What's going on with Syria?
And how the axis of resistance is unraveling
🇸🇾 Just last week, I noted that Hezbollah's retreat could trigger further instability in the axis of resistance. And hours later, lo and behold, it ended up contributing to a stunning turn of events over the border in Syria. So what the hell happened?
Turkey-backed Sunni-Jihadist group Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) shocked the world by launching a surprise offensive on Syria’s second-largest city, Aleppo. In a matter of days, HTS, which has a manpower of over 25,000, managed to take over half the city without much resistance.
Israel’s destruction of Hezbollah in Lebanon seems to have helped tip the balance. HTS has been observing the shifting regional dynamics and agitating to take advantage of Assad’s relative weakness for months. With Russia preoccupied with Ukraine and Iran and its proxies effectively targeted by Israel, HTS felt the time was ripe to strike.
While Syria has been through a long civil war that opposed the government to various armed groups (at first), then spiralled into what we call a Lebanonization of a conflict, meaning a Mexican standoff with an all-versus-all scenario.
It’s also worth noting that Syria’s civil war was the first real use of “fake news” using social media and Open-Source Inteligence (OSINT), mass media manipulation, and doctored intelligence reports, which all sides engaged in to manipulate public and global opinion. To this day, the average reader is still unable to navigate Syria’s quagmire. But anyway, let’s continue.
First, some quick history: after the Ottoman Empire and a period of French control, then post-independence upheaval, the Assad family emerged in control of Syria in 1971. Fast forward to 2011, and Assad Junior’s brutal response to Syria’s mass Arab Spring protests tipped his country into civil war, leaving half a million dead and prompting millions to flee.
📍 Multiple outside powers soon then (re)emerged to protect their interests and press their influence. At risk of casually summarising a geopolitical labyrinth in a few bullet points...
Turkey wanted to curb rival Kurdish armed groups and return Syrian refugees
Russia wanted to protect its naval base at Tartus and expand its footprint to counter the…
US: who initially saw this conflict as an extensions of the Arab Spring but then backpedaled given Obama’s trepidation and ended up occupying a small portion of the country (including some oil fields in Conoco) and supporting Kurdish Group like the YPG
Iran wanted to protect its supply lines, including for its armed proxies like...
Hezbollah, which in turn wanted to strengthen its own hand against...
Israel, which in turn has fought its foes in a shadow war back in Syria.
Once the civil war kicked off, opposition forces seized much of Syria's Aleppo in 2012, but Assad took it back in 2016 with some brutal help from Russian jets, Hezbollah ground forces, and Iranian logistics. And that's where the battle lines mostly stabilised, with Assad controlling around 70% of his country ever since.
That was until last week, when opposition forces suddenly broke through Assad’s lines near Aleppo, then somehow captured the entire economic hub within 48 hours and moved on towards Hama (another step closer to the capital, Damascus).
🔎 So who's behind this?
I've referred vaguely to ‘opposition forces’ because it's technically a broad coalition, but the core driver is an Islamist group known as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS).
Formerly known as al-Nusra Front, it used to be the Syrian branch of al-Qaeda before it publicly cut ties in 2016. Its leader (Abu Mohammed al-Golani) has since been re-branding HTS in an effort to gain legitimacy among both Syrians and foreign powers, some of whom have seen Assad as the lesser evil: Golani has provided services, worked with aid groups and journalists, met with local Christian and Druze leaders, and issued statements pledging to protect minorities (including Armenians).
While Aleppo's Greek Orthodox community still held regular mass yesterday (Sunday), it's far too early to know how much of this friendlier face is branding versus reality—HTS forces have been too busy fighting, and it remains a listed terrorist group in the US, Russia, Turkey and beyond (please note Turkey’s double game here, where it has apparently not learned from its previous mistakes).
Meanwhile, you can already see some of the cracks in the opposition: some Turkey-backed groups have attacked rival (US-linked) Kurdish groups rather than Assad's forces.
🕵️♂️ So why pull this stunt now?
HTS has spent years regrouping, but there’ve been three immediate triggers: first, Assad had intensified his airstrikes against opposition forces over the past month, so this lightning move was a response to that. Turkish officials are saying they thought it was just going to be a limited counterattack, so the collapse of Assad's Aleppo unit was a surprise.
Second, months of Israeli airstrikes had already weakened Assad, culminating in a prescient UN warning just weeks ago of "dangerous and unpredictable consequences".
But third, Assad's top backers are all stretched thin: Putin already re-assigned some of his Syrian contingent to maximise gains in Ukraine before Trump 2.0; Hezbollah is now licking its wounds in Lebanon; and that’s left its backer-in-chief Iran looking vulnerable.
So just hours after Hezbollah's ceasefire with Israel kicked off last week, HTS made its move.
🪖 And how has Assad responded?
There were reports he immediately flew to Moscow, and the Kremlin's comment that it had "nothing to add" leaves us assessing (hint: it’s just me) whether those reports are probably true. Either way, Assad was back in Damascus last night (Sunday) in time to host Iran's foreign minister.
And his troops now seem to have stabilised after the initial panic, with Russian and Syrian jets now striking opposition positions (plus apparently refugees and a Franciscan convent). Meanwhile, Assad’s foreign backers have again now pledged their support, though there are harder limits to what they can achieve this time around.
🎯 Who benefits from all this?
Who's the biggest winner here? Clearly, Turkey, which has developed functional ties with and influence over HTS and related groups, is now (via this latest HTS move) pushing its reach even deeper into Syrian territory. That strengthens Erdogan's hand not only with Assad but with Putin and beyond.
As for the biggest loser? Beyond the obvious (Assad), it's Putin: he's been writing geopolitical cheques his country is now struggling to cash, whether that's propping up regimes in the Sahel in West Africa or Syria or pushing his ‘three-day’ conquest of Ukraine, all while bumping up more against the realities of labour shortages, inflation, and sanctions.
So there are some tough choices ahead for Putin, and it's hard to see Assad being at the top of his list.
📝 Also worth noting:
UN Security Council Resolution 2254 from 2015 laid out a roadmap for peace, noting "the Syrian people will decide the future of Syria." But Assad and his backers went on to kill hundreds of thousands of Syrians to reassert control.
Biden's outgoing US national security adviser (Jake Sullivan) has noted concerns about HTS, while observing “we don’t cry over the fact that the Assad government, backed by Russia, Iran and Hezbollah, are facing certain kinds of pressure.”
Donald Trump initially sought to remove the 900 anti-ISIS US troops from Syria during his first administration, but ended up leaving them; his plans for Trump 2.0 are TBC.
🇺🇸 What about the US?
The conflict creates a dilemma for Washington, which under President Barack Obama supported rebel groups fighting Assad’s brutal dictatorship, but HTS’s fundamentalist roots are cause for concern. Asli Aydintasbas, a visiting fellow at the Brookings Institution, noted the quandary: “Should [the US] be cheering the opposition taking over Syria’s second-largest city, Aleppo, or should they actually worry about the city falling under Islamist rule?”
So far, the Biden administration has distanced itself from the offensive, calling for de-escalation and a political solution – but we’re watching how long Washington can stay on the sidelines if the conflict escalates.
It’s a tectonic shift, to say the least. Regional and international powers intervened in Syria over a decade ago, and now the conflicts of Ukraine, Gaza and Lebanon all come together and overlap in Aleppo.
Lebanon’s Hezbollah militia, Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Iranian ayatollahs’ regime are all currently embroiled in conflicts that threaten their very survival, and Syria is a sideshow at best. To a varying degree, all three have sustained strategic blows, while the Syrian rebels’ main backer, Turkey, has taken advantage of the turmoil.
Russia is weakened, Iran is weakened, Hezbollah is beaten—and all this has created an enormous opportunity for Turkey, which it was quick to grab.
The most important factor behind Assad’s loss of Aleppo is the rout inflicted by Israel on Hezbollah. Equipped by Iran and Russia, the Lebanese militia used to be the most capable infantry fighting on Assad’s behalf and was instrumental in rolling back rebel gains in the past.
Still, the Aleppo offensive was seen with satisfaction, if not outright gloating, by many in Israel. It’s a net positive for Israel. The Iran-Hezbollah-Syria axis suffered heavy blows in recent months, and this adds another significant blow, which forces all members of the axis to focus on another theater that is not Israel. At least, that’s how it’s viewed from Israel.
ℹ️ OSINT + Meme Of The Day:
High-Level IRGC Commander in Aleppo, General K. Porhashmi, was killed by Syrian opposition forces during the weekend
Hezbollah lost control of Nubl and Zahra to Kurdish fighters. Cities HEzbollah has fought over for nearly 7 years.
Syrian General A.Ghossa, commander of the Hama defense, was killed by an FPV drone (FPV drones are a Ukrainian specialty since the Russia-Ukrainian war)
Israel intercepted an IRanian cargo plane headed to Damascus over the weekend and forced it back to Iran
3 airstrikes reported on the Syria-Iraq border in the Bukamal vicnity (still unconfirmed but most likely ISraeli or American) targeting Iranian back reinforcement militias from Iraq crossing the border to help Assad.
