Syrian rebel forces arrived at the gates of the key city of Hama on Tuesday, as their fighting with the military sparked "a large wave of displacement", a war monitor said. FRANCE 24's Sharon Gaffney speaks to Aaron Y. Zelin, Senior Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. He says that rebels from the HTS group have undergone “professionalisation” of their military and aim to recreate a conservative Islamist proto-state, rather than focusing on "global jihad".
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NewsTranscript
00:00This is Apropos. Syrian rebels are tonight pushing closer to the major city of Hama as
00:07war monitors report the heaviest fighting yet with government forces, insurgents capturing
00:12several villages today north of Hama, Syria's fourth largest city. An attack there would
00:18ramp up pressure on President Bashar al-Assad, whose Russian and Iranian allies have scrambled
00:24to support him since rebels captured Aleppo last week. And a sustained escalation in Syria
00:30risks further destabilizing the wider region, with the latest here's Solange Mujahid.
00:38Filming in and staking their ground in this palace is a prize in and of itself for these
00:42insurgent fighters, for it had been one of President Bashar al-Assad's residences. The
00:47symbolic seizing was part of a lightning fast storming of Aleppo, which began November
00:5227th. It was, for the coalition of groups, the biggest success against the Assad regime
00:58in years. Clashes between a constellation of insurgents and Assad's troops and his allies
01:05have now broken out across the war-torn nation, killing hundreds. It has also upped the ante
01:11among different foreign powers involved in Syria. According to the Syrian Observatory
01:15for Human Rights, Iran-backed Iraqi soldiers have been crossing into Syria to support al-Assad
01:22troops, and Russian jets have been bombing the insurgent positions in the northwest,
01:26like in Idlib. For civilians, full-on war is back in their lives, in a conflict that
01:32began in 2011 with al-Assad's crackdown on democracy protests, but which had been largely
01:38frozen since 2020.
01:40We woke up to the sounds of terror, fear and airstrikes. I can't describe the horror we
01:45witnessed and what we felt. We live in a camp that's next to a family that was hit.
01:52The UN says they are alarmed by the escalation of the sudden violence, which has in less
01:56than a week displaced nearly 50,000 people. More than half of them are children.
02:03Syrians have endured the conflict for nearly 14 years. They deserve a political horizon
02:09that will deliver a peaceful future, not more bloodshed.
02:14With violent clashes continuing in places like Idlib, Hama and Deir al-Zor, but also
02:19elsewhere across Syria, the UN's Human Rights Office says that civilians are being killed
02:24in the crossfire, adding to an already dire humanitarian situation, where nearly 17 million
02:30people in Syria depend daily on humanitarian aid.
02:39Good to have you on the programme with us this evening, Aaron. Syrian rebels, they're
02:47very close to Hama as we speak, just a few kilometres from the city. Just tell us what
02:53exactly they're looking for. They're vowing to push all the way into Damascus. How far
02:58do you think they'll be able to go?
03:02I think it's one of the biggest questions we have right now. Many people, even those
03:06that have followed Syria going back to the uprising in 2011, are quite surprised at how
03:11quickly Hezbollah, the main group that's led this offensive, took over Aleppo in four days,
03:17and now it's seemingly possible that they might take over Hama. One of the biggest questions
03:21going forward is how deep can they go into the core territories of the regime, whether
03:26it's on the Alawite coast or in sort of Fortress Assad in Damascus. So far, there's been not
03:31a ton of resistance. There's been more as they've gotten closer to Hama and Homs, which
03:35goes down to Damascus. But we'll see, depending on how Iran and its proxy network deals with
03:41these issues now.
03:42It seems like they have been facing, you know, kind of firmer pressure over the past 24 hours
03:47or so as they get closer to Hama. How prepared do you think these rebels were for this offensive?
03:53Had they been waiting for a particular opportunity to strike?
03:57Well, we've seen that Hayat Tahrir al-Sham built a military college actually about three
04:04years ago to try and integrate all the different insurgent groups that have been fighting under
04:08its command over the years to be more integrated and also more together when they do these
04:13types of operations. And we've seen sort of the professionalization of this in this campaign.
04:18I'm unsure that HTS or Jalani, the leader of the group, suspected that this would happen
04:25so quickly. I think that, you know, they've always wanted to take over Aleppo. They've
04:30always wanted to take over Damascus. It's more the speed at which it's all happened
04:34and the fact that the regime kind of collapsed. And I think they took the opportunity after
04:38sort of the fighting between Israel and Hezbollah went down because they didn't want to be perceived
04:43as being anything related to Israel. And therefore, once that ceasefire happened, they started
04:49to storm Aleppo. And we've seen everything that's happened now in almost the past week.
04:53Well, talk to us a little bit more about the jihadist group then, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.
04:57It says it broke ties with al-Qaeda back in 2016. Experts say that since then it's been
05:04trying to reinvent itself, so to speak. How does it differ from other militant groups?
05:09Who exactly is it?
05:12So I think one of the key things to understand is that it essentially went from global jihad
05:16when it was previously part of the Islamic State and al-Qaeda to now it's a local regime.
05:20It acts more similar to a lot of other authoritarian governments in the region of the Middle East.
05:26They disavowed anything related to any of those terrorist groups in the past. And what
05:31they've been doing since the ceasefire in 2020 is building up a lot of institutions
05:35in terms of a ton of ministries and offices and directorates to help people on a daily
05:40basis. They've primarily been focused on that alongside developing sort of the professionalization
05:45of their military capabilities to try and present themselves as more palatable alternatives,
05:52as well as being the key players now in sort of the opposition, even if the original protesters
05:58that went against the regime back in 2011 were calling for a liberal democracy. Now
06:02we're seeing more of conservative Islamist type of protostate being developed.
06:07And the speed at which they've been able to move through those areas of Syria, what does
06:13it say about the grip on power that Assad currently has?
06:18I think it's important to recall that most of the fighting that took Aleppo back from
06:23the insurgency back in 2016 was done by Iranian-proxy Shia militia, as well as Russian Air Force.
06:29Of course, there were Syrian regime fighters involved, but they did the bulk of it. So
06:35in many ways, we're just seeing a return to some of the lines that we saw eight years
06:41ago, but even more dramatically because the regime has been weakened so much over the
06:45last decade plus. Plus, you have to recall that Russia is a bit more distracted now as
06:50a consequence of going all-in on Ukraine. And then Iran and its so-called axis of resistance
06:56has been weakened a ton due to Israel's combating against them post-10-7 attack against Hamas
07:02as well as Hezbollah. And therefore, this has been the perfect opportunity from the
07:06perspective of a group like Hayat Takhar Hashem to take advantage. How far they can go, I
07:10think, is the million-dollar question. I think even people who follow this every single day
07:15when it was no longer the top news story are still kind of surprised at how quick everything's
07:19been going on.
07:21Could this be, then, the start of another Middle Eastern war? What does it tell us about
07:25how volatile, really, the wider region is?
07:30It illustrates that many of the grievances that animated people when the protests first
07:35started in 2011 remain, and that the main issue to stability in Syria continues to be
07:42the Assad regime and him and his Kochi are remaining in power. And until that changes,
07:49I think we'll continue to see spates of violence, whether it's larger-scale violence like we've
07:54seen in the last week or so, or more frozen conflict type of violence that we saw in the
08:00prior four and a half years.
08:02We also haven't discussed how other groups in the country might take advantage of this.
08:07We've seen that the Islamic State has actually been at its most active in the last year,
08:14in the previous three years, after building itself back up. Also, more in the eastern
08:18part of Syria. Of course, we haven't heard much from them in the last week, but there's
08:22no doubt that they'll try and take advantage of any deficiencies that the regime might
08:26have as well.
08:27So, they could end up, in effect, benefiting from what's happening now?
08:32Well, one of the good things is that the United States and the Global Coalition against ISIS
08:37remain in eastern Syria alongside the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces, so they've been
08:41continuing to fight them. The issue is less so in those zones, but more ISIS potentially
08:46taking advantage in the area where the Assad regime currently controls, because they are
08:50now probably a bit more distracted in dealing with what they perceive as a greater threat
08:55right now.
08:56What impact then on what happens in Lebanon then?
09:01For now, at least, we haven't seen any spillover. However, if you go back to 2012, 2013, 2014,
09:09you did see a bunch of people becoming refugees going into Lebanon. You also saw Al-Qaeda
09:17in the Islamic State trying to do terrorist attacks, and then you also saw Hezbollah coming
09:20into the conflict to assist the Assad regime. We saw a statement from some Hezbollah operatives
09:28recently saying that they don't necessarily have the capacity to do anything right now.
09:31So, for now, at least, I think that Lebanon and Syria are two different zones in terms
09:37of what they're dealing with. Lebanon more vis-a-vis the conflict with Israel over the
09:42past year, whereas Syria is more reanimation of the uprising that happened in 2011. But
09:49if things continue to deteriorate, it's definitely plausible that the situation in Lebanon could
09:56change also.
09:57And Russia, we've seen vowing to continue its support for the Assad regime, but what
10:02kind of resources does it have at this point, seeing the current situation in Ukraine?
10:09It's definitely a bit more limited now due to Ukraine. It's also key to understand that
10:14Russia's had a lot of military activity in different parts of Africa as well over the
10:20last few years, so they can't necessarily rely upon the same assets. And there's also
10:24been the defanging of the Wagner Group after Khrushchev tried to essentially do a coup
10:30d'etat on Russia last year. So, there's definitely a bit more limitations on what they can do,
10:35but there's no doubt that they will continue to be involved in the airstrike campaign.
10:39And mainly, it's been targeting random parts of Syria where the opposition is and has led
10:47to a lot of civilian deaths and casualties.
10:51Do you think, Aaron, it's likely that Russia and Turkey could be further drawn into the
10:55conflict, into direct fighting, perhaps?
11:00I'm not sure that either country wants to directly fight one another. However, there's
11:05obviously Turkey backing a different group than HTS called the Syrian National Army.
11:10They're more kind of in the north-central part of Syria, not really at the active frontline
11:16zone of what we're seeing in Hama now. But it's plausible that they might try and take
11:20more territory from the Kurdish-Syrian Democratic Forces, which in turn could lead to more issues
11:26between the United States and Turkey, because the US has been backing the SDF.
11:30So, as you can see, there's a lot of different countries and a lot of different factors and
11:33complexities within the broader Syrian conflict. Even if we just talk about Syria, there's
11:38a ton of different zones of influence by different countries, as well as actors on the ground.
11:43Aaron, thank you so much for taking us through all of that. That is Aaron Y. Zelland, Senior
11:49Fellow at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy. Thank you so much.
11:54That is it.