The rebels’ advances could threaten to pull Russia and Iran further into the conflict, while the U.S. distanced itself from the offensive
The rebel groups fighting in Syria’s 13-year-long war are a complex patchwork of fighters, focused on battling against different enemies — including, sometimes, each other — backed at times by foreign powers.
Last week, Syrian rebels launched a lightning assault against government forces in the country’s northwest, reshaping the front lines of the country’s bloody civil war for the first time in years.
Islamist rebel group Hayat Tahir al-Sham (HTS) has emerged as a formidable challenger to President Bashar al-Assad, Syria’s ruler for nearly a quarter-century — over half of which he has spent fighting for survival in this conflict.
The impacts of the rebels’ advances will reshape not just the contours of the civil war, but could ripple beyond Syria’s borders too. It could threaten to pull Russia and Iran further into the conflict, while the United States has distanced itself from the unfolding offensive, calling for an urgent de-escalation.
HTS is leading the latest assault against government forces, more than a decade after it gained notoriety at the beginning of the Syrian civil war as a forbidding challenger to the Assad regime. The group’s stated aim is to establish Islamic rule in Syria, and is the successor to onetime al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra.
In recent years, HTS has used its dominance in northwestern Syria — where it had been contained by government forces — to rebuild the constellation of remaining opposition forces into fighting forces.
HTS has also been working to soften its image in that time. Once affiliated with al-Qaida, it has since distanced itself from its extremist roots, focusing instead on its provision of government services to millions of people in Idlib province through the fledgling Syrian Salvation Government, the de facto administrators of HTS-controlled territory. In recent statements, the group said it will protect cultural and religious sites in Aleppo, including churches.
The group also controls the Bab al-Hawa border crossing into Turkey, a vital corridor for funneling humanitarian aid into rebel-held areas.
The U.S. State Department has designated HTS as a foreign terrorist organization.
Government troops loyal to Assad have staved off attempts to topple his regime since peaceful anti-government protests first broke out in 2011. As Assad’s forces cracked down violently, the protests morphed into a full-blown rebellion, forming the contours of the current conflict.
By 2020, government troops — backed by Iran, Russia and Lebanese militant group Hezbollah — had contained opposition rebels into a corner of northwestern Syria. Russia has effectively acted as Assad’s air force since 2015.
In the past week, government forces suddenly appeared to have lost their upper hand, with the rebels wresting control of much of Aleppo, the major Syrian city that Assad’s troops retook in 2016. The regime’s military said it was redeploying troops from areas it controlled in Aleppo and Idlib provinces, assisted by bombardment from joint Syrian-Russian air forces.
On Sunday, Iran’s foreign minister travelled to Damascus in a show of support for Assad’s regime, though the nature and timing of any future assistance remains unclear.
In an interview on NBC’s Meet the Press Sunday, U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan suggested that the timing of the rebels’ advance was connected to the weakening of Assad’s primary backers, Russia, Iran and Hezbollah, in conflicts elsewhere in the region and beyond.
It was the first opposition attack on Aleppo since 2016, when a brutal Russian air campaign retook the northwestern city for Assad after rebel forces had seized it. Intervention by Russia, Iran and Iranian-allied Hezbollah and other groups has allowed Assad to remain in power within the 70 per cent of Syria under his control.
Turkey’s state-run Anadolu Agency reported that the Syrian National Army (SNA) participated in the recent rebel offensive, claiming to have captured a military airport in Aleppo.
The SNA is a loosely knit coalition of Turkish-backed forces who have also taken part in the latest fighting, primarily against Kurdish fighters in northern Syria. The groups in the past have also battled Assad’s government, Islamic State militants as well as HTS and its predecessor organization.
The Turkish proxy force has also fought against U.S.-allied Syrian Kurdish fighters, whom Turkey considers to be terrorists because of their links to Turkey’s Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a militant group that has launched attacks inside Turkey in the name of Kurdish nationalism.
Analysts say the timing of the offensive has coincided more broadly with the weakening of the Assad regime’s backers. “This has to do with geopolitics and local opportunity,” said Emile Hokayem, senior fellow for Middle East security at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. “The rebellion at large had regrouped, rearmed and retrained for something like this.”
With additional reporting from The Associated Press