The Syrian civil war, which never really ended, has been brutally reignited. In the late morning of Friday, November 29, a coalition of forces opposed to Bashar al-Assad's regime entered Aleppo, the northern capital of the country, from which they had been driven out in late 2016 by government troops, backed by Russian aircraft and pro-Iranian militias, notably the Lebanese Hezbollah. A few hours later, during the night, photos of insurgents parading in front of the citadel, located in the heart of the city, appeared on social media. By Saturday morning, most of Aleppo had passed under rebel control, with many government buildings, including the governorate, police headquarters and prisons, seized.

This brutal turnaround was the result of an offensive launched just three days earlier by an alliance of rebel groups, dominated by the radical Islamists of Hayʼat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the former branch of al-Qaeda in Syria, in power in the province of Idlib, 60 kilometers further south. A new Battle of Aleppo is opening up, in a Middle East in convulsions, under the effect of the wars in Gaza and Lebanon.

On the ground, the Syrian army, taken by surprise, was unable to oppose the attack. The anti-Assad militias first seized military bases, the highway linking Aleppo to Damascus and dozens of villages, uninhabited because of their proximity to the front lines separating Idlib from the Aleppo region. This front remained active despite a ceasefire agreement in 2020, sponsored by rival Syrian powers Turkey and Russia.

The advance of the rebel coalition, which includes Ankara-funded groups, continued on Friday in the countryside around Aleppo and Idlib, as fighters entered Syria's former economic heartland. In the afternoon, al-Assad's protector Russia launched air strikes on Idlib. The Syrian army announced that it was sending reinforcements. On Friday night, the authorities closed Aleppo airport.

The rebels' swift advancement began on the very day that the ceasefire between the Israeli army and Hezbollah came into effect in Lebanon. This agreement, which came after two months of war, consecrates the weakening of Hezbollah, which lost a large part of its arsenal and its leadership, including its leader, Hassan Nasrallah, who was killed at the end of September.

According to several sources familiar with the situation in Syria, this offensive had been in the pipeline for several months. Its launch had been frozen during the war in Lebanon. But few imagined that it would take on such proportions. Moreover, the Syrian army and its Russian protector had stepped up their strikes on Idlib in recent weeks.

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