By Muhammad Haj Kadour and Vivian Yee
Rebel forces advanced in Syria on Sunday amid fierce fighting, capturing the airport and military academy of the major city of Aleppo and attacking the outskirts of the western city of Hama, according to rebel officials and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.
Government troops loyal to President Bashar Assad were trying to repel them, rushing reinforcements to the battle and launching airstrikes on Aleppo, the Observatory said.
The rebels had captured much of Aleppo a day earlier in a surprise offensive. They now control a broad patch of land across the provinces of Hama, Idlib and Aleppo, in the west and northwest of Syria, according to information from officials from the rebel-linked administration and the Observatory, a Britain-based war monitor.
In a further sign of growing strength, the rebels also said they now controlled all of Idlib and issued a demand for Kurdish forces in Aleppo to leave with their weapons for the northeast.
The New York Times observed rebels in control of parts of Hama province as well as neighborhoods in the east of the city of Aleppo and parts of the countryside beyond it that government forces had held only days earlier.
Outside the city of Hama, Syrian government military vehicles could be seen all over the roads, apparently abandoned by fleeing government troops after they ran out of fuel.
The Observatory said that government troops were battling to defend Hama from being overrun and that reinforcements had arrived to man defensive lines around the city and several nearby cities and villages. Syrian government warplanes were also bombing territory now held by the rebels, including targets across the city of Aleppo, causing dozens of civilian casualties, the monitor said.
It said that government forces were receiving support from Russian fighter jets, which were striking targets across the countryside near Hama and Idlib province.
Russia, which is allied with Assad, has repeatedly come to his aid since early in the civil war that broke out in 2011, after protests over his autocratic rule drew a swift and bloody military crackdown. Russian warplanes are stationed in Syria and were instrumental to Assad’s retaking of Aleppo from rebel forces in 2016. Assad has also counted on military and political support from Iran and the Lebanese militia Hezbollah.
The rebel alliance is led by the group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which was once linked with al-Qaida but publicly broke with the terrorist group years ago. Turkish-backed rebel groups have also joined in.
The United States considers Hayat Tahrir al-Sham a terrorist organization, and Jake Sullivan, President Joe Biden’s national security adviser, told CNN on Sunday that the administration has “real concerns about the designs and objectives of that organization.”
“At the same time, of course, we don’t cry over the fact that the Assad government, backed by Russia, Iran and Hezbollah, are facing certain kinds of pressure,” he said on CNN’s “State of the Union.”
A National Security Council spokesperson, Sean Savett, said Saturday in a statement, “The United States has nothing to do with this offensive.”
Savett said, “The United States, together with its partners and allies, urge de-escalation, protection of civilians and minority groups, and a serious and credible political process that can end this civil war once and for all.”
Hayat Tahrir al-Sham began as what was then called the Nusra Front, an extremist rebel faction formed as a Qaida affiliate that gained prominence early in Syria’s civil war. But by 2017, it had begun to embrace a more pragmatic approach than other hard-line groups, choosing to prioritize securing its grip on Idlib instead of continuing to launch major offensives against Assad’s forces, analysts said.
The group framed its moves as a true break with al-Qaida, going so far as to arrest some Qaida-linked people, according to experts who have studied the group.
It engaged with Western aid groups, journalists and researchers. It also sought to link Idlib’s economy to that of the outside world, develop the region’s agriculture and industry and build a government that provided limited services to residents.
Abandoning its rhetoric about establishing an Islamic state in Syria, the group’s leadership said it wanted to replace the Assad government with one more loosely inspired by Islamic principles. But while its interpretation of Islam remained deeply conservative, the group’s governance was significantly less brutal and dogmatic than that of the Islamic State group, analysts said.
It now appears to be seeking to extend that control to Aleppo.
A Syrian government statement said that Assad had spoken to the leaders of the United Arab Emirates and Iraq on Saturday, vowing that Syria would “defeat the terrorists, regardless of the intensity of their attacks.” Syrian officials routinely refer to rebels as terrorists.
Iran’s president, Masoud Pezeshkian, referred to the situation in Syria in parliament on Sunday, saying that “Islamic countries must intervene to prevent America and Israel from exploiting the internal conflicts of countries and prevent the continuation of these crises.”
And the Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, headed to Damascus, Syria, on Sunday. Ali Moujani, an Iranian diplomat, said on the social platform X that the foreign minister was making the trip in a show of support for the Syrian government.
The Syrian military said in a statement Saturday that its operation to push back the rebels was “successfully” progressing and that it would soon initiate a counterattack. It tried to discredit reports about rebel advances, saying that the armed groups were spreading “false news” to “undermine the morale of our people and our brave army.”
Across the territory that had flipped back to the rebels, people could be seen tearing up Syrian government flags and pictures of Assad, including fighters and former Aleppo residents who were returning to their homes for the first time in years. Photos taken in Aleppo also showed the toppling of a statue that had apparently depicted Bassel Assad, the president’s elder brother.
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