Rebel forces in Syria made their most significant advance in years in a surprise offensive that began last Wednesday in the country’s northeastern region. By Saturday, anti-government forces had captured most of Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, and by yesterday were in control of a broad stretch of land in northeast Syria. The offensive unites a number of rebel factions, but is led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, which for more than a decade has controlled much of the Idlib province, the primary remaining rebel stronghold in Syria. (New York Times)
Our Take
This offensive took nearly every observer by surprise, underscoring just how much the Syrian civil war, which began in 2011, had drifted off the world’s radar since reaching a point of stasis in the late 2010s. In the meantime, President Bashar al-Assad—who had become an international pariah for his conduct of the war, including the use of chemical weapons against civilians—began to rebuild ties with a number of the regional states that had once sought to topple his autocratic regime.
Now, though, this offensive is a reminder that absent a stable political resolution, frozen conflicts can heat back up quickly. And the resurgence of fighting puts back into the spotlight all of the contradictory tensions between the actors involved in the Syrian civil war, which has pit allies and partners outside the conflict against each other, and enemies outside the conflict on the same side in the fighting on the ground.