In a surprising new escalation in the still-unending war in Syria, Islamists from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham launched a massive attack on Syrian army positions.
The biggest clashes in Syria’s year-long war crisis are taking place north of Aleppo. They are backed by the Sunni Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which broke away from Jabhat al-Nusra, a follower of al-Qaeda. The group officially distances itself from it and tries to profile itself as a Syrian force that wants to use its position in the north of Syria and consolidate its power position and legitimize its ruling position.
The current composition and forces of al-Sham are not clear, according to some estimates it may have up to 20 thousand members who are recruited both from the territories that the organization de facto rules and from foreign fighters. However, for the past three years it appeared that Hayat Tahrir al-Sham would seek to consolidate its administrative position and minimize conflicts with Bashar al-Assad’s central government in Damascus.
The situation changed on November 27, when the group carried out a coordinated attack on Syrian army positions on the northern outskirts of Aleppo and seized a large amount of weapons and heavy military equipment, including armored vehicles. According to information from the humanitarian and monitoring organization SOHR, 65 al-Sham fighters and 49 Syrian army soldiers were killed in the clash.
Due to the scale of the fighting, during which hundreds of rockets and grenades were fired, an unspecified number of civilians died, as the fighting also affected the smaller towns of Nubl and Zahrá and nearby villages. It is speculated that the reason for the attack was the bombing of the Syrian and Russian air forces, which was aimed at the area of Idlib, which the terrorist organization, which is considered by both Syria and perhaps the United States or Turkey, considers it to be its domain. At the same time, it is speculated that it was an attack that was supposed to disrupt the gradual gathering of Syrian troops that were supposed to attack Idlib.
Current reports on the development of the clash are unclear. However, it is surprising official statement Iran, that the commander of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards, General Pourhashemi, was killed during the fighting. Iran has long supported the Assad government in the fight against the rebels, and in Syria there are a number of members of the Revolutionary Guards, who serve as a fighting force and instructors, as well as members of Hezbollah, which is supported by Iran and is consolidating state positions in the Shiite provinces.
The question is whether the conflict will now spill over into Idlib, whether it will continue on the outskirts of Aleppo, which has a strong garrison combined from members of the Syrian army and Hezbollah, or whether the clashes will subside. Although Tahrir al-Sham has a strong position within “its” territory, it lacks stronger foreign allies, as its courtship with Turkey failed in 2018.
The leader of the organization, Abu Muhammad al-Julani, repeatedly tries to profile the organization as a constructive political force that distances itself from al-Qaeda and, according to him, is not a terrorist organization – which, after all, was also his message to the US after the organization was designated as a terrorist organization. Tahrir also takes steps to support minorities such as the Druze in the territory it controls, but everything seems to be just Potemkin’s village to hide the movement’s Salafist and terrorist roots.
Source: zpravy.tiscali.cz
