Who’re Syrian rebels Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, HTS?

Insurgent forces have entered the Syrian capital Damascus with experiences that President Bashar al-Assad has fled the nation by aircraft to an unknown location.

In a televised announcement, the group stated the town had been “liberated, the tyrant Bashar al-Assad has been toppled”.

“Lengthy dwell a free and unbiased Syria for all Syrians of all sects,” they added.

The lightning offensive, led by Abu Mohammed al-Jawlani, started with the sudden seize of Aleppo in late November. It seems to have introduced down the tip of the regime in lower than two weeks.

In lots of cases, it’s reported that the Syrian army both left their posts or defected to the opposition.

The preliminary assault was led by the Islamist militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) – which has a protracted and concerned historical past within the Syrian battle.

HTS is designated as a terrorist organisation by the UN, US, Turkey and different international locations.

HTS was arrange underneath a distinct identify, Jabhat al-Nusra, in 2011 as a direct affiliate of al-Qaeda.

The chief of the self-styled Islamic State (IS) group, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, was additionally concerned in its formation.

It was thought to be one of the vital efficient and lethal of the teams ranged in opposition to President Assad.

However its jihadist ideology seemed to be its driving drive quite than revolutionary zeal – and it was seen on the time as at odds with the principle insurgent coalition underneath the banner of Free Syria.

And in 2016, the group’s chief, Abu Mohammed al-Jawlani, publicly broke ranks with al-Qaeda, dissolved Jabhat al-Nusra and arrange a brand new organisation, which took the identify Hayat Tahrir al-Sham when it merged with a number of different comparable teams a 12 months later.

For a while now, HTS has established its energy base within the north-western province of Idlib the place it’s the de facto native administration, though its efforts in the direction of legitimacy have been tarnished by alleged human rights abuses.

It has additionally been concerned in some bitter infighting with different teams.

Its ambitions past Idlib had turn into unclear.

Since breaking with al-Qaeda, its objective has been restricted to making an attempt to ascertain fundamentalist Islamic rule in Syria quite than a wider caliphate, as IS tried and didn’t do.

It had proven little signal of making an attempt to reignite the Syrian battle on a serious scale and renew its problem to Assad’s rule over a lot of the nation – till now.

In March 2011, pro-democracy demonstrations erupted within the southern metropolis of Deraa, impressed by uprisings in neighbouring international locations in opposition to repressive rulers.

When the Syrian authorities used lethal drive to crush the dissent, protests demanding the president’s resignation erupted nationwide.

The unrest unfold and the crackdown intensified. Opposition supporters took up arms, first to defend themselves and later to rid their areas of safety forces. Mr Assad vowed to crush what he known as “foreign-backed terrorism”.

Tons of of insurgent teams sprang up, international powers started to take sides and extremist jihadist organisations such because the Islamic State (IS) group and al-Qaeda, grew to become concerned.

The violence quickly escalated and the nation descended right into a full-scale civil warfare drawing in regional and world powers.

Greater than half 1,000,000 individuals have been killed and 12 million have been compelled to flee their properties, about 5 million of whom are refugees or asylum seekers overseas.

The warfare in Syria had for the previous 4 years felt as if it have been successfully over.

President Bashar al-Assad’s rule had basically been uncontested within the nation’s main cities, whereas another components of Syria remained out of his direct management.

These embody Kurdish majority areas within the east, which have been roughly separate from Syrian state management for the reason that early years of the battle.

There had been some continued, although comparatively muted unrest, within the south the place the revolution in opposition to Assad’s rule started in 2011.

Within the huge Syrian desert, holdouts from the group calling themselves Islamic State nonetheless pose a safety menace, notably through the truffle searching season when individuals head to the world to seek out the extremely worthwhile delicacy.

And within the north-west, the province of Idlib has been held by militant teams pushed there on the peak of the warfare.

HTS, the dominant drive in Idlib, is the one which has launched the shock assault on Aleppo.

For a number of years, Idlib remained a battleground as Syrian authorities forces tried to regain management.

However a ceasefire deal in 2020 brokered by Russia, which has lengthy been Assad’s key ally, and Turkey, which has backed the rebels, has largely held.

About 4 million individuals dwell there – most of them displaced from cities and cities that Assad’s forces received again from rebels in a brutal warfare of attrition.

Aleppo was one of many bloodiest battlegrounds and represented one of many rebels’ largest defeats.

To attain victory, President Assad couldn’t rely upon the nation’s under-equipped and poorly motivated conscript military alone, which quickly grew to become dangerously stretched and often unable to carry positions in opposition to insurgent assaults.

As a substitute, he got here to rely closely on Russian airpower and Iranian army assistance on the bottom – primarily by way of militias sponsored by Tehran.

These included Hezbollah.

There may be little doubt that the setback Hezbollah has suffered lately from Israel’s offensive in Lebanon, in addition to Israeli strikes on Iranian army commanders in Syria, has performed a big half within the choice by jihadist and insurgent teams in Idlib to make their sudden, surprising transfer on Aleppo.

Prior to now few months, Israel has intensified its assaults on Iranian-linked teams in addition to their provide traces, inflicting critical harm on the networks which have stored these militias, together with Hezbollah, operative in Syria.

With out them, President Assad’s forces have been left uncovered.