Syrian opposition fighters drive a seized seized Syrian army armoured vehicle near the town of Khan Assubul, Syria, southwest of Aleppo, Sunday, Dec. 1, 2024. Syrian opposition insurgency launched a campaign on Wednesday with a two-pronged attack on Aleppo and the countryside around Idlib.
| Photo Credit: AP

Iranian-backed Iraqi militias have deployed in Syria to back the government’s counteroffensive against a surprise advance by insurgents who seized the largest city of Aleppo last week, a militia official and a war monitor said on Monday (December 2, 2024).

Insurgents led by jihadi group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham launched a two-pronged attack on Aleppo and moved into the countryside around Idlib and neighboring Hama province. The push is among the rebels’ strongest in years and raised the prospect of another violent front reopening in the Middle East, at a time when U.S.-backed Israel is fighting Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, both Iranian-allied groups.

It also risks drawing Russia and Turkey — each with its own interests to protect in Syria — into direct confrontation.

Government attempting to stall insurgents in Hama

Government troops built a fortified defensive line in northern Hama in an attempt to stall the insurgents’ momentum while jets on Sunday (December 1, 2024) pounded rebel-held lines. On Monday, Syria’s military said that their airstrikes alongside Russia’s killed 400 insurgents over the past 24 hours. It said that government forces were mobilizing to encircle the rebels in the Aleppo, Hama, and Idlib countrysides.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian in a phone call with Assad on Monday said Tehran was willing to provide all the support needed to push back the insurgency. He echoed comments from Iran’s top diplomat Abbas Araghchi, who visited Assad on Sunday before traveling to Ankara, Turkey, one of the rebels’ main backers.

Neither official further elaborated but Iran has been of Assad’s principal political and military supporters and has deployed military advisers and forces after 2011 protests against Assad’s rule turned into an all-out war.

Tehran-backed Iraqi militias already in Syria mobilized and additional forces crossed the border to support Assad’s government and army, said the Iraqi militia official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

Iraqi militiamen in Syria

According to Britain-based opposition war monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, some 200 Iraqi militiamen on pickups crossed into Syria overnight through the strategic Bou Kamal crossing. They were expected to deploy in Aleppo to support the Syrian army’s pushback against the insurgents, the monitor said.

The rebel offensive in Syria has caused concern among neighboring countries that the conflict could spill over. In Iraq, Interior Ministry spokesperson Brig. Gen. Miqdad Miri said that security forces have deployed in greater numbers to protect their large border with Syria.

The advance by the insurgents is a huge embarrassment for Assad, and it comes at a time when his allies — Iran and groups it backs and Russia — are preoccupied with their own conflicts.

Russia, whose intervention in Syria’s civil war on behalf of Assad was crucial in turning the conflict in his favor, has said it will continue to support him.

“We, of course, continue to support Bashar Assad, we continue our contacts at the appropriate level and analyze the situation,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Monday. “A position will be formed regarding what is needed to stabilize the situation.”

Syrian and Russian airstrikes on rebel positions continued mostly in Hama and Idlib provinces. At least 10 civilians were killed in Idlib city and province, according to the Syrian Civil Defense in opposition-held areas.

Syrian Kurds were fleeing the fighting in large numbers after Turkish-backed rebels seized Tel Rifaat from rival U.S.-backed Kurdish authorities. The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces largely withdrew and called for a humanitarian corridor to allow people to leave safely in convoys toward Aleppo and later to Kurdish-led northeast regions.

Government forces lost control of Syria’s second city Aleppo on Sunday (December 1, 2024) for the first time since the country’s civil conflict began, a war monitor said, after a lightning offensive dealt a severe blow to President Bashar al-Assad.

An Islamist-dominated rebel alliance launched its assault on forces of the Iranian- and Russian-backed government on Wednesday, the same day a fragile ceasefire took effect in neighbouring Lebanon between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah after two months of all-out war.

The jihadist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group and allied factions now “control Aleppo city, except the neighbourhoods controlled by the Kurdish forces”, Rami Abdel Rahman, head of the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, told AFP.

For the first time since the civil war started more than a decade ago, “Aleppo city is out of control of Syrian regime forces”, he said.

The Observatory said Syrian and Russian aircraft staged deadly strikes on Sunday (December 1, 2024) in support of the government.

It said at least 12 people were killed in the city, raising an earlier toll of five from attacks targeting the area near Aleppo university.

Russian strikes also killed eight civilians, including two children and a woman, in the rebel bastion of Idlib, the Observatory said.

Idlib resident Umm Mohamed said she lost her daughter-in-law, who left behind five children, including a wounded little girl.

“We were sitting in the room and suddenly we heard the sound of an explosion, the walls fell on us,” she told AFP from hospital.

“From the dust, no one could see the others… I was with my son’s five children. Thank God their injuries were minor.”

In 2016 the Syrian army — supported by Russian air power — recaptured rebel-held areas of Aleppo, a city dominated by its landmark citadel.

Damascus also relied on Hezbollah fighters to regain swathes of Syria lost to rebels early in the war, which began in 2011 when the government crushed protests. But Hezbollah has taken heavy losses in its fight with Israel.

Rebel advances met little resistance

Several northern districts inside Aleppo are predominantly inhabited by Syrian Kurds under authority of the People’s Protection Units (YPG), the main component of the US-backed Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF).

Before this offensive, HTS, led by Al-Qaeda’s former Syria branch, already controlled swathes of the Idlib region, the last major rebel bastion in the northwest.

HTS also held parts of the neighbouring Aleppo, Hama and Latakia provinces.

The latest fighting has killed more than 370 people, mostly combatants but also including at least 48 civilians, according to the Observatory, which has a network of sources inside Syria.

The Observatory said rebel advances met little resistance.

It said Sunday the army strengthened its positions around Syria’s fourth largest city Hama, about 230 kilometres (140 miles) south of Aleppo, and sent reinforcements to the north of the surrounding province.

Also read: A brief history of the Aleppo battle

Syria’s defence ministry said units in Hama province “reinforced their defensive lines with diverse means of fire, equipment and personnel”.

Rebels have taken dozens of towns across the north, including Khan Sheikhun and Maaret al-Numan, roughly halfway between Aleppo and Hama, the Observatory said.

‘Weak’ government

In Idlib on Sunday, bodies lay in a hospital and vehicles were torched in the street, AFP images showed, after what the Observatory said were Russian air strikes.

In Aleppo, an AFP photographer saw charred vehicles. Inside one car, a woman’s body lay slumped in the back seat, a handbag beside her.

The Russian air strikes on parts of Aleppo are the first since 2016.

One resident, who asked not to be identified due to safety concerns, told AFP that like most locals, “we are holed up at home”.

The rebels “are trying to put on a kind face and reassure the population. They forced the bakeries to work through the night, and distributed free bread at intersections today”, the resident added.

Aaron Stein, president of the US-based Foreign Policy Research Institute, said “Russia’s presence has thinned out considerably and quick reaction air strikes have limited utility”.

He called the rebel advance “a reminder of how weak the regime is”.

Aron Lund of the Century International think tank said “Aleppo seems to be lost for the regime… and a government without Aleppo is not really a functional government of Syria”.

Syria’s “reliance on Russia and Iran”, along with its refusal to move forward with a 2015 peace process outlined by the UN Security Council, “created the conditions now unfolding”, said US National Security Council spokesman Sean Savett.

The United States maintains hundreds of troops in northeast Syria as part of an anti-jihadist coalition.

Israel monitoring situation in Syria

Iran’s Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi left Tehran for Damascus to deliver what state media said would be a message of support for Assad.

Araghchi again called the rebel offensive a US and Israeli plot, and vowed that “the Syrian army will once again win”.

Assad vowed to defeat the “terrorists”, however big their attacks.

“Terrorism only understands the language of force, and that is the language which we will break it and eliminate it with, whoever its supporters and sponsors are,” he said.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said: “We are constantly monitoring what is happening in Syria.”

Russia, whose air support was previously decisive in helping Syria’s government win back lost territory, joined Iran in expressing “extreme concern” over their ally’s losses.

UN envoy Geir Pedersen said the “latest developments pose severe risks to civilians and have serious implications for regional and international peace and security”.

Jordan’s King Abdullah II expressed support for Syria’s “territorial integrity, sovereignty and stability”, and Pope Francis urged a prayer “for Syria, where war has unfortunately reignited, resulting in many victims”.