Syrian rebels, led by the jihadist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, surprised the Bashar Assad regime as well as observers when they launched an offensive last week that saw them capture the city of Aleppo — second only to the capital Damascus in population — within 72 hours, after years of strategic stalemate.
Perhaps they shouldn’t have been so shocked.
There has been a recent uptick in confrontations between Syrian forces and opposition groups in the country’s northwest, which left civilians dead and were seen by rebels as a violation of the 2019 ceasefire agreement between Russia, which backs the Assad regime, and Turkey, which backs some of the rebel groups in the north.
HTS had been building up its military capabilities for years in preparation for such an offensive.
Read the full article at the Times of Israel.
