For the past few years, Syria has been at an uneasy juncture, fractured and devastated after more than a decade of civil war, but with the front lines frozen and the worst of the fighting seemingly over.
President Bashar al-Assad’s regime has declared a Pyrrhic victory after a brutal crackdown on an uprising with military support from Russia, Iran and Iranian-backed militants. He regained control over much of the war-torn country, while the remnants of the armed rebellion were pushed back to enclaves in the north and northwest, surviving under Turkish patronage and protection.
But this fragile stalemate was shattered this week when rebels led by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham emerged from their stronghold in Idlib province and launched a lightning raid north against regime forces, rushing into Aleppo, Syria’s second-largest city. By Saturday, they were approaching Hama in the south.
The attack underscored the fragility and vulnerability of President Bashar al-Assad’s devastated regime and its dependence on foreign forces for support 13 years after a massive popular uprising turned into civil conflict.
It also showed the weakness of the Syrian army and the military capabilities of HTS. Its fighters began the offensive on Wednesday and on Friday posed for photos outside the Aleppo citadel in the center of the city of about 2 million people as regime soldiers appeared to melt away.
HTS is the most powerful of the remaining rebel groups, an offshoot of al-Nusra, a jihadist force that emerged in the chaos of the Syrian war as an affiliate of al-Qaeda. It is headed by Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, who once fought on the side of IS in Iraq. Ten years ago, the United States recognized him as a terrorist, and a $10 million bounty was placed on his head.
The group has controlled Idlib, home to 3 to 4 million people, for six years; most of the current population fled to the region to escape the Assad regime.
Jalani renounced his ties to al-Qaeda in 2016 and in recent years has sought to rebrand HTS as a more moderate Islamist movement while consolidating his control over Idlib.
Malik al-Abde, a Syrian analyst, said he had also been building up the group’s military capabilities — it reportedly used drones in an offensive this week — while being clear about its ambitions.
Abdeh said that in October, when Jalani was planning the offensive, HTS communicated with other rebel groups in the north of the country, which are part of the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army, saying it was positioning itself as the “Conqueror of Aleppo”.
According to his estimates, the VTS has up to 30,000 fighters. Its ranks are filled with war veterans and religiously motivated fighters who earn 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.
“Jalani wants to play the role of (former Hezbollah leader) Hassan Nasrallah for Sunnis,” Abde said. “With Jolani, it has less to do with ideology and more to do with power. He wants to do everything possible to come to power in Syria, and he has never hidden the fact that he wants to conquer Damascus.”
The defeat of Hezbollah during its 14-month conflict with Israel may have given Jalani the opportunity to make his move. Along with Russia and Iran, Hezbollah and other Iranian-backed Shiite militias have been vital to Assad’s ability to crush the insurgency.
But after the attack by Hamas on October 7, 2023. Israel has inflicted a series of devastating strikes on Hezbollah in Lebanon, including killing Nasrallah, and has repeatedly struck Iranian and militant targets in Syria, while warning Assad that he must choose a side.
HTS launched its offensive hours after a US-brokered ceasefire aimed at ending 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 improving its level of professionalism.
He added that they have “much better lines of command and control, special drone units, night forces and other types of special forces” and have developed their weapons production capabilities.
Lister said the rebels were only able to advance “for so long 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 Turkish-backed Syrian National Army rebels, but the latter forces are not yet fully deployed on the battlefield.
The SNA is estimated to have about 40,000 fighters, but is made up of disparate groups based in enclaves in northern Syria effectively controlled by Turkey as the Arab state has fragmented into fiefdoms.
Ankara’s main goal in Syria has been to push back from the border region Kurdish militants it sees as an extension of the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), a separatist group waging a decades-long insurgency against the Turkish state. This includes Kurdish forces, which are backed by the US in the fight against IS and control northeastern Syria.
Turkey’s ties to HTS, which it also calls a terrorist organization, are complicated. It acts as Idlib’s main defender against large-scale attacks by regime forces and their Russian backers, while Ankara also controls the border with the province, through which HTS depends on trade and taxes. However, the Islamist group has also previously clashed with Turkish-backed rebels.
While Turkey may not have approved the HTS offensive in advance, it could work to Ankara’s advantage if it tries to use the chaos to push back Kurdish militants, analysts say.
“Turkey is a great defender of Idlib and a very important supporter of Idlib that HTS cannot afford to ignore. But it’s an awkward relationship, there are ups and downs,” said Darin Khalifa of the Crisis Group. “But he does not see this as an Islamist threat. On the contrary, it is a useful interlocutor, useful for keeping (Syrian) refugees across the border and harassing 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 a lot of problems with the way they manage the areas they control, it’s a centralized structure,” Hyde said. “The real test will be the negotiations to see if they mean what they say. . . They say that they want to be political players, that they are ready to get involved. But no one has officially interacted with them to verify whether these claims are true or not.”
Idlib is governed by the civilian “Salvation Government of Syria”, which is controlled by HTS. The UN Commission of Inquiry on Syria said in a September report that it had documented “torture and execution of detainees” held by HTS in the northwest of the country.
Natasha Hall, a senior fellow in the Middle East program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said HTS was “the most powerful, disciplined and financially independent (opposition) group.”
“They have very strong control over various sectors of the economy in Idlib and rule with an iron fist, trying to get rid of any kind of dissent,” she said.
After Assad began turning the tide of the civil war with the support of Russia and Iran, including a siege and bombardment of Aleppo in 2016, many rebels and their supporters either fled to Idlib or were evacuated to the province by the regime as part of local agreements to ceasefire.
Haid said it is difficult to gauge the extent of support for HTS because most of the time Syrians are “choosing between bad and worse.”
“For many people, they may not be happy with HTS in those areas, but they will be happy to stay if that means the alternative is the Assad regime,” he said.
