La civil war in syria is getting to know a new one these days sudden recrudescence. Forces jihadist rebels that you they oppose al government led da Bashar al-Assad they launched an offensive against the regular army described by with the BBC as “the largest in years”. They have already took control of Aleppo, the second largest city in the country, already at the centre of very violent fighting in the past and then also of the entire Idlib Province.
The surprise attack – the British broadcaster reports – has pushed the Russian Air Force to fulfill the First bombings on Aleppo since 2016, while those loyal to the government have withdrawn from the city. Leading the offensive is the group called Hayat Tahrir al Sham – Commission for the Liberation of Syria – which has long been deeply involved in the conflict that has been shaking Syria for years.
In the clashes between militiamen and soldiers there are already hundreds deadIn the last few hours it has been hypothesized the killing, unconfirmed, of Abu Muhammad al-Jawlani rebel leader, According to Lebanese sources, this is due to a raid that the Russians, who are supporting the Assad regime, allegedly carried out in the city of Iliab, a stronghold of the Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham organization.
The UN ordered the evacuation, in a convoy in which there are also Italian citizens. From Syrian President Assad a few words: "we will defeat the terrorists". The Turkish media go so far as to speak of blight.
Il Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi said that “the rebel attacks in Syria are part of a Israeli-American plan to destabilize the region.” This was reported by Iranian state media. Yesterday, the foreign ministers of Iran and Russia expressed their support for Syria against the rebels. Abbas Araghchi, will visit Damascus following the rebel offensive in Idlib governorate and Aleppo. The news was reported by the Saudi television channel Al-Hadath. On Monday, Araghchi will also visit Turkey, which borders the rebel-held region.
The advance of the jihadist rebel forces
The offensive led by Hayat Tahrir al Sham has hit at first the countryside west of Aleppo and then the entire Syrian city. This was completely conquered during the night and in the early hours of Saturday, while government forces retreated leaving the airports military of Kuwairis, Abu Dhuhur, Nayrab and even theAleppo International Airport, never fallen into the hands of insurgents since the beginning of the war more than 13 years ago. THE Kurdish forces, expression of the local wing of the PKK and who have long maintained a stronghold in Aleppo, initially attempted to take advantage of the government withdrawal and were the first to take control of the city's international airport.
The Fall of Aleppo Airport
On Saturday afternoon, after tough negotiations with pro-Turkish forces, the airport passed into the hands of jihadists led by Ankara. They have continued south, entering without a hitch in all the Idlib region, and penetrating, for the first time after almost a decade, into that central Hama. Here, Russian forces withdrew from the military airport and the key base of Sqeilibye, on the Orontes River. The jihadist offensive then reached the outskirts of Homs, 100 kilometers north of the capitalThe news has given strength to the never-dormant political aspirations of rebel factions in southern Syria, who have attacked government positions in Daraa and Suwayda, on the border with Jordan.
Assad's Promise
Yesterday evening, Saturday, the Syrian President Bashar Assad He vowed to “defeat terrorists” regardless of the scale of their attacks. “Syria continues to defend its stability and territorial integrity against all terrorists and their supporters, and is capable, with the help of its allies and friends, of defeating and eliminating them, regardless of the intensity of their attacks,” he said in a telephone conversation with his Emirati counterpart, the Syrian presidency said in a statement.
Some media are talking about a coup
Arab agencies and media report clashes between government forces in Damasco, with unconfirmed rumors of Coup in progress against Bashar Al-Assad.
The Hts and the others
THEHayat Tahrir al-Sham is a group of jihadist militias led by Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, founder in 2012 of the Syrian wing of al-Qaeda but then broke away from international al-Qaeda to create a most pragmatic form of political jihadism based in the northwestern Syrian region of Idlib. The HTS has remained active in part of the Idlib region over the years. And here over the years the Turkey has extended its direct political and military influence, having already occupied large areas of north-west and north-east Syria.
Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, a 42-year-old originally from the Damascus region, has never admitted direct ties with Ankara: however, he is defined by many as an agent of the power system embodied by Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan. The HTS and its leader – reports theAssociated Press – in recent years they have tried to reposition themselves with respect to their origins: their focus has become that of promote civil government in the controlled territories, in addition to the military actions.
After severing ties with al-Qaeda, Abu Mohammad al-Jolani has some extremist groups repressed in the territory and described himself as protector of other religionsi: In 2023, for the first time in years, permission was granted to hold a Christian mass in the city of Idlib. According to a 2018 report by the CSIS Transnational Threats Project on Salafi-jihadist groups, HTS has a fighting force of between 12 and 15 militants.
It was precisely from the areas under the control of Hayat Tahrir al Sham that the first vanguards of the pro-Turkish jihadist offensive against government, Iranian and Russian positions moved at dawn on November 26. Inside the military structure of HTS there are former anti-government Syrian rebels, supporters of the first armed revolts against the power of the contested President Bashar al Assad, alongside defectors from local al-Qaeda and the Islamic State Organization. But there are also numerous mercenaries, co-opted by Türkiye, of the Caucasus and Central Asia up to the Uighurs of Xinjiang in China. These are not Syrian fighters, not Arabs but Sunni Muslims with deep anti-Russian and anti-Chinese sentiments.
Among the rebel forces, however, there is not only Hayat Tahrir al Sham. Alongside them, the offensive of these days is also conducted by another coalition, the so-called Syrian National Army, Jaysh al watani, not to be confused with the regular government army of Damascus. This group, which for now occupies a subordinate position with respect to al-Jolani's men, is a direct creation of the military security services and the Turkish army and over the years has incorporated a series of factions of the 2011-12 Syrian uprising expelled since 2014 from Homs, Aleppo, Hama, Daraa and the Damascus region during the phase of government, Russian and Iranian reconquest.
