Rebel forces launched the largest offensive against the Syrian government in years on Wednesday. By Sunday, they had taken control of “large parts” of the country’s second-biggest city, Aleppo and were advancing towards Hama in the south.
The surprise offensive prompted the first Russian strikes on Aleppo since 2016, and saw Syria’s military withdraw its troops from the city. The attack was led by the Islamist militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) – which has a long and involved history in the Syrian conflict.
HTS was set up under a different name, Jabhat al-Nusra, in 2011 as a direct affiliate of Al Qaeda.
The leader of the self-styled Islamic State (IS) group, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, was also involved in its formation. It was regarded as one of the most effective and deadly of the groups ranged against President Assad.
But its jihadist ideology appeared to be its driving force rather than revolutionary zeal – and it was seen at the time as at odds with the main rebel coalition under the banner of Free Syria.And in 2016, the group’s leader, Abu Mohammed al-Jawlani, publicly broke ranks with Al Qaeda, dissolved Jabhat al-Nusra and set up a new organisation, which took the name Hayat Tahrir al-Sham when it merged with several other similar groups a year later.
The war in Syria has for the past four years felt as if it were effectively over.
President Bashar al-Assad’s rule is essentially uncontested in the country’s major cities, while some other parts of Syria remain out of his direct control.
These include Kurdish majority areas in the east, which have been more or less separate from Syrian state control since the early years of the conflict.
There has been some continued, though relatively muted unrest, in the south where the revolution against Assad’s rule began in 2011.
In the vast Syrian desert, holdouts from the group calling themselves Islamic State still pose a security threat, particularly during the truffle hunting season when people head to the area to find the highly profitable delicacy.
And in the north-west, the province of Idlib has been held by militant groups driven there at the height of the war.
HTS, the dominant force in Idlib, is the one that has launched the surprise attack on Aleppo.
Source BBC NEWS
