Editor’s note: Governorates in Syria and their capital cities bear the same name. Aleppo, Idlib, Hama, Homs, Daraa, and Deir ez-Zor refer both to specific cities and the surrounding countryside.
A coalition of armed opposition groups in Syria accomplished the unthinkable in late November 2024 with a synchronized lightning offensive that captured more than 100 towns and villages, tripling the amount of territory under rebel control in less than two weeks.
This achievement was soon overshadowed by their rapid seizure of Aleppo–a major city where the opposition once spent years fighting a protracted siege until their defeat in 2016–and later Hama, both unprecedented victories for the rebels. The Assad regime’s hold on Northwest Syria has collapsed and the rest of their territory is becoming increasingly unstable, with more rebellions breaking out across the country.
“Aleppo is the gate to Damascus”
November 27 saw the beginning of Operation Deterrence of Aggression, a multi-pronged assault by a diverse array of rebel groups acting under the unified command of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), who spent years consolidating political and military control in preparation for this offensive. They claimed the offensive was a response to increasingly frequent artillery shelling and drone attacks targeting civilians, both of which have spiked in recent months. This however is contradicted by past statements by HTS’s leader, the controversial Islamist warlord Abu Mohammed al-Jolani, announcing his intention to capture Aleppo.
“Aleppo is the gate to Damascus and it will be under focus for one or two years,” al-Jolani reportedly said on May 27, 2023 at a conference addressing the issue of internally-displaced people living in territory controlled by HTS.
The Syrian Arab Army (SAA), Iranian-backed militias, and Russian military forces were quickly overwhelmed by simultaneous attacks conducted with unprecedented coordination. Casualties included an Iranian Brigadier General from the Islamic Revolutionary Guard (IRGC) serving as a military advisor to the SAA and at least one Russian special forces soldier–the latter’s corpse was photographed next to captured weapons and equipment before the images were posted online.
By November 28 the HTS-led rebel alliance were close enough to Aleppo that the city could be seen from the frontline for the first time in more than five years while multiple bases abandoned by the regime became a source of new arms and vehicles for the advancing opposition groups. Journalists, researchers, and other longtime observers of the war in Syria were stunned when the offensive continued until the armed opposition groups were not only in the city but had even entered neighborhoods they had never reached during the 2012 to 2016 fighting. Areas where meters were contested for years in one of Syria’s bloodiest battles–among the longest and most destructive sieges in the history of modern warfare, often compared to Stalingrad–fell within hours with little to no resistance on November 29, 2024.
A major symbolic victory for the rebels was their arrival at Aleppo University–a hotbed of pro-revolution protests from 2011 and 2012 despite being located in a largely pro-regime part of the city, the scene of massacres and other acts of violence by regime supporters. The revolutionary tri-color, three-star flag was raised on campus for the first time in more than a decade once under the control by the Syrian opposition for the first time, ever.
Another significant moment during the takeover of Aleppo was when the rebels followed through on their longstanding promise to empty the prisons, where a majority of the men, women, and even children detained there were jailed and tortured for political reasons. They include people who participated in anti-regime protests, those who dared to criticize Bashar al-Assad for his mismanagement of Syria, and recently-returned refugees who were arrested upon arrival. Droves of jubilant prisoners were filmed pouring out of overcrowded cells to hug their rescuers and running from the prisons as fast as they could in videos soon shared across social media by pro-Syrian Revolution accounts.
The liberation of Aleppo and those imprisoned there by the Assad regime coincided with the capture of multiple military bases, including one used by the SAA 46th regiment–a unit responsible for many of the incessant artillery and suicide drone attacks targeting civilians in opposition-held territory since late 2023. Looting these former regime arsenals was both a major strategic gain for the armed opposition as well as poetic justice for the innocent people targeted by the long-range weaponry housed there.
November 29 also saw the beginning of a smaller rebel offensive in southern Syria, mostly hit-and-run attacks in Daraa and As-Suwayda by local insurgents inspired by the rebels’ success in the northwest. Multiple protests also broke out across the region as revolution supporters, intimidated into silence for years by a once seemingly-victorious Assad, took to the streets and once again denounced the regime.
Multiple attacks against SAA soldiers and allied militias were reported in towns and villages across the country, including Talbiseh in the Homs countryside. This area saw major protests during the 2011 uprising as well as some of the earliest instances of siege warfare and collective punishment by the regime. It is unclear at the time of this writing if the attackers were locals seizing an opportunity for revenge or HTS sleeper cells acting in coordination with the larger offensive.
The Assad regime’s disorganized attempts to mount a defense of Aleppo proved impotent as their soldiers and thousands of civilians fled the city while Russian jets bombed civilian areas in Idlib and the north Aleppo countryside instead of providing air support to contested areas.
November 30 saw HTS and other rebels capture the local government headquarters and the Aleppo Citadel–a medieval castle in the middle of Aleppo that served as a pro-regime fortress during the siege–solidifying their dominance over Syria’s largest city for the first time ever. Dozens of fighters on both sides were reported killed, a far cry from the nearly 10,000 combatant deaths from 2012 to 2016. Only a few neighborhoods remained under the control of the regime, Iranian-backed militias, and the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF)–an alliance of Kurdish militant groups linked to the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK) and majority-Arab rebel groups alienated from the armed opposition after Islamists became the dominant faction.
Syrian military forces and Iranian-backed militias withdrew from the city later that day and the SDF seized their remaining territory, including the Aleppo International Airport, before armed opposition groups could take them. The airport was later handed over to the rebels peacefully after negotiations between HTS and the SDF.
Deir ez-Zor, on the opposite side of the country, also saw an uptick in fighting when the governorate’s multifaceted conflict between the Assad regime, ISIS insurgents, and the SDF over control of territory and oil fields was shaken up by the new rebel offensive. ISIS was defeated as a territorial entity in 2019–making their last stand in a small town on the border of Deir ez-Zor and Iraq’s Anbar province–but a small number of survivors escaped into the Badiya, Syria’s sparsely-populated desert. This desolate region proved to be the perfect hideout for the extremists to regroup over the years and wage an insurgent campaign to avenge their destroyed so-called caliphate.
Attacks by ISIS against both pro-regime forces and the SDF steadily increased in 2024, especially as the latter two have increasingly clashed due to the US and Iran’s proxy war across the Middle East. The US-led international coalition–created originally for the war against ISIS–responded with increasing airstrikes targeting both ISIS cells and sometimes Iranian-backed militias after they attacked SDF bases housing US troops.
The sudden withdrawal of Russian military advisors assisting the Assad regime’s sweep of the desert for ISIS cells on November 30 after the fall of Aleppo dramatically changed the balance of power in Deir ez-Zor, sparking a chaotic free-for-all. The US-led coalition reportedly targeted a pocket of SAA-held territory on the eastern side of the Euphrates River before they were seized by SDF fighters. The offensive was reportedly spearheaded by the Deir ez-Zor Military Council (DMC), an Arab-majority militia made up of local fighters recruited into the SDF–it remains unclear if this was an SDF-approved initiative or an unauthorized show of solidarity with the rebels in Aleppo.
November 30 also saw the beginning of a Syrian National Army (SNA) offensive in the north Aleppo countryside aiming to seize the strategically-located city Tell Rifaat from the SDF, capturing several towns and villages while cutting off the city from reinforcements in Manbij. Meanwhile HTS and the SNA also captured territory in the north Hama countryside while launching probing incursions into the city of the same name, but this was soon halted by a regime counteroffensive launched the following day.
Abu Mohammed al-Jolani arrived in Aleppo around this time to personally oversee the city’s occupation and offer the SDF a magnanimous ultimatum–safe passage to Manbij in exchange for their full withdrawal. He also issued statements to local residents promising that his fighters will not harm civilians, loot their homes, “frighten [their] children, cut down trees, or instil fear in [non-Muslims].” The latter point was crucial given the city’s sizable Christian population, the largest such community in Syria–it was widely feared that Christians would be persecuted or massacred by the rebels given the latter’s predominantly Islamist outlook.
Al-Jolani also declared that Kurds are part of Syrian society and have the same rights as other citizens, emphasizing that their current targets were pro-Assad forces and Iranian-backed militias. This was in response to fears of imminent ethnic cleansing amid the SDF’s ongoing withdrawal from Aleppo, which the SNA have perpetrated elsewhere in Syria multiple times in recent years.
The celebratory mood among supporters of the Syrian Revolution in Aleppo was interrupted by SAA rocket attacks and Russian airstrikes that killed at least 22 civilians and a similar number of fighters. Attacks on civilians in Idlib and the Aleppo countryside increased as the Assad regime attempted to reconstitute its defenses and prepare for an eventual counteroffensive.
But this initiative will be more difficult than ever due to the armed opposition capturing a large amount of shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles and a Pantsir air defense system–as well as several tanks and other armored vehicles. These weapons could potentially negate the regime’s longtime advantage as a nation-state with an air force fighting non-state actors without any aircraft.
The HTS-led coalition also captured a regime helicopter during Operation Deterrence of Aggression, providing a morale-boosting video of Syrian rebels flying a manned aircraft for the first time since the beginning of the war.
Drones and Discipline
This shocking turnaround was possible due to organizational and technological advancements among the rebels as well as the Assad’s regime’s weakened position due to its key allies getting bogged down in other wars elsewhere.
Armed opposition groups in Syria suffered a series of disastrous defeats between 2017 to 2020, mostly due to Iranian-backed militias–most especially the Lebanese militant group Hezbollah–as well as Russian air and artillery forces performing the bulk of the SAA’s job for them. The regime’s conventional military units were always their weakest asset, mainly used for guarding checkpoints and more likely to loot abandoned buildings than engage in combat. Afghan and Pakistani militiamen recruited by Iran provided convenient cannon fodder while Hezbollah, Iraqi militias, Russian special forces, and Wagner Group mercenaries landed decisive blows.
HTS initiated a years-long project to address the disunity that had long plagued the armed opposition after barely surviving an onslaught by pro-regime forces in 2020, who only backed off after Turkey intervened militarily to halt their advance into Northwest Syria. This entailed opening “a professionally staffed military academy run by defectors from the Syrian military,” to train commanders, as Charles Lister notes in an article for The Spectator–as well as restructuring their militias into a structured army and creating so-called “special forces” units for deep reconnaissance, sabotage, and night-time operations behind enemy lines. They also seized every opportunity to earn the hearts and minds of civilians while gradually neutralizing or co-opting every armed opposition group capable of challenging their power.
It must be acknowledged that HTS is designated as a terrorist organization by multiple countries– including the United States, the European Union, and even Turkey, despite their well-documented cooperation. This is due to the group’s history as an al-Qaeda affiliate and relationship with similar groups such as the Turkestan Islamic Party (TIP), who maintain a small presence in HTS territory. Several founders of HTS, including al-Jolani and the late Iraqi militant Abu Maria al-Qahtani, are known to have joined al-Qaeda and fought in the Iraq War against a different US-led coalition occupying the country in the years prior to the Syrian Revolution.
The Iraqi branch of al-Qaeda, then known as the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI), was tasked by Ayman al-Zawahiri with infiltrating the Syrian opposition in 2011 to create an al-Qaeda affiliate within the country. Waging war against the Assad regime to avenge the massacre of Hama’s Sunni Muslim population in 1982 was a long-held ambition of al-Qaeda, particularly among Syrian Islamists who fled the country to escape the regime’s purges and later joined the group. ISI was uniquely positioned to create this sister organization due to their geographic proximity–Iraq and Syria share a border–and the large number of Syrians among their fighters, including al-Jolani.
Jabhat al-Nusra or the al-Nusra Front announced its formation in January 2012, shortly after the first two suicide bombings in Damascus that are now widely suspected to have been the work of the al-Qaeda affiliate. The group quickly emerged as one of the strongest armed opposition factions, whose ranks included commanders with combat experience in Iraq as well as expert bomb makers trained by al-Qaeda in Afghanistan and other countries. The Free Syrian Army (FSA) and other armed opposition groups found themselves reliant on Jabhat al-Nusra’s unique capabilities to counter the regime’s armor, artillery, and air support advantages.
2013 saw Jabhat al-Nusra and other Islamist armed groups take up a dominant position within the armed opposition, eventually moving to intimidate or eliminate the secular nationalist rebel brigades who originally fought the Assad regime. This was exacerbated when ISI’s leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi publicly revealed Jabhat al-Nusra’s origins and declared his intentions for a merger between the two, creating the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria (ISIS). But al-Jolani and other Jabhat al-Nusra leaders vehemently rejected al-Baghdadi’s initiative, beginning a war between competing Salafi jihadist factions that continues to this day.
Abu Mohammed al-Jolani portrayed himself as an al-Qaeda loyalist from 2013 to 2017 while at war with ISIS, the Assad regime, and any FSA or other armed opposition group that challenged his authority. Jabhat al-Nusra also committed a series of massacres during targeting Alawis, Druze, and other civilians accused of supporting the regime, among other war crimes, over this same span of years. Their role in Syria gradually evolved from being the local al-Qaeda branch to an independent Islamist organization with nationalist leanings at the urging of Abu Maria al-Qahtani, who argued that transnational jihad was a failed concept.
Al-Qahtani eventually convinced al-Jolani to abandon al-Qaeda in 2016, rebranding his group as Jabhat Fatah al-Sham in the process–they later merged with other Syrian Islamist armed groups who had sided with them against ISIS years earlier to form Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) in 2017. This evolution from transnational jihadism to Islamist nationalism sparked a conflict between HTS and al-Qaeda loyalists who formed Hurras al-Din group in 2018 and waged a short, unsuccessful war against al-Jolani and his followers.
Abu Mohammed al-Jolani is listed a Specially Designated Global Terrorist by the US State Department with a $10 million bounty on his head due to his past association with al-Qaeda and for suicide bombings conducted by Jabhat al-Nusra. HTS has been on the State Department’s Foreign Terrorist Organizations (FTO) list since May 2018 based on accusations that the group remains a front for al-Qaeda. Small al-Qaeda-aligned groups such as the Turkestan Islamic Party still have a presence within the HTS fold, although any sign of dissent against al-Jolani is swiftly crushed.
Journalists and other researchers were surprised when the normally despotic al-Jolani began introducing relatively liberal reforms to the Islamist system that governed his territory in Idlib and the Aleppo countryside during the early 2020s. Prohibitions against music and smoking, as well as requiring women to wear the hijab in public, were lifted in urban areas after years of unsuccessfully attempting to impose rural conservatism on a cosmopolitan population. This was soon followed by the re-opening of churches across Idlib and rural Aleppo, allowing Christians to openly celebrate holidays such as Christmas for the first time in years. HTS overtures to minority communities also included not only Christians but also the Druze, an unusual move for an Islamist group–many view these reforms with suspicion due to HTS’s history of persecuting both sects.
Abu Mohammed al-Jolani has spent years transforming his public persona from that of an enigmatic jihadist to a quasi-statesman often seen in public announcing plans to relax unpopular restrictions and address socioeconomic concerns. He has also prioritized intervening in every position where he could position himself as a savior of some sort, from visiting towns devastated by the February 2023 earthquake–including some that were outside of his territorial control–to bringing a large contingent of fighters to Jinderes after four Kurds were murdered for celebrating Newroz.
This new approach to dealing with non-Muslims could be seen throughout HTS’s 2024 offensive when al-Jolani issued multiple statements reiterating that Christians and Druze are an integral part of Syria, similar to his proclamations of tolerance for the country’s Kurdish population.
Operation Deterrence of Aggression and the capture of Aleppo were the result of Abu Mohammad al-Jolani finally laying his cards on the table, at last revealing what his institutional changes and strategic shifts are really about. He consolidated power with the armed opposition while restoring certain freedoms to civilians that HTS once suppressed in order to centralize command within the factions while winning the hearts and minds of Syria’s diverse communities.
Among the most important developments HTS has undertaken is their adoption of small, easy-to-assemble drones for intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance as well as kinetic air support. Drone warfare has advanced by leaps and bounds in the 2020s, in large part due to their use by Ukraine and Russia during the latter’s invasion of the former. Small quadcopters have proven to be just as important as airplane-sized unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs), if not even more so due to their versatile nature and widespread availability. Small drones giving combatants a bird’s eye view eventually led to someone getting the idea to attach a bomb to a fast-moving, easy-to-maneuver UAV that flies into its target like a kamikaze before exploding.
The Assad regime learned how to make these suicide drones from Russia and used them frequently over the last twelve months, almost exclusively targeting civilians in opposition-held territory, but HTS spent the same span of time building their own stockpile of drones.
A conflict analyst known pseudonymously as Calibre Obscura, quoting local news sources, noted the extensive use of drones by the rebels for “expansive command and control,” and “continuous monitoring of frontlines.” This means a commander can observe and give orders in real time as opposed to finding out if a position has been taken or lost only after the fact, enabling the faster and more effective deployment of fighters. Calibre Obscura also pointed out how the rebels “[used] small kamikaze drones extremely intensely, [even] blunting two 25th Division counter attacks,” as well as grenades dropped from drones. Homemade indirect fire artillery, including rockets and mortar shells, also played a key role in punching through the regime’s defensive lines.
Drones flown by the rebels also reportedly dropped leaflets encouraging military personnel and other pro-regime forces to switch sides or flee for their lives while they still have time.
HTS also shocked both their opponents and neutral observers by debuting locally-made long-range missiles, alternatively called Zawam or Qaysar munitions in conflicting reports, that have since replaced the suicide truck bombs they used five years ago. SAA soldiers and other pro-Assad militias were both tactically and psychologically unprepared for this new weapon, unaware of its existence until it started bombing them.
Calibre Obscura summarizes HTS’s new battle doctrine as “genuine professionalism,” with “all groups unified in terms of command structure, not following their own goals… [but] Ukraine-style heavily networked command centers.” This is reflected by the discipline shown by HTS and other armed opposition groups who entered Aleppo on and after November 29. Predictions of chaos, looting, and the massacre of non-Muslims have yet to come true, despite the rebels having ample opportunity to do so.
One exception to the overall trend of strict discipline among the rebels was the execution of multiple surrendered SAA soldiers by an unidentified perpetrator shooting them with his Kalashnikov rifle, a crime filmed in a graphic video posted to social media. It is unclear at the time of this writing if the shooter was a member of HTS or the far less disciplined SNA, who have a history of filming extrajudicial executions.
Another example, this one far less egregious, was the toppling of a Christmas tree in a public square by an Islamist fighter acting out of sectarian animus, but this was rectified almost immediately by other fighters who put the tree back up. There are also anecdotal reports of HTS intervening to protect civilians when SNA militias broke into their homes to loot their property, in some cases even arresting certain commanders.
What sets HTS apart from most factions in Syria is their immediate emphasis on civil administration, working to restore electricity and running water to the civilian population in an effort to earn legitimacy. This stands in sharp contrast not only with other armed opposition groups but especially compared to the Assad regime, who have long ignored deteriorating infrastructure as well as worsening shortages of food and medicine. HTS’s success on the military and political fronts provide the clearest evidence yet of the regime’s systemic failings and rampant corruption.
The Right Time to Strike
HTS and Abu Mohammed al-Jolani face their greatest victory and hardest challenge simultaneously–holding on to the territory they’ve taken while keeping it habitable for local residents. This is complicated by indiscriminate bombing by the Assad regime and Russia taking place across opposition-held territory.
Meanwhile the SNA units involved in the push to take Tell Refaat have been accused of committing war crimes, from the filmed beating of civilians detained in a hospital to alleged field executions.
It must be noted these crimes have been happening in areas outside of HTS’s control, where al-Jolani made it clear that only individuals affiliated with the SDF will be required to leave for Manbij. The SNA’s zealous focus on retaking territory from the SDF has been a source of tension with HTS, who conversely have shown a preference for fighting the Assad regime, for now. This difference in priorities comes down to the SNA ultimately serving Turkish national interests over those of Syrians and the Syrian Revolution. Even a hardliner like al-Jolani is willing to seek an armistice with the SDF, evidenced by diplomatic talks between the two factions that started in 2023.
HTS undoubtedly picked the best time to strike back at the Assad regime, when Russia was committing a majority of its military might to a stalemated major war in Ukraine and Iran was busy helping Hezbollah fight for its survival against a well-planned Israeli assault on Lebanon. Assad’s most important allies were too busy elsewhere to support him the way they had for more than a decade, opening the door in Syria to drastically new possibilities. This was also the perfect time to prevent or at least delay a long-feared renewed offensive against opposition-held Northwest Syria, a repeat of the mass-displacement and destruction seen in 2019 and 2020.
It cannot be a coincidence that Operation Deterrence of Aggression began the same day that Israel and Hezbollah agreed to a ceasefire in Lebanon. Beginning too early risked appearing side with the Israelis while waiting too late would have given Hezbollah a chance to reconstitute their presence in Syria.
One tragically ironic development is that a majority of Christians killed in Aleppo since the rebel takeover have perished in Russian airstrikes instead of at the hands of Islamist extremists. The Assad regime needs members of minority communities to be killed in order to rally them around the regime, their traditional protector. The rebels have largely refused to provide this, so the Russians decided to do so by bombing Christian-majority neighborhoods day after day while circulating hysterical propaganda about terrorists persecuting Syrian Christians. These airstrikes targeting Christian areas in Aleppo are as heinous as they are duplicitous, serving both as false flag attacks for propaganda and collective punishment for supporting the Syrian Revolution.
One remaining unknown about the capture of Aleppo is whether or not the SDF will withdraw from the city. There are conflicting reports at the time of this writing regarding whether they intend to leave entirely or if they are planning to leave insurgent cells behind to harass the rebels. The gradual SDF withdrawal from the city has coincided with sniper fire from SDF-held neighborhoods, raising tensions among the residents of a city now consumed by anxiety and uncertainty.
Only time will tell whether diplomacy between HTS and the SDF can end their conflict over Aleppo or not.
A week of intensified fighting plus other preceding skirmishes throughout November 2024 made it the deadliest month Syria has seen since 2020 with 746 people confirmed killed, including 176 civilians. This turned out to only be the beginning though when HTS once surprised the world by pushing south toward Hama, the same city where Hafez al-Assad massacred between 10,000 and 40,000 people to put down a rebellion led by a Muslim Brotherhood offshoot. Hama saw large protests in 2011 but the rebels never managed to capture the city–HTS laid new ground for the armed opposition with multiple raids into Hama during the first week of December 2024.
The outskirts were seized first, just as they were in Aleppo, battering pro-regime forces before even attempting to storm the city. Reinforcements from the SNA arrived just in time to assist HTS in entering multiple neighborhoods in different corners of the city to overwhelm the regime’s defenses. One night of street-to-street fighting was enough to convince the SAA and allied militias to abandon Hama, retreating before the rebels could surround and annihilate them.
The opposition followed up on their second unprecedented victory–taking another city they had never manage to capture, before–by once again seizing prisons and freeing hundreds of inmates, a majority of whom were almost certainly political prisoners subjected to severe torture over a period of years. A statue of Hafez al-Assad was later pulled down while a crowd of Hama residents, which almost certainly included survivors of the 1982 genocidal massacre and their descendants, cheered as the statue hit the ground and Hafez’s head snapped off.
Incorporating Aleppo and Hama, two major cities plus the surrounding countryside, means nearly thirty percent of Syria’s population now lives in territory controlled by HTS and Abu Mohammed al-Jolani. This comes after HTS oversaw a population of three million people in Idlib and the Aleppo countryside, two-thirds of whom had been displaced from elsewhere in Syria and fled to the northwest to escape from the regime. Revolution supporters who spent years living in an overcrowded rebel enclave now have the opportunity to either return home or at least find new opportunities for housing in two major cities.
HTS and allied armed opposition groups are now, at the time of this writing, advancing on Homs–the third largest city in the country, once nicknamed the “capital of the [Syrian] Revolution.” The city was subjected to a brutal siege from 2011 to 2014, a testing ground for virtually every atrocity the Assad regime would repeat all across Syria over the following decade. Thousands of civilians have fled the city while the rebels are seizing towns and villages on the outskirts, including the former pro-revolution stronghold Rastan.
Operation Deterrence of Aggression has seen the HTS-led coalition consistently move south from Aleppo to Hama to Homs–the next and final step after that is to proceed straight down to Damascus, the capital city. A rebel victory in Homs will likely prove fatal to the already shattered Assad regime and there are already rumors that they have begun to withdraw from the city.
Abu Mohammad al-Jolani continued to make history with an unprecedented statement calling for tolerance of Alawis, proclaiming them to be an integral part of Syria–similar to his recent statements about Christians, Druze, and Kurds–while imploring them abandon a regime that rules through divide-and-conquer sectarianism. This was a first for an armed opposition group in Syria, publicly acknowledging Alawis as fellow citizens and describing them as having been hijacked by the Assad family.
This public move away from sectarianism has proven to be a strategic gamechanger for HTS, enabling them to negotiate and avoid unnecessary bloodshed in areas populated by minority communities such as the Ismaili-majority city Salamiyah.
The Assad regime’s hold on Syria is collapsing not by the day but by the hour–there will be more towns and cities seized between the writing and editing of this article. This can currently be seen in Deir ez-Zor, where the ongoing SDF offensive has expanded to crossing the Euphrates River and engaging pro-Assad forces with the help of American air support. Apparently the SDF convinced the US-led coalition to back them against the regime, something that has rarely ever happened since the alliance was established in 2015, in order to prevent ISIS from seizing the territory the regime is abandoning.
The Assad regime is reportedly withdrawing from the city of Deir ez-Zor and surrounding towns at the time of this writing on December 6, 2024 to reinforce the defense of Damascus and Homs while the SDF are advancing into the abandoned city and towns for the first time, ever. Regime officials from Homs to Daraa are also reportedly fleeing in droves towards Damascus while protests and insurgent attacks in the south are escalating.
The Assad regime is experiencing an unambiguous collapse–the only question that remains is whether this will end up being a partial or total collapse.
Abu Mohammad al-Jolani granted an interview to CNN journalist Jomana Karadsheh on December 5 to explain his motivations and make his case to a Western audience. He credited the recent victories to “a unification of internal opinions and establishment of institutional structures within the liberated areas of Syria.”
“This institutionalization included the restructuring within military factions. They entered unified training camps and developed a sense of discipline. This discipline allowed them, with God’s guidance, to engage in battle in an organized manner. The progress and execution of plans have been swift, with clear communication and adherence to commands. They stop where they should stop and withdraw where they should withdraw. The [Syrian] Revolution has transitioned from chaos and randomness to a state of order, both in civil and institutional matters and in military operations alike.”
Karadsheh then brought up the concerns many Syrians, especially those from minority communities, have about HTS rule, to which al-Jolani replied, “No one has the right to erase another group. These sects have coexisted in this region for hundreds of years and no one has the right to eliminate them. There must be a legal framework that protects and ensures the rights of all, not a system that serves only one sect as Assad’s regime has done.”
“People listening to this are going to wonder why they should believe you,” Karadsheh said next. “You are still a Specially Designated Global Terrorist by the United States with a $10 million bounty on your head. Your group is a proscribed terrorist organization by the United States, by the UN, by the EU, and others.”
“I say to people, ‘Don’t judge by words, but by actions,’” al-Jolani responded. “I believe the reality speaks for itself. These classifications are primarily political and, at the same time, wrong. I define a terrorist as someone who intentionally kills civilians, harms innocents, or displaces people. If we’re being honest, many of the wars waged by major powers in Arab, Muslim, and even non-Muslim countries have involved the deliberate killing of thousands, the destruction of homes, and the displacement of millions. Even the [Assad] regime itself is guilty of such actions.”
“But the US and others would say that you were part of groups that did exactly that,” Karadsheh pointed out.
The normally poised al-Jolani shifted around in his chair, blinked rapidly, and gave a forced smile as he replied, “Personally, I have not done those things.”
He then spoke about how the US invasion of Iraq, “deeply stirred people’s emotions, prompting many to go there [and join insurgent groups fighting the US]. The circumstances of that war led people to various places, and my path led me to one of those locations. Given my level of awareness and my young age at the time, my actions evolved to where I am today. I didn’t go to Iraq with [the intention to kill innocent people], I went to defend the Iraqi people. When I returned to Syria, I didn’t want to bring what happened in Iraq into Syria. That’s why there were disagreements between us and ISIS.”
“People [will] be wondering why you agreed to speak with us?” Karadsheh then asked.
“What is happening in Syria is significant for the entire world,” al-Jolani answered. “This event has positive repercussions globally because, under the [Assad] regime’s rule, Syria became a source of concern and trouble for everyone. Stabilizing Syria will bring many people back. Today, in the liberated areas, about one third of the population lives in [internally displaced persons] camps, approximately one and a half million people. I believe we can soon reach a point where there are no camps.”
“With the rehabilitation of the liberated areas, people will return to their homes. Many [Syrian] refugees in Turkey will likely return, as will a significant number of refugees in Lebanon and Jordan. Even refugees in Europe may return to rebuild their country.”
Image credit: Muhammad Haj Kadour, AFP
