Bowen: Syria's rebel offensive is astonishing - but don't write off Assad

The reignited warfare successful Syria is the latest fallout from the turmoil that has gripped the Middle East since the Hamas attacks connected Israel connected 7 October past year.

The attacks, and Israel’s response, upended the presumption quo. Events successful Syria successful the past fewer days are much impervious that the warfare gripping the Middle East is escalating, not subsiding.

During a decennary of warfare aft 2011, Bashar al-Assad’s regularisation survived due to the fact that helium was prepared to interruption Syria to prevention the authorities helium had inherited from his father.

To bash that helium relied connected almighty allies, Russia, Iran and Lebanese Hezbollah. They intervened connected his broadside against rebel groups that ranged from the jihadist extremists of Islamic State to militias supported by the US and the affluent Gulf monarchies.

Now Iran is reeling from terrible blows inflicted by Israel, with US support, connected its information successful the Middle East. Its state Hezbollah, which utilized to nonstop its champion men to combat for the Assad authorities successful Syria, has been crippled by Israel’s attacks. Russia has launched aerial strikes successful the past fewer days against the rebel violative successful Syria – but its subject powerfulness is astir wholly earmarked to combat the warfare successful Ukraine.

The warfare successful Syria did not end. It dropped retired of the spot it utilized to inhabit successful header news, partially due to the fact that of turbulence crossed the Middle East and beyond, and due to the fact that it is astir intolerable for journalists to get into the country.

In places the warfare was suspended, oregon frozen, but Syria is afloat of unfinished business.

The Assad authorities has ne'er regained the powerfulness it had utilized to power Syria earlier 2011, the twelvemonth of the Arab uprisings, though it inactive kept a gulag of Syrian prisoners successful its jails.

Even so, until the past fewer days, the authorities of President Bashar al-Assad controlled the large cities, their surrounding countryside and the main highways connecting them.

Now a conjugation of rebel groups, led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), has breached retired of Idlib, the state on the borderline with Turkey that it controls, and successful lone a fewer days since 27 November swept distant Syrian troops successful a bid of "astonishing" events, arsenic 1 elder planetary diplomat told me.

Two days into the offensive, they were posting photos of fighters who had taken the past citadel of Aleppo, which had been an impregnable basal for authorities troops betwixt 2012 and 2015, erstwhile the metropolis was divided betwixt rebels and authorities forces.

The ambiance successful Aleppo seems calm aft the rout of authorities troops. One photograph connected societal media showed uniformed and equipped rebel fighters queuing for fried chickenhearted astatine a fast-food outlet.

HTS has roots successful al-Qaeda, though it broke with the radical successful 2016 and astatine times has fought its rump loyalists. But HTS is inactive designated arsenic a violent radical by the UN Security Council and countries including the US, the European Union, Turkey and the UK. (The Syrian authorities calls each its opponents terrorists.)

The person of HTS, Abu Mohammad al-Jawlani, has a agelong past arsenic a jihadist person successful Iraq and Syria. In caller years, though, helium has moved distant from strict jihadist ideology to effort to broaden the entreaty of his group.

The rebranding is besides being utilized to pull enactment for the offensive, which HTS calls Operation Repelling the Aggression. That name, and its authoritative announcements, debar jihadist connection and Islamist references.

Neutral language, according to Mina al-Lami, the jihadist media specializer astatine BBC Monitoring, is designed to region what’s happening from the jihadist past of HTS and contiguous the violative arsenic a associated rebel endeavor against the regime.

Syrians are mostly repelled by utmost spiritual rhetoric. As jihadist groups came to predominate the rebellion aft pro-democracy demonstrations were crushed aft the archetypal twelvemonth oregon truthful of warfare aft 2011, galore Syrians either stayed neutral oregon sided reluctantly with the authorities due to the fact that they feared the murderous jihadist ideology of Islamic State.

The violative led by HTS comes retired of the splintered governmental scenery of bluish Syria. Much of the north-east is controlled by the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a radical led by Kurds and supported by the United States, which stations astir 900 troops successful the area.

Turkey is simply a large player, controlling borderlands wherever it has deployed its ain regular troops arsenic good arsenic the militias it sponsors. Sleeper cells drawn from the remnants of Islamic State sometimes equine deadly ambushes connected roads done the Syrian desert.

Reports from Syria accidental that the rebel forces person captured important supplies of subject equipment, including helicopters, and are pressing connected towards Hama, the adjacent important metropolis connected the roadworthy to Damascus.

Without a uncertainty the authorities and its allies volition beryllium moving to dependable themselves and to deed back, particularly with aerial power. The rebels bash not person an aerial force, though successful different motion of the mode that unmanned aerial vehicles are revolutionising warfare, determination are reports that they utilized a drone to termination a elder authorities quality official.

The renewed warring successful Syria is causing planetary alarm. The UN envoy to Syria, Geir Pedersen, issued a connection saying that "the latest developments airs terrible risks to civilians and person superior implications for determination and planetary security… No Syrian enactment oregon existing radical of actors tin resoluteness the Syrian struggle via subject means".

Pedersen added that determination had been "a corporate nonaccomplishment to bring astir a genuine governmental process" to instrumentality UN Security Council solution 2254, which was passed successful 2015. That laid retired a roadmap for peace, with the rule successful the substance that “the Syrian radical volition determine the aboriginal of Syria”.

The nonsubjective was a aboriginal shaped by escaped elections and a caller constitution. But that meant Assad and his household giving up a state that they treated for years arsenic their idiosyncratic fief. More than fractional a cardinal dormant attest to their determination not to fto that happen.

It is excessively soon to constitute the Assad authorities off. It has a halfway of genuine support. Some Syrians spot it arsenic the slightest atrocious enactment – amended than the jihadists who came to predominate the rebellion. But if different anti-Assad groups – and determination are galore – emergence up, his authorities volition erstwhile again beryllium successful mortal danger.