The Syrian rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), listed as a terrorist organization by the United States, launched a surprise attack in Idlib province on Thursday.
TSupporters of dictator Bashar al-Assad's regime and Russia responded with airstrikes, but failed to prevent rebels from entering Aleppo, Syria's second-largest city.
Turkish media on Friday broadcast footage of HTS fighter jets entering Aleppo leading uniformed soldiers and armored fighting vehicles. Residents of the city told foreign media they heard the sound of missiles hitting the city's outskirts.
On Friday, a bomb attack killed four civilians, including two students. I hit it Student dormitory in Aleppo. Syrian state media blamed the deaths on HTS shelling.
attack on aleppo It started Two car bombings occurred, which quickly escalated into skirmishes between rebels and government forces. Syrian state media claimed a “massive attack” had been repulsed, while Turkish media reported rebels were able to reach the city centre.
The United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said that Syrian government fighter jets were carried out At least 125 airstrikes have been carried out in Idlib and western Aleppo since the offensive began three days ago. The airstrike killed at least 12 civilians, injured 46 others and forced 14,000 people from their homes.
As of Friday morning, HTS announced it had captured dozens of towns in Idlib and western Aleppo, and four more in the past 24 hours of fighting.
International observers were stunned by the success of the offensive, which saw rebels retake territory lost to Assad's forces nearly nine years ago.
“I think the regime's defenses collapsed and they were taken by surprise. No one expected the rebels to reach the edge of Aleppo so quickly,” said Dareen Khalifa of the International Crisis Group. said. said England guardian on friday.
Khalifa said the two main factors for the sudden resurgence of the Syrian civil war were Israel's strong offensive against Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon, which decimated the forces that Assad relied on for support to the rebels; He said that Russia's war in Ukraine had consumed many of its people. Power that Russia was using to support Assad.
“The Russians are distracted in Ukraine. They are not very invested in Syria, politically, if not militarily,” she said. “It is difficult to predict what the outcome of this attack will be. The rebels believe the other side is vulnerable and has leverage.”
“Russia is not a bystander, but perhaps we are witnessing the limits of the Russian military. Russia's two-day performance shows that much of its air force capability has been redeployed to Ukraine.” said Omer Ozkijirsik, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. said on friday.
HTS said it had no qualms about targeting Iranian forces supporting the Syrian army, and Iranian media said at least one Iranian Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps (IRGC) officer, an Afghan brigadier general, It is also said that they were targeted. General Kumars Purhashemi has already been killed in battle. Iranian media claimed his killers were “terrorists with ties to Israel.”
Rebel leader Lt. Col. Hassan Abdul Ghani said Middle East Eye (MEE) claimed on Thursday that the attack was a response to the Syrian regime's invasion of areas occupied by HTS and its allies. Rebel leaders have called the attack a “response operation to invasion.”
Ghani said his forces had captured several “highly strategic” areas held by both Assad and Iranian forces.
“These areas are Iranian and Syrian military bases that were used to launch invasions into our region, kill civilians and drive them from their homes,” he said.
“Our forces have destroyed 12 enemy tanks. The operation will continue until we eliminate the forces targeting our land,” he vowed. “Our operation aims to liberate our lands from Syrian and Iranian forces and allow our residents to return safely to their homes.”
me quoted According to reports, forces associated with the Syrian National Army (SNA), a militia allied with Turkey, are taking part in response operations to the invasion, but so far have not been involved in heavy fighting. This appears to confirm speculation that Turkey is involved in sudden efforts to destabilize the Assad regime.
Turkish security sources told MEE that they had tried. prevent Taking advantage of deconfliction hotlines established in the final months of Syria's civil war, the rebels carried out their attacks through diplomatic channels, seeing how little resistance there was from Assad and his Russian and Iranian backers. Since then, the effort has been in vain.
“The operation, which was initially planned as a limited operation, expanded as regime forces began to flee their positions,” Turkish sources said, adding that Turkey's desired outcome to the current conflict is to close Turkey's border with Idlib province. He added that it would be necessary to rebuild a “de-escalation zone'' to protect the United States.
Meanwhile, SNA leaders told MEE that the Turkish-backed militia saw the collapse of Hezbollah in Lebanon as a “golden opportunity” to seize more territory and perhaps even deliver a knockout punch to the Damascus regime. '', he said.
“There is an international climate favorable to this fighting and chaos between Assad and his supporters, and we seized this opportunity. Without allies, the Syrian army is powerless. We will change the equation and recover the land. , we can ensure a safe path to facilitate the return of displaced people to their homelands,” the SNA official said.
“We are focused on Aleppo and future developments will determine the outcome. The nature, timing and scale of the operation will determine its scope,” he added.
Iran and Russia I contacted you President Assad expressed support on Friday. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Arachi stressed Tehran's “continuing support to the government, state and military of Syria in the fight against terrorism,” and Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called the Aleppo attack “a serious threat to Syria.” It was denounced as a violation of the country's sovereignty.
“We support the Syrian authorities in bringing order to the region and restoring constitutional order as soon as possible,” Peskov said. saidHe did not elaborate on how much aid Moscow was prepared to provide.
Peskov declined to comment on reports that Assad had flown to Moscow for talks with Russian President Vladimir Putin. The report led some observers to wonder whether Assad's regime was already on the verge of collapse.
Former U.S. defense intelligence officer Rebecca Koffler told Fox News Digital on Thursday that President Putin is doubling down on support for Damascus following U.S. recognition of Ukraine and stepping up attacks on rebels and civilians in the region. may have caused the chaos in Aleppo. Use long-range missiles against Russian targets.
Kofler described Putin's strategy as “lateral escalation” and suggested that Putin may have miscalculated the intensity of the rebel response or overestimated Assad's forces' ability to respond. .
“Russian air force participates in Syrian air strikes in rebel-held northwestern Syria, [Putin] Also, before President Trump begins his second term, he wants to escalate the US, tip Biden off balance, and move laterally up the escalation ladder to give himself maximum leverage in negotiations on Ukraine. “It's progressing,” she said.
“I would not be surprised if Assad again attacks rebel-held areas with chemical weapons,” she added.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi condemned He denounced the Aleppo attack as “takfir terrorism” (fake terrorism directed by Western countries to make Muslims look bad) and said the attack was “an American-Israeli project.”
Araghchi argued that Israel is interesting. lost Rather than nearly wipe out Iranian-backed terrorists, Lebanon's Hezbollah arranged the attack on Aleppo as a distraction from the “defeat of the resistance movement.”
