Islamist rebels once exiled to a mountainous pocket of the Syrian deserts now roam the streets of central Aleppo, taking pictures below its ancient citadel and tearing down symbols of the president Bashar al-Assad’s rule.
The surprise offensivein which insurgents seized territory across north-west Syria appears to have dramatically shifted the balance of power in Aleppo, and marks the largest challenge to Assad’s control in years.
Fighters from militant Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) seized much of the city in a sudden rout of Syrian army forces. A reporter with opposition television channel Aleppo Today showed uniformed militants in an empty central plaza. A man who said the fighters had freed him from prison wept on camera.
Footage showed people tearing down a statue of Bassel al-Assad, the brother of Syria’s ruler, from atop a figure of horse to the sound of celebratory gunfire. Turkey’s Anadolu news agency said Syrian forces withdrew from several key locations including the civilian airport, shuttering it before ceding control to Kurdish militant groups as Islamist insurgents closed in.
Forces spearheaded by HTS also seized an important military base to the south while taking control of Saraqib, a strategic location on the highway to the capital, Damascus. Turkish-backed Syrian rebels launched their own operation against Kurdish militants and Syrian government forces in an effort to seize a military airport to the east of Aleppo, as swaths of territory rapidly fell under rebel control.
The sweeping offensive appeared to take forces loyal to Assad by surprise as well as his longtime backers in Moscow and Tehran. Iran’s Tasnim news agency said the Syrian military general command continued to fight insurgents in Aleppo, amid reports of both Russian and Syrian airstrikes around the city.
The Syrian military said the overwhelming number of fighters “and the multiplicity of battlefronts prompted our armed forces to carry out a redeployment operation aimed at strengthening the defence lines in order to absorb the attack, preserve the lives of civilians and soldiers, and prepare for a counterattack”.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov called the situation in Aleppo “an attack on Syrian sovereignty,” adding “we are in favour of the Syrian authorities bringing order to the area”.
Political officials from the Syrian Salvation Government, an HTS affiliate which nominally rules Idlib, quickly issued a statement condemning Russian airstrikes but instead calling Moscow “a potential partner in building a bright future for Syria”.
The sudden insurgent victory in Aleppo symbolised a dramatic shift in control of key urban centres in Syria, and an unexpected challenge to its president, long seen as having crushed the uprising against him. Assad’s fractured control of Syria had appeared secure enough that his former regional foes, notably Saudi Arabia, had begun to re-establish diplomatic relations with Damascus.
Turkish officials, who had also discussed normalising relations with Assad despite supporting rebel forces, denied any involvement in the Aleppo offensive. “We will not take any action that could cause a wave of migration,” said the foreign minister, Hakkan Fidan, amid reports from the UN that fighting had internally displaced some 14,000 people in days.
The militants appeared to enter Aleppo with ease, in total contrast to the fierce street battles for control of every block that engulfed the ancient urban centre 12 years ago. Syrian regime forces seized full control of Aleppo in 2016, relying heavily on Russian airpower and Iranian military support to wrestle the country’s former industrial centre back under Assad’s control.
The fall of Aleppo to Syrian government control previously marked a key moment of defeat for the country’s armed opposition, and a watershed moment in a bloody civil war that followed a popular uprising against Assad in 2011.
“No one expected Aleppo to be taken, which means there were no real defensive lines within the city. Once they got there it seems like it was all open,” said Jerome Drevon, of the International Crisis Group.
Drevon pointed to the insurgents’ years-long efforts to formalise and hone their fighting forces, allowing them to overwhelm far less organised Syrian government fighters. “I think the regime didn’t expect such a quick move, the operation started just a few days ago,” he said.
The insurgents’ sudden newfound control of much of Aleppo quickly drew questions about their ability to hold territory, and what an expanded fiefdom led by HTS’s, leader known as Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, could look like. Jolani was designated by the US state department as a terrorist in 2013 and retains a $10m bounty on his head, but has de-facto ruled Idlib province for several years.
While the militants in Idlib have attempted to demonstrate their ability to govern, they have also stood accused of crushing dissent while relying heavily on dwindling international aid to meet civilians’ needs. As fighters stormed Aleppo, humanitarians such as Sudipta Kumar of ActionAid warned many were suffering in Idlib.
“Thousands of families now face a freezing winter without anywhere to live,” she said.
Analyst Sam Heller, of the Century Foundation, said the insurgents’ ability to hold on to their territorial gains depended on whether Damascus and their allies were able to mount a counter-attack.
“Certainly some areas in the Aleppo countryside could be difficult for HTS and their allies to hold on to if they come under really withering air strikes or artillery fire,” he said. Insurgent rule inside Aleppo itself, he added, could prove far more difficult for Assad and his allies to repel in the long term.
“It’s not clear what kind of capabilities Damascus is now able to bring to bear and mobilise from elsewhere in Syria, also critically how much capacity Russia now has in Syria, given its current involvement in Ukraine which has diverted some of their forces to that front.”
While opponents of Assad’s rule elsewhere in Syria and in exile will now look to Aleppo, with the potential that the insurgency could fuel uprisings elsewhere, Devon doubted that Jolani and his allies would be willing to cede power to a conventional governing authority.
The militants were more likely to focus on expanding the field of battle for now, he said, adding: “They have been waiting for this battle for a long time.”
