Iraqi militias deploy in Syria to back government’s counteroffensive against insurgents

Iranian-backed Iraqi militias deploy in Syria to support government counteroffensive against insurgents seizing Aleppo.

Iranian-backed Iraqi militias have deployed in Syria to back the government's counteroffensive against a surprise advance by insurgents who seized the largest city of Aleppo last week, a militia official and a war monitor said on Monday (December 2, 2024).

Insurgents led by jihadi group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham launched a two-pronged attack on Aleppo and moved into the countryside around Idlib and neighboring Hama province. The push is among the rebels’ strongest in years and raised the prospect of another violent front reopening in the Middle East, at a time when U.S.-backed Israel is fighting Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, both Iranian-allied groups.

It also risks drawing Russia and Turkey — each with its own interests to protect in Syria — into direct confrontation.

Government troops built a fortified defensive line in northern Hama in an attempt to stall the insurgents’ momentum while jets on Sunday (December 1, 2024) pounded rebel-held lines. On Monday, Syria’s military said that their airstrikes alongside Russia's killed 400 insurgents over the past 24 hours. It said that government forces were mobilizing to encircle the rebels in the Aleppo, Hama, and Idlib countrysides.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian in a phone call with Assad on Monday said Tehran was willing to provide all the support needed to push back the insurgency. He echoed comments from Iran’s top diplomat Abbas Araghchi, who visited Assad on Sunday before traveling to Ankara, Turkey, one of the rebels' main backers.

Neither official further elaborated but Iran has been of Assad’s principal political and military supporters and has deployed military advisers and forces after 2011 protests against Assad’s rule turned into an all-out war.

Tehran-backed Iraqi militias already in Syria mobilized and additional forces crossed the border to support Assad's government and army, said the Iraqi militia official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.