The offensive launched last Nov. 27 by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) Islamist forces continues in northwest Syria, where they now control much of Aleppo and Idlib provinces and from where they are moving southward threatening the city of Hama.
The Syrian opposition press claimed that there are now five military airfields that have fallen under the control of the Islamist group – Nayrab, Kuwairis, Menagh, Abu Dhuhur and Aleppo – causing a considerable reduction in the operational capacity of both the military forces of the Syrian regular army and those of the Russian and Iranian allies.
It would thus appear that the counteroffensive launched by the Damascus regime forces, as well as the aerial bombardment conducted by the Russian forces, would be ineffective, while more than twenty towns and small villages have progressively fallen into the hands of the HTS over the past few hours.
At the same time, Kurdish units of the Syrian Democratic Forces have also launched numerous attacks in the northeast of the country, mainly targeting the Deir ez Zor area, where, however, they mainly clash with the Turkish-backed Syrian National Army and only marginally with those of the Damascus regime’s army and its allies. Kurdish forces claimed yesterday to have captured at least 7 villages in the region, all previously controlled by pro-government forces, mostly part of the context of pro-Iranian actors.
According to some Arab media outlets, however, the Syrian National Army is also reportedly intent on launching its own offensive in the north of the country in the direction of the central and eastern areas, aiming to expand the territories under its control in both Kurdish-controlled and government-controlled areas.
On December 2, pro-Iranian Iraqi militias belonging to the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMU) were reported to be entering Syrian territory, heading toward areas affected by the fighting, and some of these convoys were reportedly hit by U.S.-led air raids. Representatives of one of these militias, Kataeb Hezbollah, have openly called on the Iraqi government to send regular army forces into Syria to counter the advance of opposition formations.
The Russian and Iranian military presence in the country, however, does not appear to be sufficient at this stage to halt the advance of the rebel formations, clearly demonstrating how the coalition supporting the Damascus regime has been caught off guard as much by the HTS military initiative as by its military capability.
Further posing a risk to the resilience of government forces and the regime of Bashar al-Asad is the likely concomitant inability of Lebanese Shiite Hezbollah militias to provide fighters for deployment in Syria. Indeed, according to reports in some Arab press outlets, which quoted anonymous Hezbollah officials, the Lebanese group would have no capacity to provide soldiers, weapons and ammunition to Syria at this time, as a result of the need not to further deplete its capacity in Lebanon.
Finally, the evolution of the conflict aggravates the humanitarian conditions in the region, where at least 50,000 people would be displaced according to the United Nations, leading to the need to provide for the entry of aid that is, however, impossible to deliver as a result of the continuing fighting.
Both the United Nations and the European Union have called for a cessation of hostilities, but with no real possibility of this happening in the immediate future.
