostage.

But 14 months later, it’s looking like a victory for Israel and the free world.

Hamas is virtually destroyed, and Sinwar himself dead. But look now at Syria, on Israel’s other side.

Dictator Bashar al-Assad reportedly fled the country on the weekend, after a Turkish-backed Islamist group, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, two weeks ago came storming out of the northwestern Idlib province.

Assad is finished after 24 years because his main allies – Russia and China – could no longer prop him up.

The Iranian-backed Hezbollah terrorist army – which had helped Assad before – had just been destroyed by Israel for backing Hamas by firing thousands of rockets at Israel from its Lebanese base.

Iran, which had paid and supplied both Hamas and Hezbollah, had not just lost its two biggest proxy armies but itself been humiliated by two Israeli missile attacks.

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and allied anti-government factions have pressed a lightning offensive since November 27, sweeping swathes Syria from government control, including major cities Aleppo, Hama and Homs. Picture: Bakr Alkasem

All this gave Hayat Tahrir al-Sham the opportunity it then seized.

Not even Russia could save Assad. Dictator Vladimir Putin had already weakened his Russian forces in Syria, needing every spare man and plane for his disastrous invasion of Ukraine.

With Assad’s forces in retreat, Russia last week even had to desert its only foreign naval base – at Tartus, on Syria’s coast.

That leaves it with no base in the Mediterranean, and no easy way to supply its forces in northern Africa.

What a sudden realignment of political power. The great alliance of tyrants – Russia, China, North Korea and Iran – which looked so powerful two years ago is humiliated.

China must now think twice about invading Taiwan. Its allies seem too unreliable, with reports that North Korean rockets sent to Russia have a high failure rate.

True, Assad’s main conqueror is a jihadist terrorist group, for now fighting alongside American-backed Kurds. But stupid Sinwar might just have spared us another world war.