Syrian Islamist rebels, who took the world by surprise by toppling President Bashar al-Assad in a lightning offensive, had planned the operation a year ago, one of their military commanders told the Guardian. In an interview published Friday by the British newspaper, Abu Hassan al-Hamwi, military commander of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and former head of the military branch of the Islamist group, looked at length behind the scenes of this operation which end to the 24 years of merciless rule of President Assad.
Called “repelling aggression,” preparations for this operation began a year ago, although the group had been preparing for it for years. It wasn’t until late November that he felt the time was right. To do this, it was first necessary to unite the different rebel groups operating in the country. “The fundamental problem was the absence of a unified leadership,” said Al-Hamwi, 40.
An operations room was created, bringing together commanders from around 25 rebel groups in the south, who would coordinate the movements of their fighters among themselves and with HTS in the north. Once the coalition was put together, with the HTS group as its spearhead, it set about training combatants and developing a military doctrine. The group, which was made up of insurgents, slowly transformed into a disciplined fighting force, the newspaper describes.
