What’s happening in Syria? Explained Premium

Syrian civil war reignites as Islamist militants make significant territorial gains, challenging Assad regime's control.

The story so far: Islamist militants in Syria’s northwest launched a surprise attack last week against the forces of President Bashar al-Assad and made dramatic territorial gains. The Syrian civil war, which broke out in 2011 amidst Arab Spring-inspired anti-government protests, had entered into a frozen stage in late 2016 after the regime recaptured most of its lost territories. There was relative calm, but no real peace in the Arab Republic. With the latest clashes, peace is broken and hot war has resumed.  

In 2015, before Russian President Vladimir Putin decided to send troops to Syria, the Assad regime was on the brink of collapse. He had lost most of the population centres, except Damascus and the Alawite-dominated coastal cities. There were multiple rebel and jihadist factions such as the Free Syrian Army, Jabhat al-Nusra (al-Qaeda’s Syria branch) and the Islamic State (IS). The IS was controlling eastern Syrian cities of Raqaa and Deir Ezzor as well as the ancient city of Palmyra. Al-Nusra and the Free Syrian Army were controlling parts of Idlib in the northwest. Other militant groups were controlling Hama, Homs, and even some neighbourhoods of Damascus. In the south, Daara and Quneitra were restive. 

The Russian intervention played a pivotal role in turning around the civil war. While Kurdish militias, backed by the U.S., fought the IS in the east and in the Kurdish border towns, the Syrian army, backed by Russia, Iran and Hezbollah, fought other rebel groups, recapturing lost territories. For example, by December 2016, more than a year after the Russian arrival, the regime retook Aleppo, Syria’s second largest city and its commercial capital. The militants continued to hold on to Idlib when the war got frozen.

Last week, the rebels launched their offensive from Idlib. Their initial objective, according to several war monitors, was to capture the western neighbourhoods of Aleppo. But the ease with which they pushed the regime forces out of Aleppo’s suburbs prompted them to expand the scope of the offensive and march towards the city. Within days, they captured Aleppo. They have now moved south towards Hama, a regime stronghold, and have cut through regime forces’ defensive lines. In the northeast of Aleppo, militants have captured territories from Kurdish rebels. In less than a week, the Idlib militants have more than doubled the territories they hold.

There are three main actors in Syria today. The most important actor is the regime, which is backed by Iran, Shia militias from Iraq and Russia. The second player is the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), which is basically an umbrella militia group involving People’s Protection Forces (YPG), the main Syrian Kurdish militia that controls the Syrian Kurdistan (Rojava). From the early stages of the civil war, the regime and the YPG had entered into a detente. The Kurds, who got their relative autonomy, and regime forces stayed away from targeting each other. The third actor is Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the main anti-government force that is in control of Idlib. The Turkey-backed Free Syrian Army is today called the Syrian National Army (SNA), which is practically a sidekick of the jihadist HTS. The ongoing offensive is led by the HTS, along with the SNA.

The HTS is led by Abu Mohammad al-Joulani, a 42-year-old Syrian militant. Joulani had moved to Iraq in his early 20s to fight the American occupation of the country (2003) and joined al-Qaeda. When al-Qaeda in Iraq was commanded by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, Joulani emerged as one of his close lieutenants. When Baghdadi decided to send a contingent of al-Qaeda jihadists across the border to Syria to fight President Assad after the civil war broke out, he chose Joulani to lead the pack. He set up Jabhat al-Nusra. Later, Joulani fell out with Baghdadi as the former wanted al-Nusra to join the Islamic State. Joulani wanted to retain his group as an autonomous al-Qaeda branch in Syria. 

When the world’s focus shifted towards the Islamic State, Joulani steadily built his empire in Idlib. The Islamic State was defeated and Baghdadi was killed, but Joulani emerged as the face of anti-regime Syrian militancy. He first changed the name of al-Nusra to Jabhat Fateh al-Sham. Later, the name was changed again to Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) as he sought to distance his group from al-Qaeda–though the HTS never renounced its Islamist ideology. Rebels and jihadists who lost territories elsewhere flocked towards Idlib as it offered refuge to all of them. Over the years, Joulani’s men built a parallel state in Idlib. Joulani is a U.S.-designated terrorist, but, after establishing his rule over Idlib, he declared that his fight was against Mr. Assad, not against the U.S. He has not faced any major attacks from the U.S., which still has hundreds of soldiers in eastern Syria.