The Syrian military is coordinating with its various international allies to launch sweeping counterattacks against the rebel militias that captured Aleppo last week in a surprise offensive.

Iranian-backed militia from Iraq have entered the conflict to support the Syrian efforts to maintain President Bashar Assad’s regime. 

Russia has shored up its support for Assad with sweeping air strikes on rebel positions in Aleppo, Idlib, and nearby areas.

At the same time, the Turkish government is accused of supporting the rebel forces’ campaigns with military aid and intelligence.

This unexpected resumption of hostilities in the Syrian civil war sits at the intersection of political, religious, and ethnic hostilities spanning the Middle East and beyond.

Here are the key belligerents involved in the latest round of hostilities.

Hayat Tahrir al Sham

The informal coalition of rebel forces is being led by Hayat Tahrir al Sham, an outgrowth of al Qaeda, formerly known as the al Nusra Front. The group cut ties with the organization five years ago but is still recognized as a terrorist group by the United States and other countries.

The HTS leadership is demanding the dissolution of Assad’s government and a transition to its own style of Islamic governance.

HTS has historically proclaimed a jihadist worldview, but the group has attempted to moderate its public platform in recent years to garner international support, ostensibly abandoning its goal of establishing an Islamic caliphate in Syria. 

The U.S. Department of National Intelligence believes HTS has not abandoned such aims and continues to advance al Qaeda’s interests.

The group has maintained control over the city of Idlib since 2017 when it installed its Syrian Salvation Government as an opposition body to Assad.

The Syrian Salvation Government has worked with United Nations agencies such as UNICEF and UNHRC to provide humanitarian resources to its civilians. It has also overseen public infrastructure projects such as the construction of secular schools and utility centers. The region remains devastated by poverty, and political dissidents are regularly arrested.

SYRIAN GOVERNMENT RETREATS FROM ALEPPO TO ‘REGROUP’ AFTER REBELS TAKE CONTROL OF CITY

Bashar al Assad

Assad has enjoyed four years of stability after his Syrian Arab Army reestablished command over the vast majority of the country in 2020.

The HTS capture of Aleppo, the country’s second-largest city, is a punishing embarrassment for his government. The SAA spent four and a half years and countless lives taking full control of the city in 2016. It fell into rebel hands last week with almost no resistance.

The surprise blitz by well-armed HTS-led forces quickly routed the SAA, leading to losses unseen since the first years of the war. 

Assad held a favorable position throughout the 2000s due to his position as a secular leader in the Middle East, positioning himself internationally as a protector against Islamic terrorism. He commanded, and continues to command, widescale loyalty from the substantial Christian minority (around 15% of the prewar population) who likewise feared Islamic persecution.

A combination of drought, rising unemployment, and state repression led to a nationwide outbreak of violence in March 2011, spurred by a violent government reaction to anti-government protests. 

By March 2020, he emerged as the seemingly uncontested leader of Syria with the support of a loyal security establishment and extensive backing from Iran and Russia.

Iran

Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi assured Assad on Sunday that the Syrian government would have the full support of the Iranian military. Immediately following the meeting, Araghchi flew to Turkey, where he is set to speak with his counterparts about paths to peace.

Hundreds of Iran-backed militia entered Syria from Iraq following the SAA’s retreat from Aleppo to aid efforts to slow down the rebels’ advance.

“These are fresh reinforcements being sent to aid our comrades on the front lines in the north,” a senior source in the Syrian military told Reuters.

Iran sees the regime as a valuable ally in defense of both its geopolitical and religious postures in the Middle East. 

Iran’s international fighting forces, such as the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps and Hezbollah, were a key factor in Assad’s ability to hold on to power despite early losses in the first four years of the Syrian civil war.

Support from Iran-backed Hezbollah fighters and the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps were key factors in Assad’s ability to hold on to power despite early losses in the first four years of the conflict.

Supreme Leader of Iran Ali Khamenei spoke out against the insurgent forces Sunday, referring to them as “takfiri” — individuals who accuse other Muslims of apostasy. 

Khamenei characterized the rebels as counterproductive for Islamic political causes, saying their struggle to overthrow Assad is drawing attention away from their overarching enemies — Israel and its Western allies.

“Takfiri groups are good news for enemies of the world of Islam,” the supreme leader said in a message posted to social media. “Exactly at a time when all Islamic [believers’] attention is focused on the issue of Palestine, Takfiri groups, instead of concentrating on Zionist regime’s malevolent nature, draw the attention to other places.”

Iran, the largest of only four countries in the world with a majority Shia Muslim population, shares religious interests with Syria. Assad belongs to the Alawite faith, a Shiite splinter sect estimated to make up approximately 13% of the prewar population in a predominantly Sunni country.

While Shiites view the Alawites as having some heretical beliefs, relations between the two have been warm since the 1940s, when a joint movement of Shiite and Alawite clerics sought rapprochement. A prominent Shia cleric, Musa al Sadr, issued a fatwa in 1973 recognizing Alawites as Shiites.

The common cause in the civil war has drawn the two even closer.

Russia

Russia has taken an immediate and forceful stance in support of Syria, deploying soldiers and air support to pound rebel positions.

Russian President Vladimir Putin spoke Monday with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian about “the escalating situation in the Syrian Arab Republic.”

“Unconditional support was expressed for the actions of the legitimate authorities of Syria to restore constitutional order and to restore the political, economic, and social stability of the Syrian state,” according to the Kremlin.

Russia has been a strong ally of Syria since bilateral relations were established under the Soviet government in 1944. Russia has three major strategic interests in Syria — its only deep water port in the Mediterranean, its air bridge to Wagner mercenaries in Africa, and its largest electronic eavesdropping post outside of Russia. The Russian Orthodox Church also seeks the protection of the Christian minority.

Russia is also weary of the war in Syria becoming a training ground for jihadists from Chechnya, the Muslim region that fought two bloody wars against the government in the 1990s and 2000s.

Turkey

HTS is a military ally of Turkey, though the true extent of the alliance is unknown. 

Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan has denied any role in the recent offensive, though many of the participants enjoy close ties with Turkey.

After cultivating a close relationship with Assad throughout the 2000s, Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan dramatically turned against him when the civil war broke out in 2011. Turkey provided extensive funding, arms, and training to a variety of rebel groups, including Syria’s al Qaeda affiliate, Jabhat al Nusra, which would later become HTS. 

Turkey’s main priority, however, seems to be the Kurdish ethnic group.

The Kurds, organized under the Syrian Democratic Forces, have emerged as the biggest wildcard of the war, proclaiming neutrality after the SAA withdrew from the northeast in 2012. Kurdish militias took effective control of the ceded territory, eventually declaring a libertarian socialist Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria, otherwise known as Rojava.

Turkey has launched four armed incursions into Syria since 2016, mostly focused on combating the Kurds in the north. It continues to maintain proxy militias in the area.

Turkey has struggled with its sizable Kurdish minority for decades. It now fears that the Kurdish Workers’ Party, a communist Kurdish terrorist group, could use Rojava as a base to launch terrorist attacks. 

Another priority of the Turkish government is resettling the roughly 4 million Syrian refugees who currently reside within the country.

Turkey imposed a ceasefire in Idlib in March 2020, preventing the SAA from regaining control of the rest of the country. 

Up until the recent HTS offensive, Ankara had been warming toward Assad, seeking a resolution to the conflict. Negotiations reportedly broke down over Assad’s insistence that Turkey must withdraw from its occupied territory in the north.

The West’s response

Despite taking Aleppo and nearby regions with little pushback, HTS forces are now stalled outside Hama.

According to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, at least 514 people have been killed in the latest round of fighting. Over 500,000 people are estimated to have been killed in the conflict to date, making it the second bloodiest war of the 21st century after the Second Congo War.

The United States, France, Germany, and the United Kingdom released a joint statement Sunday night urging “de-escalation by all parties” and “protection of civilians and infrastructure to prevent further displacement and disruption of humanitarian access.”

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“The current escalation only underscores the urgent need for a Syrian-led political solution to the conflict, in line with [United Nations Security Council Resolution 2254],” says the joint statement.

UNSCR 2254, adopted in 2015 but never implemented, calls for an end to hostilities and the election of “credible, inclusive and non-sectarian governance” of Syria through “free and fair elections.”