Syria's rebel groups that have taken Aleppo and surrounding zones "spread very quickly and very thin" and are likely to face serious difficulties in governing the areas they have captured, Dr Rim Turkmani, Director of the Syria Conflict Research Programme at the London School of Economics, tells AFP. She also says that President Bashar al-Assad is likely to "continue to rely on Iran and Russia", even if his ability to do so is "limited" partly due to Iran being weakened by wider regional conflict with Israel.
Category
🗞
NewsTranscript
00:00And many policy makers thought, well Assad won, there is no war, things are working.
00:07Things were not working.
00:08And we've been worrying about this for years, that the fact that there is no intense violence
00:13doesn't mean that the conflict is over.
00:16What we had is a cessation of hostility that was contingent on very delicate regional agreements
00:23between different regional and international powers.
00:29So the rebel groups that started this offensive is a coalition that has different Syrian armed
00:35groups, but at the heart of it, there is HGS, which is Designated Terrorist Organization.
00:42But it's very well organized, very ideologically driven, and was able to pull this together.
00:48However, they spread very quickly and very thin.
00:53And I think very quickly they're going to realize it's beyond their capacity to maintain
00:57these areas, and most importantly, to govern them.
01:00It appears that the regional conditions made it more possible for them.
01:07The fact that Iran has been weakened, Hezbollah has been also weakened, its presence inside
01:13Syria, and there seemed to be a green light coming from Turkey as well for this to happen.
01:19I think all together kind of created the right condition for them to just go in.
01:26But again, they were ready.
01:27So they were planning for this for a long time.
01:31I think Bashar al-Assad will continue to rely on Iran and Russia.
01:36But what did they do to him in the last few days?
01:39Not much.
01:40If anything, the Iranian forces withdrew and left the city of Aleppo exposed.
01:44We haven't seen an early Russian intervention.
01:47Iraq, Iran is much weaker right now.
01:52So its ability to rely on them is limited.
01:57Those people, especially in the city, overnight their life has changed.
02:01They were living under a state actor, whether they liked it or not, and now suddenly it's
02:05non-state actor.
02:06What's going to happen to you?
02:07To all your life?
02:09If you're a university student, what's going to happen to your degree, to your classes?
02:13Life changed overnight, and they're very, very worried.
02:16We need to think of those people, see how we can help them, and particularly in helping
02:21them to take charge of their own city.