Civilians evacuate an area of the Sheikh Maqsoud neighbourhood, where clashes between government forces and Kurdish fighters have been taking place in the northern city of Aleppo, Syria, on January 10, 2026.
| Photo Credit: AP

A drone view shows buildings in Damascus, after Syrian rebels ousted President Bashar al-Assad, Syria December 10, 2024
| Photo Credit: Reuters

The Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the Syrian Islamist militant group, had been preparing for months for a large-scale offensive against regime forces. The civil war was quiet for years, particularly after the regime of President Bashar al-Assad captured most of its lost territories — including Aleppo, Hama and Homs. The HTS, formerly al-Nusra Front, the Syrian arm of al-Qaeda, had built a statelet in Idlib, in northwestern Syria, under the leadership of its ‘emir’, Abu Muhammed al-Jolani. The HTS and its ally Syrian National Army (SNA), formerly the Free Syrian Army, had informed Turkiye, their patron, at least six months ago about the offensive plan, according to a Reuters report. And Ankara had given its tacit approval.

Mr. Assad’s troops were in a bad shape. Soldiers were poorly paid and lacked motivation. The country never recovered from the scars of the civil war. Under crippling American sanctions, its finances were in shambles. During the peak of the civil war, in 2015-16, Mr. Assad had heavily relied on his external allies for security — Russia, Iran and Hezbollah. Now, the situation was different. The Russians were focused on Ukraine. Iran lost a host of its Syria commanders to Israeli strikes. Hezbollah had been weakened in a year-long war with Israel. The HTS launched its offensive on November 27, the day Israel and Lebanon signed a ceasefire. On the 12th day, the Assad regime fell, sending tremors across the region.

Offensive begins

When they launched the offensive, the militants’ initial target was the western suburbs of Aleppo, Syria’s second largest city which Mr. Assad’s forces recaptured in 2016, after four years of a brutal battle. When HTS and SNA militants advanced towards Aleppo, they faced little resistance from government forces. Within four days, they reached Aleppo’s city centre.

The rapid collapse of government forces in Aleppo stunned both the militants and the regime alike. And Mr. Assad’s allies took note of it. The HTS’s victory triggered rebellion elsewhere in the country. In the south, local militias, who were backed by Jordan, started attacking government positions. In the northeast, the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a Kurdish militia, started advancing towards the eastern city of Deir Ezzour. The HTS, the main militant group, marched south from Aleppo towards Hama. On December 5, they entered Hama. Mr. Assad’s forces did not fight back. Some of them crossed the border to Iraq, seeking refuge. Others abandoned their uniforms and fled. The militants raided military depots and grabbed more weapons, making their position stronger. Mr. Assad turned to Iran and Russia for help. But Syrian and other Arab officials say both Russia and Iran told the Syrian President that they could not help him much this time. Iran, according to some reports, evacuated its personnel from Syria.

Shrinking circle

Mr. Assad’s circle was shrinking. His troops are not fighting back. He is not getting any external help. The militants are on a march from multiple fronts. From Hama, the HTS advanced towards Homs, a strategically important city that sits at an intersection between Syria’s Mediterranean coast and Damascus, the seat of power. If Homs falls, Damascus would be cut off from Mr. Assad’s coastal stronghold. On December 7, HTS-linked militants entered Homs, Syria’s third largest city. The next day, the Southern Front, militants from the south who had already taken Daara, entered Damascus first, followed by the HTS. Syria’s Prime Minister Muhammad al-Jalali said he would ensure a peaceful transition of power. The army chief said Mr. Assad’s government was over, bringing the almost 60-year rule of the Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party in Syria to a dramatic end. Later in the day, Russia said Mr. Assad and his family were in Moscow and granted political asylum.

Different rebel groups

The fall of the regime leaves a huge vacuum in Syria. Until December 8, the opposition militias had a common enemy–’Assad the tyrant’. Now, they are facing each other while trying to expand their influence. Roughly, there are four rebel coalitions in Syria. One, the HTS, led by Jolani. It is the most prominent one. HTS telegram channels already call him ‘President’ Shara, referring to his real name, Ahmed Hussein al-Shara. The HTS has built a statelet in Idlib and some 25,000 soldiers under its command. But that’s not enough to run a vast country like Syria. But the HTS certainly wants to play a key role in the new Syria, and has sent reconciliatory messages to the country’s different sects and militias. The SAA, another northern militia, is an ally of the HTS and a proxy of Turkiye.

Two, local militias in the south. They would not like to give up their privileges. That they entered Damascus first was a clear message to Jolani that he was not the only ‘rebel’ in the game. Three, the SDF, the Kurdish militia. In the northeast, the Kurds have enjoyed relative autonomy since the beginning of the civil war. But Turkiye was alarmed by the Kurds’s growing strengths and had launched incursions into Syria in the past, grabbing territories on the border. The SDF would not like to give up their autonomy, which could put them on a collision course with the HTS and the SAA, the Turkish backed groups. And lastly, there are Alawites, Mr. Assad’s sect who live mostly in the mountainous coastal regions of Latakia and Tartus, and enjoyed power for nearly 50 decades. The Alawites were the backbone of the Syrian army. They are unlikely to immediately trust Jolani, a committed Salafi Islamist militant, whose group in the past had carried out targeted attacks against Alawites.

Syria is a diverse country. It now has a diverse set of militias, without a central authority. And then there are external players. Turkiye, as the main supporter of northern militias (HTS and SAA), would seek to extend its influence in the government formation. Jordan would like to see the southern militias getting their due. The Gulf Arabs, who are wary of both Islamists and Turkiye, would be alarmed by the developments. Iran risks losing its territorial link with Hezbollah. Russia’s primary objective would be to safeguard its Tartus naval base and Khmeimim air base. And Israel has already sent troops to capture land in Syria’s Golan Heights and is carrying out massive air strikes aimed at destroying the Syrian army’s military capabilities.

The Syrian rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which seized Aleppo in a shock offensive over the weekend, is an Islamist movement that has long ruled swathes of the country’s northwest.

The group has sought to moderate its image in recent years, including by cutting ties with its one-time sponsor Al-Qaeda, but it faces an uphill battle convincing Western governments it has fully renounced hardline jihadism, experts say.

Aleppo had been held by Syrian government forces since late 2016.

HTS says it no longer has any links to Al-Qaeda after severing them in 2016, five years into Syria’s civil war.

It took on its current name the following year, arresting Al-Qaeda and Islamic State group jihadists, according to the International Crisis Group (ICG) think tank.

But it remains blacklisted by the United States and the European Union.

In large parts of the northwestern Idlib province it has controlled since 2019, it has set up a so-called “salvation government” that controls the rebel stronghold’s economy and whose judges are largely loyal to HTS.

“Throughout parts of northwestern Syria, the rebels have started setting up and building upon already established proto-governance structures, indicating their ambition to govern and maintain control,” wrote the New-York-based Soufan Center.

“Some of these efforts date back years, with sophisticated attempts to subsidise the cost of food and stabilize the banking and energy sectors in the areas under HTS control.”

– ‘Insurgent group’ –

Jerome Drevon, a jihadism expert at ICG, said HTS “provides basic services to the population”, coordinating with US aid agencies helping to funnel humanitarian aid to the millions in need in territories it holds.

Even if some view it as authoritarian, “it provides homogeneous governance, which contrasts with other regions in Syria”, he told AFP.

French journalist Wassim Nasr met HTS leader Abu Mohammed al-Jolani last year.

“He and his group are no longer committed to whatever is meant by international jihad, that was crystal clear. They consider that it ‘only brought destruction and failure to their communities’,” he told a publication of the Combating Terrorism Center linked to US military academy West Point.

“Women go to school, women drive, you see people smoking in the street. Of course, they far from espouse democratic values or those of a liberal free society, but it’s a shift.”

Drevon said that, whatever the reasons for HTS breaking ties with Al-Qaeda years ago — whether it was tactical to avoid unwanted US attention or not — “now it behaves like an insurgent group” with domestic aims, without any “dimension of international terrorism”.

– ‘Incredibly opportunistic’ –

Several experts, however, warned the group has not fundamentally broken with its past despite its rebranding.

Tammy Lynn Palacios, of the New Lines Institute, said HTS “has demonstrated that it is incredibly opportunistic in its allegiances and associations”.

It “remains a jihadist organisation until HTS leadership successfully omits connections of its rank and file with more hardline jihadist groups and individuals”, she told AFP.

“Al-Qaeda is not done with HTS, no matter how much HTS is done with al-Qaeda and thus nothing short of public and formal disavowal of al-Qaeda will truly lessen the threat of jihadist extremism in northwest Syria,” she added.

The Soufan Center also points out that “while there are signs that minorities and non-Sunnis will be respected by even extreme elements of the rebels such as HTS, terrorist organizations’ participation in the offensive causes some alarm”.

Like the Taliban in power in Afghanistan since 2021 but not recognised in the West, HTS will likely struggle to leave Western “terrorist” lists.

Hans-Jakob Schindler, the director of the Counter Extremism Project (CEP), said this was justified.

“If you have to ask for permission before you break ties with al-Qaeda, from the leadership of Al-Qaeda, the sincerity of the ideological reorientation is in question,” he told AFP.

He pointed to the case of a young Austrian man who Munich police shot dead in September after he opened fire at the Israeli consulate in the German city.

Investigators last year found three videos he had recorded in 2021, showing scenes from a computer game “with Islamist content”, according to Austrian prosecutors.

In one of them, the suspect had used an avatar with a flag of the “al-Nusra Front”, the name of HTS before it severed ties with Al-Qaeda in 2016.

“There is absolutely no debate about the fact that they should remain listed as a terrorist group,” Schindler said.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Government airstrikes in Idlib on Sunday (December 1, 2024) killed at least three civilians, including two children, and wounded 11 others, said the Syrian Civil Defense, known as the White Helmets, which operates in opposition-held areas.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

The Syrian military rushed in reinforcements and struck Idlib city Sunday (December 1, 2024) in an attempt to push back insurgents from advancing farther after seizing Aleppo and surrounding strategic locations in an adjacent province in a surprise offensive.

The insurgents led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham took over most of Aleppo on Saturday (November 30, 2024) and claimed to have entered the city of Hama. There was no independent confirmation of their claim.

The swift and surprise offensive is a huge embarrassment for Syrian President Bashar Assad and raises questions about his troops’ preparedness. It also comes at a time when Assad’s allies — Iran and groups it backs and Russia — are preoccupied with their own conflicts.

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi travels to Syrian capital Damascus later Sunday (December 1, 2024). He told reporters that Tehran will back the Syrian government and army. Arab leaders, including Jordan’s King Abdullah II and United Arab Emirates President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, in calls with Assad expressed their solidarity with Damascus.

Turkey, a main backer of Syrian opposition groups, said its diplomatic efforts had failed to stop Syrian government attacks on opposition-held areas in recent weeks. Turkish security officials said a limited offensive by the rebels was planned to stop government attacks and allow civilians to return, but the offensive expanded as Syrian government forces began to retreat from their positions.

The insurgency, led by Salafi jihadi group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and which includes Turkey-backed fighters, launched their offensive on Wednesday (November 27, 2024) with a two-pronged attack on Aleppo and the Idlib countryside before moving toward Hama province. In Aleppo province, they captured a strategic town that lies on the highway linking Aleppo with Damascus and the coast.

Rebel commander Col. Hassan Abdulghani said that despite the government counteroffensive, his fighters were making gains in Aleppo. He says they took control of Sheikh Najjar, also known as the Aleppo Industrial City, Aleppo’s military academy and the field artillery college.

Abdulghani said 65 Syrian troops were taken prisoner in eastern Aleppo.

Elsewhere, he said the insurgents advanced in the Idlib countryside, putting all of the province under their control.

The United Nations special envoy for Syria said the shock push by the rebels poses a risk to regional security and called on resuming diplomatic efforts to end the conflict.

“I have repeatedly warned of the risks of escalation in Syria, of the dangers of mere conflict management rather than conflict resolution,” Geir Pedersen said in a statement. He said the reality is that no Syrian party or grouping of actors can resolve the conflict via military means.

According to Syrian state news agency SANA and a war monitor, the army overnight pushed back insurgents in the northern countryside of Hama province.

Syrian state media said government resupply included heavy equipment and rocket launchers while Syrian and Russian airstrikes targeted weapon depots and insurgent strongholds.

Britain-based opposition war monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that government reinforcements created a “strong defensive line” in the northern Hama countryside. Syrian state television claimed government forces had killed nearly 1,000 insurgents over the past three days, without providing evidence or details.

Government airstrikes in Idlib on Sunday (December 1, 2024) killed at least three civilians, including two children, and wounded 11 others, said the Syrian Civil Defense, known as the White Helmets, which operates in opposition-held areas. Among the targets were the Aleppo Hospital University in the city center, though there was no word of casualties.

The insurgents vowed to push all the way into Damascus, but life in the Syrian capital remained normal with no signs of panic.

In his first public comments since the start of the offensive, released by the state news agency Saturday (November 30, 2024) evening, Assad said Syria will continue to “defend its stability and territorial integrity against terrorists and their supporters.” He added that Syria is able to defeat them no matter how much their attacks intensify.

The 2016 battle for Aleppo was a turning point in the war between Syrian government forces and rebel fighters after 2011 protests against Assad’s rule turned into an all-out war. After appearing to be losing control of the country to the rebels, the Aleppo battle secured Assad’s hold on strategic areas of Syria, with opposition factions and their foreign backers controlling areas on the periphery.

Beirut, Lebanon:

A monitor of Syria’s war said on Saturday that jihadist rebels now control a majority of Aleppo city, reporting Russian air strikes on parts of Syria’s second city for the first time since 2016.

The rebels have pressed a lightning offensive against forces of the Iranian- and Russian-backed Syrian government since Wednesday, the same day a fragile ceasefire took effect in neighbouring Lebanon between Israel and the Iran-backed Hezbollah group, a Damascus ally, after two months of all-out war.

“Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and allied factions… took control of most of the city and government centres and prisons”, said the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

HTS, a jihadist alliance led by Al-Qaeda’s former Syria branch, controls swathes of the Idlib region, in Syria’s northwest, as well as parts of neighbouring Aleppo, Hama and Latakia provinces.

Overnight, Russian “warplanes launched raids on areas of Aleppo city for the first time since 2016”, added the Britain-based Observatory, which relies on a network of sources inside Syria.

It raised the death count in days of clashes to 311 — 183 from HTS and allied Turkish-backed factions, 100 soldiers and pro-government forces, as well as 28 civilians.

State media reported that four civilians were killed when HTS shelled a student residence in Aleppo, a city of around two million people that was Syria’s pre-war manufacturing hub.

Iran-backed militias have a heavy presence in the Aleppo region after providing crucial ground support when the Syrian army — backed by Russian air power — recaptured rebel-held areas of the city in 2016. 

Cheering

An AFP correspondent saw rebels celebrating and cheering inside Aleppo late Friday. Another correspondent saw anti-government fighters in front of the city’s landmark citadel.

The Observatory said that “the governor of Aleppo and the police and security branch commanders withdrew from the city centre”.

The overnight air strikes coincided with “the arrival of large (rebel) military reinforcements” to the area, the Observatory added, after on Friday reporting the jihadists and their allies had taken more than 50 towns and villages in the north.

Army reinforcements have arrived in Aleppo, a Syrian security official told AFP on Friday, requesting anonymity to discuss sensitive matters, while an army statement said troops had repelled the assault on the city and retaken some positions.

Observatory director Rami Abdel Rahman told AFP early Saturday that rebel fighters swiftly captured swathes of Aleppo without meeting significant resistance, adding “there has been no fighting, not a single shot was fired, as regime forces withdrew.”

The jihadists and their allies made other advances in the north, including seizure of the strategically located town of Saraqib, on the road to Aleppo about 40 kilometres (25 miles) southwest, the Observatory had said.

The Russian military said Friday it was bombing “extremist” forces, as Turkey demanded a halt to bombardment on the Idlib region.

Since 2020, the Idlib area has been subject to a Turkey and Russia-brokered truce which had largely been holding despite repeated violations.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Aleppo, Syria:

Syrian authorities closed Aleppo airport and cancelled all flights on Saturday, three military sources told Reuters, as rebels opposed to President Bashar al-Assad said they had reached the heart of the city.

The opposition fighters, led by the Islamist militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, carried out a surprise sweep through government-held towns this week and reached Aleppo nearly a decade after having been forced out of the northern Syrian city.

Russia, a key ally of Assad, has promised Damascus extra military aid to thwart the rebels, two military sources said, adding new hardware would start arriving in the next 72 hours.

The rebels began their incursion on Wednesday and by late Friday an operations room representing the offensive said they were sweeping through various neighbourhoods of Aleppo.

They are returning to the city for the first time since 2016, when Assad and his allies Russia, Iran, and regional Shi’ite militias retook it, with the insurgents agreeing to withdraw after months of bombardment and siege.

Mustafa Abdul Jaber, a commander in the Jaish al-Izza rebel brigade, said their speedy advance this week had been helped by a lack of Iran-backed manpower in the broader Aleppo province. Iran’s allies in the region have suffered a series of blows at the hands of Israel as the Gaza war has expanded through the Middle East.

Opposition sources in touch with Turkish intelligence said Turkey had given a green light to the offensive.

But Turkish foreign ministry spokesperson Oncu Keceli said Turkey sought to avoid greater instability in the region and had warned recent attacks undermined de-escalation agreements.

The attack is the biggest since March 2020, when Russia and Turkey agreed to a deal to de-escalate the conflict.

CIVILIANS KILLED IN FIGHTING

On Friday, Syrian state television denied rebels had reached the city and said Russia was providing Syria’s military with air support.

The Syrian military said it was fighting back against the attack and had inflicted heavy losses on the insurgents in the countryside of Aleppo and Idlib.

David Carden, U.N. Deputy Regional Humanitarian Coordinator for the Syria Crisis, said: “We’re deeply alarmed by the situation unfolding in northwest Syria.”

“Relentless attacks over the past three days have claimed the lives of at least 27 civilians, including children as young as 8 years old.”

Syrian state news agency SANA said four civilians including two students were killed on Friday in Aleppo by insurgent shelling of university student dormitories. It was not clear if they were among the 27 dead reported by the U.N. official.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Friday that Moscow regarded the rebel attack as a violation of Syria’s sovereignty.

“We are in favour of the Syrian authorities bringing order to the area and restoring constitutional order as soon as possible,” he said.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Syrian opposition fighters ride in a truck as they enter the village of Anjara, western outskirts of Aleppo, Syria, on Thursday (November 28, 2024), part of their major offensive on government-controlled areas in the country’s northwestern Syria.
| Photo Credit: AP

Thousands of Syrian insurgents pushed on with their advances on government-held areas in the country’s northwest, reaching the outskirts of Syria’s second-largest city, Aleppo, and wrestling control of several strategic towns and villages along the way, activists and fighters said Friday (November 29, 2024).

Syria’s state media said projectiles from insurgents landed in the student accommodations at Aleppo’s university, killing four people, including two students. Public transportation to the city has also been diverted from the main highway linking Aleppo to the capital Damascus to avoid clashes, state-controlled media reported.

Fighters also advanced on the town of Saraqab, in northwestern Idlib province, a strategic area that would secure supply lines to Aleppo.

This week’s advances were one of the largest by opposition factions, led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, and come after weeks of low simmering violence. It is the most intense fighting in northwestern Syria since 2020, when government forces seized areas previously controlled by opposition fighters.

Syria’s Armed Forces said the insurgents are violating a 2019 agreement that de-escalated fighting in the area, which has been the last remaining opposition stronghold for years.

State media reported airstrikes on insurgents’ positions in Aleppo countryside.

The insurgents reported that fighters have wrestled control of the Scientific Research Center neighborhood, on the western outskirts of Aleppo city. It is the closest the rebels have come to Aleppo city since they were ousted from its eastern side in 2016.

Russia and Iran had helped Syrian government forces reclaim control of all of Aleppo that year, after a gruelling military campaign and a siege that lasted for weeks.

The battle for Aleppo was a turning point in the war between Syrian government forces and rebel fighters since the 2011 protests against Bashar Assad’s rule turned into an all-out war.

The war monitor Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said dozens of fighters from both sides have been killed in the battle that started Wednesday (November 27, 2024). The insurgents have seized control of more than 50 villages in their advance, which seems to have caught the government forces unprepared.

Insurgents posted videos online showing they were using drones in their advance, a new weapon they had not had previously in the earlier stages of their confrontation with government forces. It was not clear to what extent the drones were used on the battleground.

Aid groups said the fighting has displaced thousands of families, and forced some services to be suspended. The opposition fighters said their offensive will allow the return of thousands of displaced people who were forced to flee government bombardment in recent weeks.

The offensive also came as Iran-linked groups, who had backed Syrian government forces since 2015, have been preoccupied with their own battle at home.

Israel and Hezbollah, the lead group in the Iran-backed alliance, have been locked in a war that escalated since September. A cease-fire was announced Wednesday (November 27, 2024), the day the Syrian opposition factions announced their offensive. Israel has also escalated its attacks against Hezbollah and Iran-linked targets in Syria during the last 70 days.

Russia, along with Iran, backed Syrian government forces soon after the anti-government protests in 2011 turned into a war. Turkey has backed an array of opposition forces and established a military presence in parts of northwestern Syria. Meanwhile, the United States has supported Syrian Kurdish forces fighting Islamic State militants largely in the east of the country.

Sydney:

Jihadist fighters cut the Damascus to Aleppo highway on Thursday during an offensive that a monitor says killed around 200, including civilians hit by Russian air force strikes.

A day earlier, jihadist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and allied factions launched a surprise attack on government-held areas of northern Aleppo province, triggering the fiercest fighting in years, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said.

The toll in ongoing battles “has risen to 182, including 102 fighters from HTS”, 19 from allied factions “and 61 regime forces and allied groups”, said the Observatory.

“Russian air strikes on the Aleppo countryside killed 19 civilians on Thursday,” said Rami Abdel Rahman, who heads the Observatory, adding that another civilian had been killed in Syrian army shelling a day earlier.

Russia is a close ally of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and first intervened in Syria’s civil war in 2015, turning the momentum of the conflict in favour of the president, whose forces once only controlled a fifth of the country. 

HTS and its allied factions, including groups backed by neighbouring Turkey, “cut off the Damascus-Aleppo international M5 highway… in addition to controlling the junction between the M4 and M5 highways,” said the Britain-based monitor.

“The highway has now been put out of service, after it was reopened by regime forces years ago,” said the monitor, which has a network of sources inside Syria.

The junction of the M5 and M4 highways connects the capital and regime coastal stronghold Latakia with second city Aleppo respectively.

The UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said “more than 14,000 people – nearly half are children – have been displaced” by the violence.

Syria has been gripped by civil war for more than a decade, although the intensity of the conflict had decreased in recent years.

‘Pre-empt’ attack

Some of the clashes, which are happening in an area straddling Idlib and Aleppo provinces, are less than 10 kilometres (six miles) southwest of the outskirts of Aleppo city.

“This operation aims to repel the sources of fire of the criminal enemy from the frontlines,” said Mohamed Bashir, who heads HTS’s so-called “Salvation Government”, during a press conference.

Analyst Nick Heras of the New Lines Institute for Strategy and Policy said the rebels were “trying to preempt the possibility of a Syrian military campaign in the region of Aleppo, which Russian and Syrian government airstrikes against rebel areas has been preparing for”.

With some Turkey-backed factions joining the offensive, he said “Ankara is sending a message to both Damascus and Moscow to back down from their military efforts in northwest Syria,” he said.

As well as Russia, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has been backed in the civil war by Iran and allied terrorist groups, including Lebanon’s powerful Hezbollah.

A general in Iran’s Revolutionary Guards was killed in Syria on Thursday during fighting between Syrian government forces and jihadists, an Iranian news agency reported.

Iranian ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei said the deadly offensive was “part of a plan by the diabolical regime (Israel) and the US” and called for “firm and coordinated action to prevent the spread of terrorism in the region”.

During more than two months of war with Hezbollah in Lebanon, Israel intensified its strikes on Iran-backed groups in Syria including Hezbollah.

Rebel forces “are in a better position to take and seize villages than Russian-backed Syrian government forces, while the Iranians are focused on Lebanon,” Heras said.

‘Heavy losses’

The Syrian jihadists and their allies launched their attack the day the Lebanon-Israel truce came into effect.

Analyst Haid Haid said the rebels had been “planning for this offensive for quite a while”.

But “if the rebel forces waited too long the regime would have been able to reinforce their frontlines as Hezbollah forces are no longer busy with the war in Lebanon”.

HTS, led by Al-Qaeda’s former Syria branch, controls swathes of the northwest Idlib area as well as small parts of neighbouring Aleppo, Hama and Latakia provinces.

An AFP correspondent reported heavy, uninterrupted clashes east of the city of Idlib since Wednesday morning, including air strikes.

A military statement carried by state news agency SANA said that “armed terrorist organisations grouped under so-called ‘Nusra terrorist front’ present in Aleppo and Idlib provinces launched a large, broad-fronted attack” Wednesday morning.

It said the attack with “medium and heavy weapons targeted safe villages and towns and our military sites in those areas”.

The army “in cooperation with friendly forces” confronted the attack “which is still continuing”, inflicting “heavy losses” on the armed groups, the military statement said, without reporting army losses.

Syria’s conflict broke out after Assad crushed anti-government protests in 2011, spiralling into a complex conflict that has drawn in foreign armies and jihadists. 

It has killed more than 500,000 people, displaced millions and battered the country’s infrastructure and industry.

The Idlib region is subject to a ceasefire — repeatedly violated but which had largely been holding — brokered by Turkey and Russia after a Syrian government offensive in March 2020. 

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)

Israeli strikes targeted Syria’s two main airports on Thursday, Syrian state television said, in the first such attack since a Hamas assault on Israel at the weekend triggered fierce fighting.

“Israeli aggression targets Damascus and Aleppo airports,” the state television reported on the messaging app Telegram, without providing additional details.

According to reports, Israel’s airstrikes hit runways of Syria’s airports in the already war-ravaged cities, activating the country’s air defence systems. 

All flights in and out of Syria have been cancelled, the reports added.

Israeli strikes have repeatedly caused the grounding of flights at the airports in Aleppo and the capital Damascus, both of which are controlled by the government of war-torn Syria.

The latest strikes came as Hamas and Israel traded heavy fire for a sixth day after hundreds of Hamas gunmen stormed across the Gaza border into Israel on Saturday and killed more than 1,000 civilians.

They also came as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken visited Israel, and hours after Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi, in a telephone call with his Syrian counterpart Bashar al-Assad, called on Arab and Islamic countries to cooperate in confronting Israel.

During more than a decade of war in Syria, Israel has launched hundreds of air strikes on its northern neighbour, primarily targeting Iran-backed forces and Hezbollah fighters as well as Syrian army positions.

Israel rarely comments on individual strikes it carries out on Syria, but it has repeatedly said it would not allow its arch-foe Iran, which supports Assad’s government, to expand its footprint there.

Iran, which backs Hamas, on Saturday celebrated Hamas’ assault on Israel, though it insisted it was not involved in it.