For the past few years, Syria has been locked in an uncomfortable stalemate, fractured and devastated after more than a decade of civil war, but with frozen front lines and seemingly the worst of the fighting.
President Bashar al-Assad’s regime declared a Pyrrhic victory after brutally crushing a rebellion with military support from Russia, Iran and Iran-backed militants. It regained control over a large part of the war-torn country, while the remnants of the armed rebellion were relegated to enclaves in the north and northwest, surviving under the patronage and protection of Turkey.
But this week, that fragile stalemate was broken when rebels led by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham advanced from their stronghold in Idlib province and launched a lightning offensive across the north against regime forces, storming Aleppo, Syria’s second city. By Saturday, they were approaching Hama, in the south.
The attack underscored the fragility and vulnerability of the ousted regime of President Bashar al-Assad and its dependence on foreign powers to prop it up, 13 years after a mass popular uprising turned into civil conflict.
It also pointed to the weakness of the Syrian army and the military capabilities of HTS. His fighters began their offensive on Wednesday and posed for photographs outside Aleppo’s citadel in the heart of the city of around 2 million people on Friday as regime troops appeared to be melting away.
HTS is the most powerful of the remaining rebel factions, an offshoot of al-Nusra, a jihadist force that emerged in the chaos of the Syrian war as an al-Qaeda affiliate. It is led by Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, who once fought on the side of Isis in Iraq. The US declared him a terrorist ten years ago and a 10 million dollar bounty was placed on his head.
The group controlled Idlib, home to between 3 and 4 million people, for six years; most of the current population fled to the region to escape the Assad regime.
Jolani renounced his ties to al-Qaeda in 2016 and in recent years has sought to change the name of HTS to a more moderate Islamist movement while consolidating the group’s control of Idlib.
He has also been building up the group’s military capabilities — it reportedly used drones in this week’s offensive — while being clear about its ambitions, said Malik al-Abdeh, a Syria analyst.
Abdeh said that in October, while Jolani was planning the offensive, HTS communicated with other rebel factions in the north that are part of the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army, saying it was positioning itself as the “Conqueror of Aleppo.”
He estimated that HTS has up to 30,000 fighters. Its ranks are filled with war veterans and religiously motivated fighters who receive higher salaries than Turkish-backed fighters.
Abdeh added that the Islamist group sees itself as the Syrian Sunni Muslim equivalent of Hezbollah, the Lebanese Shiite movement.
“Jolani wants to play the role of (former Hezbollah leader) Hassan Nasrallah for the Sunnis,” said Abdeh. “With Jolani, it has less to do with ideology and more to do with power. He wants to do whatever it takes to come to power in Syria and has never hidden the fact that he wants to conquer Damascus.”
An attack by Hezbollah during its 14-month conflict with Israel may have presented Jolani with an opportunity to make his move. Along with Russia and Iran, Hezbollah and other Iranian-backed Shiite militants have been key to Assad’s ability to quell the rebellion.
But since Hamas’ attack on October 7, 2023, Israel has dealt a series of devastating blows to Hezbollah in Lebanon, including the assassination of Nasrallah, and has repeatedly struck Iranian and militant targets in Syria, warning Assad that he must choose a side.
HTS launched its offensive hours after a US-brokered ceasefire to end the conflict in Lebanon between Israel and Hezbollah took effect.
Charles Lister of the Middle East Institute said that HTS has spent the last four years intensively training and developing a higher level of professionalism.
He added that they had “much better lines of command and control, dedicated drone units, night forces and other types of special forces”, and that they had developed their weapons production capability.
Lister said the rebels could only advance “so far before they were overwhelmed” but had already managed to push the “lines of control” back to where they were six years ago.
Analysts say HTS is coordinating with rebels in the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army, but the latter’s forces are not yet fully deployed on the battlefields.
The SNA is estimated to have around 40,000 fighters, but is made up of different factions based in enclaves in northern Syria, effectively controlled by Turkey as the Arab state splintered into a host of fiefdoms.
Ankara’s main goal in Syria has been to push Kurdish militants out of the border region, which it sees as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a separatist group that has waged a decades-long insurgency against the Turkish state. These include Kurdish-dominated forces that are backed by the US in the fight against Islamic State and control parts of northeastern Syria.
Turkey’s ties to HTS, which it also designates as a terrorist organization, are complex. It acts as the ultimate protector of Idlib against major attacks by regime forces and their Russian backers, while Ankara also controls the border with the province, through which HTS depends for trade and taxes. However, the Islamist group has also previously clashed with Turkish-backed rebels.
While Turkey may not have backed the HTS offensive in advance, it could work to Ankara’s advantage if it seeks to use the chaos to push back Kurdish militants, analysts say.
“Turkey is a great protector of Idlib and a very important supporter of Idlib that HTS cannot ignore. But it’s an uneasy relationship, there are ups and downs,” said Dareen Khalifa of the Crisis Group. “But he does not see it as an Islamist threat. On the contrary, this is a useful interlocutor, useful in keeping (Syrian) refugees on the other side of the border and going to jihadist groups.”
Haid Haid, a Syria analyst at Chatham House, said it was still unclear whether the group’s rebranding from its jihadist roots was genuine.
“If you look at their discourse, they are trying to show that they have changed their ways. But there are many issues related to the way they manage the areas they control, it’s a centralized structure,” Haid said. “The real test will be when there are negotiations to see if they mean what they say. . . They say that they want to be political players, that they are ready to engage. But no one has officially contacted them to verify whether these claims are true or not.”
Idlib is governed by the civilian-led “Syrian Salvation Government”, under the control of HTS. The UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria said in a September report that it had documented “torture and execution of prisoners” held by HTS in the northwest of the country.
Natasha Hall, senior fellow in the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said HTS is “by far the most powerful, disciplined and financially independent (opposition) group.”
“They have very tight control over various economic sectors within Idlib and have ruled with a rather iron fist – trying to get rid of any kind of dissent,” she said.
After Assad, backed by Russia and Iran, began to turn the tide of the civil war, including besieging and bombing Aleppo in 2016, many rebels and their supporters fled to Idlib or were evacuated by the regime to the province as part of local ceasefire agreements.
Haid said it is difficult to gauge the extent of HTS support because most of the time Syrians are “choosing between bad and worse”.
“A lot of people may not be happy with HTS in those areas, but somehow they will be happy with them staying if it means the alternative is the Assad regime,” he said.
