Syria Civil War: What do we know about the rebels leading the offensive?

In what can be referred to as the largest advances in the recent times, the rebels had seized the cities of Aleppo and Hama, as well as large parts of the south, in an offensive that began on November 27.

By: Express Web Desk
New Delhi | December 8, 2024 10:52 AM IST

3 min read

Syrian rebels ride along the streets in the aftermath of the their takeover of Hama. (Photo: AP)

It was indeed a blitzkrieg. Syrian rebels shocked the government and the region with a lightning quick offensive that ultimately ended with the breach of Damascus Sunday morning. Syrian President Bashar al-Assad fled the country and the Army commander said that the government has fallen.

In what can be referred to as the largest advances in the recent times, the rebels had seized the cities of Aleppo and Hama, as well as large parts of the south, in an offensive that began on November 27.

United under Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, a former al-Qaida affiliate, the group that was once regarded as the rebellion’s most extremist factions has no come back to haunt the Assad government.

Who are the rebels?

The Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group (HTS), according to the BBC, was set up under the name of Jabhat al-Nusra in 2011, as a “direct associate of the Al-Qaeda”. The name means the Organization for the Liberation of the Levant.

The group, with the jihadist ideology as its driving force, was considered as one of the most effective and deadly of the groups ranged against President Assad.

In 2016, HTS leader Abu Mohammed al-Golani sought to rebuild the group’s image after cutting ties with the Al-Qaeda, ditching hard-line officials and vowing to embrace pluralism and religious tolerance, according to AP news.

The group has controlled much of northwest Syria, and also set up a “salvation government” in 2017 to run day-to-day affairs in the region. Its goal now is to establish fundamentalist Islamic rule in Syria rather than a wider caliphate, as the Islamic State (IS) had tried but failed to do, BBC stated.

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A Syrian rebel fighter sits on the cockpit of a Syrian airforce plane. (Photo: AP)

How has the group managed to get hold of territory?

In the initial days, the group had coaxed village council leaders to voluntarily accept its rule and mimicked a state by issuing identity cards to residents, according to a UN report cited by The New York Times.

It continued to remain unpopular among residents, who protested its arbitrary arrests, taxation and intolerance of dissent.

Turkish bases in Idlib and Turkish artillery stationed on the Turkish side of the border have served to buffer the group’s territory from Syrian government troops, Robert Ford, a former US ambassador to Syria was quoted as saying by NYT.

However, after a cease-fire brokered by Russia and Turkey in 2020 generated an uneasy calm in northwestern Syria, the group took the opportunity to restructure its forces, becoming more professional with better training and weapons. Slowly, other rebel organisations merged with them, making them the largest force in northwestern Syria.

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