ISTANBUL/DAMASCUS, Dec 9 — After 13 years of civil war, Syria’s opposition militias sensed an opportunity to loosen President Bashar al-Assad’s grip on power when, about six...
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Launched barely two weeks ago, the operation’s speedy success in achieving its initial goal — seizing Syria’s second city, Aleppo — took almost everybody by surprise. Turkey has troops on the ground in northwest Syria, and provides support to some of the rebels who were intending to take part, including the Syrian National Army — though it considers the main faction in the alliance, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham , to be a terror group. The rebels’ bold plan was the brainchild of HTS and its leader Ahmed al-Sharaa, better known as Abu Mohammed al-Golani, the diplomat said.
The Syrian opposition source said the rebels had shown Turkey details of the planning, after Ankara’s attempts to engage Assad had failed. However, Turkey’s deputy minister for foreign affairs, Nuh Yilmaz, told a conference on Middle Eastern affairs in Bahrain on Sunday that Ankara was not behind the offensive, and did not provide its consent, saying it was concerned about instability.
Syria’s weak armed forces were unable to resist. A regime source told Reuters that tanks and planes were left with no fuel because of corruption and looting — an illustration of just how hollowed out the Syrian state had become. The pace of the rebel advances, with Hama being captured on Dec. 5 and Homs falling on or around Sunday at the same time government forces lost Damascus, exceeded expectations.
Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday noted his country’s role in weakening Hezbollah, which sources told Reuters withdrew its remaining troops from Syria on Saturday.Sources familiar with Hezbollah deployments said the Iran-backed group, which propped up Assad early in the war, had already withdrawn many of its elite fighters from Syria over the last year to support the group as it waged hostilities with Israel — a conflict that spilled over from the Gaza war.
Assad Turkey Hezbollah Arab Israel Gaza HTS Abu Mohammed Al-Golani
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