After a lightning offensive, the jihadists and their allies entered Aleppo this Friday.
The fighting has left more than 255 dead according to an NGO, the first time since 2020 in north-west Syria.
A snub for Damascus, but also Iran and Russia, its two allies.
Syria is reconnecting with its old demons. For the first time since 2020, intense fighting is taking place in the Aleppo region between regime forces and jihadists. The latter launched a vast offensive on Wednesday which allowed them, this Friday, to penetrate several districts of the large northern city. How can we explain this new security crisis?
A dazzling offensive
The clashes began on Wednesday. In charge, the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Cham (HTS). The latter is led by Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, who freed himself from Al-Qaeda, claiming to have banned its most extremist members. From the city of Idlib, located in the northwest, the HTS – associated with allied formations, some close to Turkey which is only around twenty kilometers away – headed towards Aleppo, around sixty kilometers away. .
After having conquered around fifty localities in 48 hours, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (OSDH), they reached the gates of the city on Friday.after carrying out two suicide attacks with car bombs”. The Syrian army, which deployed reinforcements in Aleppo, according to a security official, assured that it had repelled “the major offensive of terrorist groups” and regained several positions. Russia, an ally of Damascus, has stepped up airstrikes to support the regime. In vain: according to the OSDH, the fighting nevertheless spread to the strategic town of Saraqeb, held by the regime and located south of Aleppo, at the intersection of two highways.
A heavy toll
The fighting left more than 255 dead, according to the OSDH. The UN Office of Humanitarian Affairs (Ocha) indicated that “more than 14,000 people, almost half of whom are children, have been displaced” by violence.
Why now?
For strategic reasons: the HTS, which controls parts of the province of Idlib, but also neighboring territories in the regions of Aleppo, Hama and Latakia, would have wanted to bypass Damascus. Analyst Nick Heras of the New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy said the rebels “tried to anticipate the possibility of a Syrian military campaign in the Aleppo region, which was being prepared by air strikes by the Russian and Syrian governments.”
In a press conference, the head of the self-proclaimed “government” in Idlib, Mohammad Al-Bashir, affirmed that the offensive had been launched “because the criminal regime had massed forces on the front lines and started bombing civilian areas, which caused the exodus of tens of thousands of civilians.”
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Never seen before since 2020
The Syrian regime regained control of a large part of the country in 2015 with the support of its Russian and Iranian allies. The north of the country has benefited in recent years from a precarious calm made possible by a ceasefire established after a regime offensive in March 2020. The truce was sponsored by Moscow with Turkey (which supports certain groups Syrian rebels on its border).
Other unwavering support for President Bashar Al-Assad: Iran, which reiterated its “ongoing support” to Syria in the face of this offensive. Tehran has also committed itself militarily by sending advisors, at the request of local authorities, to support President Assad during the civil war.
For the OSDH, the ease with which jihadists were able to penetrate neighborhoods in Aleppo raises questions. “It is strange to see the regime forces receiving such blows despite Russian air cover (…) Were the regime forces dependent on Hezbollah, which is currently occupied in Lebanon?”asked the head of the NGO Rami Abdel Rahmane, in reference to the war between Israel and the Lebanese movement, ally of Damascus, which ended this week.
A country in crisis
According to the UN, 16.7 million people in Syria are in need of humanitarian assistance or protection, a record since 2011. Among them are nearly 7.5 million children, according to Unicef.
Western sanctions have aggravated an economic crisis due to the war which has ravaged the country's infrastructure where 90% of the population lives below the poverty line.
