Syria President Assad huddles with Russia, Iran as rebels near; over 300 insurgents killed | What's happening
Late last week, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, a breakaway faction of al-Qaeda, staged a surprise offensive on Aleppo. Their sights are now set on the Syrian capital.
Syrian President Bashar Al Assad got his biggest challenge in recent years and it seemingly came out of nowhere. After four years of an uneasy stalemate Aleppo fell to Turkish-backed rebels in a matter of days.
Late last week, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, a breakaway faction of al-Qaeda, staged a surprise offensive on Aleppo. They captured it over the weekend and are headed toward another major goal, Hama.
Over 300 insurgents have been killed in the fighting but it hasn't stopped their advance.
Reports have also suggested that, for the first time, the rebels have managed to fly military helicopter that they captured from the retreating Syrian Army.
With Damascus in danger, the Syrian president reportedly flew to Moscow.
Russia’s intervention in Syria’s civil war almost a decade ago turned the tide in Assad’s favor, but this time around his two biggest backers are stretched. Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine is consuming Russian resources while Iran finds itself weakened by Israel’s sustained attacks on Hezbollah, the Tehran-backed militants in neighboring Lebanon.
Help from Iran
Iran is trying anyway though with militias backed by the Islamic republic entering Syria overnight from Iraq. They were heading to northern parts of the country to beef up beleaguered regime army forces battling insurgents, according to two Syrian army sources.
Dozens of Iran-aligned Iraqi Hashd al Shaabi fighters from Iraq also crossed into Syria through a military route near Al Bukamal crossing, a senior Syrian army source told Reuters.
"These are fresh reinforcements being sent to aid our comrades on the front lines in the north," the officer said, adding the militias included Iraq's Katiab Hezbollah and Fatemiyoun groups.
The country, which borders Israel, Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq and Jordan, had laid relatively dormant as the Middle East convulsed following the Oct. 7, 2023 massacre of Israelis by Hamas. The recent flare up has caught everyone by surprise.
The problems for Bashar Al Assad
The problem for Bashar Al Assad is that neither Russia, which is carrying out air strikes against the rebels, nor Iran are really in a position to come to his rescue, according to Joshua Landis, director of the Center of Middle East Studies at the University of Oklahoma. The rebels based in their last bastion of Idlib perhaps weren’t even expecting to break through, but they are now pushing on.
“The opposition has far exceeded what it set out to do and when it realized that there was little the Syrian military was willing to fight for and began to just melt away, they’ve been on a roll,” Landis said in an interview with Al Jazeera, adding that they hope to capture Damascus.
Assad is now in crisis mode and huddling with his old allies. After meeting with an Iranian envoy, the president emphasized “the importance of the support of allies and friends in confronting foreign-backed terrorist attacks.”
Russia joined Iran in expressing “extreme concern” over the militants’ rout of government forces and stressed “strong support for the sovereignty and territorial integrity of the Syrian Arab Republic” after a call on Saturday between their two top diplomats.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Saturday held telephone talks with his Turkish counterpart, Hakan Fidan, in which they “agreed on the need to coordinate joint efforts aimed at stabilizing the situation in Syria,” according to the Russian Foreign Ministry.
The sudden escalation in Syria came after Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan announced plans to create a safe zone along the border with Syria and push away hostile Kurdish forces. With Russia and Iran otherwise preoccupied, the question is whether Erdogan was spotting an opportunity.
Turkey is a key player because not only does it have the biggest military in NATO after the Americans, but because it views its fight against Kurdish separatists as an existential one. The US sees Kurdish groups as critical to defeating and preventing a resurgence of Islamic State in Syria.
Kurds in Danger
A US-backed, Kurdish-led force in Syria is seeking to evacuate Kurds in parts of Aleppo to safe areas, its chief said Monday.
"We are actively coordinating with all relevant parties in Syria to ensure the safety of our people and facilitate their secure relocation... to our safe areas in the northeast of the country," Mazloum Abdi, head of the Syrian Democratic Forces, said in a statement.
A Syria war monitor said late Sunday that around 200,000 Syrian Kurds were "besieged by pro-Turkey factions" who took over the town of Tal Rifaat and nearby villages.
Communications have been cut in Kurdish-majority areas, the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said, raising fears of possible "massacres" of Kurds.
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