Russian and Syrian warplanes have intensified attacks on rebels who have seized much of Aleppo, Syria’s second-largest city, in a lightning assault that poses the biggest challenge in years to Bashar al-Assad’s regime.
Airstrikes hit the rebel-held city of Idlib for a second day on Sunday, while opposition media and war monitors said Russian and Syrian jets also carried out strikes near Aleppo University Hospital.
Thousands of rebels led by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, entered the city of Aleppowhich has 2 million inhabitants, on Friday. Pictures circulating on opposition-linked social media this weekend show them raising their flag over the city’s citadel and posing at the airport.
Rebels, who launched their attack on Wednesday alone, they said their fighters were advancing in multiple directions from their stronghold in northwestern Syria’s Idlib province, although their progress appeared to have slowed by Sunday.
HTS rebels tried to press the regime’s main city of Hama, south of Aleppo, and claimed to have captured at least four towns in Hama province. The Syrian army denied this. The rebels also said they had captured the strategic town of Sheikh Najjar.
In his first public comments since the start of the offensive, Assad said Syria will continue to “defend its stability and its territorial integrity against terrorists and their supporters,” in remarks reported by state news agency Sana.
The comments came during talks with Emirati leader Mohammed bin Zayed, an ally of Assad, who “stressed the UAE’s solidarity with Syria and its support in the fight against terrorism”.
Later, Assad vowed to defeat the rebels in a phone call with the acting head of Georgia’s breakaway region of Abkhazia, Badr Ganba, saying “terrorism only understands the language of force.”
It is not clear whether Assad has returned to Syria after visiting Moscow earlier this week.
The Syrian army denied that the rebels had secured it Halepbut later said he was redeploying his forces as he prepared to launch a counterattack backed by Russian airstrikes and strengthen his defense lines after days of heavy fighting. Rebel forces killed dozens of Syrian army soldiers, the defense ministry said.
Videos on social media show rebel fighters driving through the streets of Aleppo, knocking down and kicking statues of Assad family members and celebrating by honking horns and firing guns. The videos also show prisoners being released from the prison in Aleppo.
Hundreds of civilians have fled the city and its suburbs for areas under regime or Kurdish control, fearing a repeat of the grueling 2016 battle that destroyed their city. For those who remained in Aleppo, HTS imposed a nightly curfew, residents told the Financial Times, adding that the streets were mostly empty on Sunday.
Assad faces mounting domestic and external pressures in a country torn by civil war that erupted after a popular uprising in 2011. He was able to quell the original rebellion with military support from Russia, Iran and Iran-backed groups, including the Lebanese militant movement Hezbollah.
Despite regaining control of two-thirds of the country, years of conflict and a deep economic crisis have left much of Syria in ruins.
The fighting has largely died down in recent years, and the surviving rebel groups have been pushed into northern and northwestern areas near the Turkish border.
But over the past year, Israel has stepped up airstrikes against Iran-linked targets in Syria while launching an offensive against Hezbollah in Lebanon, severely weakening groups that have played a key role in keeping Assad in power.
The ability of HTS to move deeper into Syria is a major embarrassment for Assad, highlighting the regime’s weakness. The offensive appears to have been planned for years, and comes at a time when Assad’s allies are preoccupied with their own conflicts in Ukraine and the Middle East.
HTS leader Abu Mohammad al-Jolani said his fighters would not rest “until we reach the heart of Damascus”, in old videos re-released this weekend by social media networks linked to the group.
Russian warplanes bombed rebel positions in an attempt to halt their advance. State news agencies quoted the Russian Defense Ministry as saying that Russian forces killed “at least 300 militants with rocket attacks . . . in command posts, warehouses and artillery positions”.
The Russian military blog Rybar, which is known to be close to the defense ministry, said it understood that Major General Sergei Kisel, the supreme commander of Russian forces in Syria, had been removed from his post.
He was previously removed from command of Russia’s First Tank Army in Ukraine shortly after the start of a full-scale Russian invasion in 2022, after the elite force reportedly suffered heavy defeats in the first weeks of the war.
The Rybar channel also said Russian troops were forced to evacuate the Kuweires airbase in the Aleppo area as the rebels advanced. The Syrian airbase was regularly used by Russian forces.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov discussed the situation in Syria with Hakan Fidan, his Turkish counterpart. Lavrov also spoke to Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi, who is expected to visit Damascus on Sunday and Ankara on Monday, as the main powers involved in Syria began a flurry of diplomacy.
Araghchi on Sunday reaffirmed Iran’s unwavering support for Assad, accusing radical Islamist factions of aligning with US and Israeli interests. “We will witness their defeat,” he said.
Iranian state media reported that opposition forces in Aleppo seized the Iranian consulate on Saturday, toppling and destroying pictures of Iran’s political and military leaders.
The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces, which are backed by the US in the fight against Islamic State and control parts of northeastern Syria, announced a general mobilization on Sunday. They called on people to join in the defense against the rebel offensive, which they say was “orchestrated” by Turkey – their long-time enemy.
Additional reporting by Najmeh Bozorgmehr in Tehran
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