Syria: Assad under pressure in Aleppo

Islamist rebels in Syria are taking the fight to the Assad regime. Still, the strongman’s grip on power isn’t under threat. How events unfold will depend on a few factors.

Though his back is against the wall, Syrian President Bashar Assad can count on help. According to activists, Shiite militants have begun arriving in eastern Syria to fight alongside government troops battling rebels who drove Assad’s forces out of Aleppo last week and took control of the city. Some 200 pro-Iranian Shiite fighters have reportedly already entered Syria’s border with Iraq.

Assad can also count on assistance from Russia.

“Of course, we will continue to support Bashar al-Assad,” Russian media quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov as saying.

This weekend, Russia and Syrian jets flew joint sorties attacking Hajat Tahrir al Scham, or HTS, targets.

HTS operates in an alliance with the so-called Syrian National Army (SNA), an agglomeration of Turkey-allied Syrian opposition groups. The fact that HTS could launch such an effective assault against Assad has a lot to do with timing according to Andre Bank, Syria expert at the German Institute for Global and Area Studies in Hamburg. Assad’s closest allies, as Bank told DW, have all been weakened: Iran and Hezbollah by their war with Israel and Russia by its invasion of and ongoing war with Ukraine.

Bank says HTS’s assault proved so powerful because the group has managed to establish itself as the strongest force in western Syria: “HTS isn’t pursuing global jihad, but is concentrated solely on Syria, where it has installed itself as a self-proclaimed ‘saviour’ or ‘revival’ government. At the same time, the group has recovered from the massive losses of a few years ago.”

Another important fact: The group has also been able to rearm itself.

“Meanwhile, they are using new drone and missile systems,” Bank said. “One can safely assume that they are being supplied via Turkey.”

Syria: one country, four dominions

The rebels’ push is aimed primarily at the Assad regime, as London-based analyst and journalist Manhal Barish told DW. But, he says, it is also aimed at weakening the presence of Assad’s allies Iran and Hezbollah, as well as their Shiite partners from Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan.

Syria is currently divided into four dominions: the largest, comprising roughly 60% of the country, is controlled by Assad; HTS controls a small corner in the northwest; Turkey maintains control of two areas bordering its own territory north of that; and in the northeast, Kurdish groups hold power.

In Turkey’s interest

Turkey has controlled its larger swaths of territory since 2016 when it launched a military incursion in the border region. Turkish troops there have primarily fought Kurds whom Ankara labels terrorists. The fact that Turkish troops are now supporting rebel activities is likely part of Ankara’s larger plan to expand its control over northeastern Syria and Kurdish-controlled areas there.

Andre Bank says Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his Justice and Development (AKP) government are keen to create a buffer zone across the whole of those northern territories in an effort to resettle as many of the roughly 3.5 million displaced Syrians currently living in Turkey as possible — Syrian refugees in Turkey don’t want to return to areas controlled by the Assad regime for fear of persecution.

Assad’s reign: under pressure but not under threat

One thing that remains unclear is how far Russia is willing to go in terms of bailing out Assad once again. That said, Moscow has strong incentives to keep him in power. That’s because he is the guarantor of two key Russian military bases on the Mediterranean — its naval base at Tartus and its air force base at Hmeimen.

Still, analyst Bank says Assad will have to lean more heavily on his troops than he has in the past. Although the current insurgency is spreading, to Hama, for instance, some 125 kilometres (78 miles) south of Aleppo, Assad won’t really be under threat unless it spreads further still, to areas like Daraa in southern Syria. That is where the uprising that started the civil war began in 2011. Citizens in many parts of Syria are deeply dissatisfied with the Assad regime.

“If that evolved into an uprising, it could be a threat to Assad. But that is not the case,” said Bank.

Add to that, says Bank, the fact that, unlike the Assad regime, the Islamist groups operating in Syria are almost entirely isolated internationally. The threat to the regime could only become grave if Assad’s international backers were to refuse to come to his aid: “Then it becomes an open question. Last weekend, Iran’s foreign minister travelled to Damascus for talks. We’ll have to await the results.”