Syria: Islamist Forces Advance on Assad Regime-Held City of Aleppo in ‘Shock Offensive’
The Guardian: “The rebels have rapidly recaptured dozens of towns and villages in the Aleppo countryside, seizing a military base, weaponry and tanks from Syrian government forces.”
After years of relative calm, rebel Islamist forces have launched a major offensive against Bashar al-Assad’s Iran-backed regime in Syria.
Rebels, led by the Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), had entered Syria’s second-largest city, Aleppo, and were clashing with the forces loyal to the Assad regime. “The rebels have rapidly recaptured dozens of towns and villages in the Aleppo countryside, seizing a military base, weaponry and tanks from Syrian government forces, while some Turkish-backed Syrian rebel groups based elsewhere in north-west Syria joined the fighting,” the British newspaper Guardian reported Thursday.
Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), listed by the U.S. as a terrorist organization, has been backed by Turkey in the past. The HTS has been controlling parts of the nearby Idlib province under a Russia and Turkey-brokered truce in 2020. The HTS-led fighters broke the ceasefire on Wednesday and began making a rapid advance towards Aleppo, a city vital for the Assad regime’s control over Syria.
Absolutely historic footage from #Aleppo tonight.
Rebel forces reached the statue of Bashar's deceased brother Bassel al-Assad at the eastern edge of the New Aleppo district, taking down the regime flag.#Syria. pic.twitter.com/oacvTCwIZM
— Thomas van Linge (@ThomasVLinge) November 29, 2024
The Associated Press reported the Rebel advance on Aleppo:
Insurgents breached Syria’s second-largest city Aleppo after blowing up two car bombs on Friday and were clashing with government forces on the city’s western edge, according to a Syria war monitor and fighters.
It was the first time the city has been attacked by opposition forces since 2016, when they were ousted from Aleppo’s eastern neighborhoods following a grueling military campaign in which Syrian government forces were backed by Russia, Iran and its allied groups.
Witnesses in Aleppo city said residents have been fleeing neighborhoods on the western edge of the city because of missiles and exchanges of fire. The government did not comment on insurgents breaching city limits.
Syria’s Armed Forces said in a statement Friday it has been clashing with insurgents in the countryside around Aleppo and Idlib, destroying several of their drones and heavy weapons. It vowed to repel the attack and accused the insurgents of spreading false information about their advances.
Thousands of insurgents have been advancing toward Aleppo city since a shock offensive they launched on Wednesday, seizing several towns and villages along the way.
HTS is storming Aleppo right now. Several sources on the ground confirm they are now inside the main ring road and moving toward the city centre
Nobody expected they would go this far but regime officers are withdrawing and #Hezbollah & #IRGC bases are empty#Syria #Aleppo #HTS pic.twitter.com/tPgJueuKZC
— Broderick McDonald (@BroderickM_) November 29, 2024
There are conflicting reports about the ongoing clashes, with both sides making counterclaims. Embattled Assad-loyalist Syria Arab Army (SAA) in the city was receiving air and ground support from Russian — and perhaps Iranian — armed forces.
“Russian and Syrian warplanes bombed rebel-held northwest Syria near the border with Turkey on Thursday to push back an insurgent offensive that captured territory for the first time in years, Syrian army and rebel sources said,” Reuters reported. “The army said it was cooperating with Russia and unnamed “friendly forces” to regain ground and restore the situation.”
The Syrian civil war began in 2011, with various ethnic and religious armed factions fighting to oust the Assad regime. The Assad family, which ruled the country with an iron fist since the early 1970s, managed to retain control over a large part of the country after years of bloody fighting that led to the killing of over 500,000 people and displaced millions. Iran and Russia have backed the regime. Iran-backed Hezbollah terror group also increased its footprint in Syria during the civil war years.
🧵 1/ The situation in Syria is spiraling: In the most simple terms, we are seeing Erdogan-backed Sunni jihadists routing Khamenei and Putin-backed Assad loyalists. https://t.co/y9hxolRhXP
— Simone Ledeen (@SimoneLedeen) November 29, 2024
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Comments
Who are the ‘good guys’ here? Maybe none?
Definitly not the islamic monsters
Bingo. Birds of a feather. Islamofascists/terrorists vs. secular Arab despots.
This feels to me like watching Enemy at the Gates – I hate both sides, and cannot pick a side to root for.
Both sides shout: Allah Ahkbar!!
The good guys are ordinary young Syrian men and boys who are being motivated to avenge their elders, their women and their girls against the monster who hurt them.
That they may be marching under the banner of bad guys to do a good thing may add a shade of grey to things but it does not make the 17 year old Syrian boys fighting to free their nation something other than heroes.
I hope that a situation of an 19 year old Whitewall seeing a president eliminate congress, the senate and the supreme court, ruling as supreme dictator without a constitution restraining them, surviving attempts to overthrow him by inviting multiple foreign armies into the country to kill Americans, one of those armies going beyond mass murder to enslave scores of young women and girls for sale as S…. Slaves…….that you would be marching under banner to free the nation.
That is what happened in Syria.
They may not be in charge of the resistance but there are good guys 100%.
No good guys here. It is Alawite (Shia) vs Sunni.
They’re killing each other for Allah what a screwed up religion
A gentle reminder that we Christians did that occasionally in the past…
Christians also reformed themselves. Muslims have not yet.
I promise you 100% that if an American president took control of America as a permanent dictator eliminating congress the senate and the supreme court avoided overthrow by inviting foreign armies in that fought and suppressed the locals and sold the local women and girls in s….x slavery across the middle east oh lets call that army Hezbollah than you would have zero excuse not to be on Crusade to eliminate that president and free the nation.
There are flaws in Islam, but motivation to get rid of a beastly demon like Assad is not one of them.
Sadly, the desire to kill each other will result in great suffering for many millions that have no connection to their struggle, nor desire any connection to either side.
Good Lord. Can you imagine living in that country?
Since the rise of the Assad regime all Syrian mass murder to date has been committed by the House of Assad.
You act as if there is some form of parity between Assad’s monsters and his victims.
In some respects, the Russia-Ukraine war is like the US Civil War, with Russia having the relative industrial strength (like the North), but with both sides running out of soldiers. The Middle East is a mess. Then there is China and the invasion from our south to deal with. Thank you Brandon. DJT will have his hands full.
There is no parity between Assad and his monsters and his victims.
I wish the Syrian resistance had more worthy leaders but Assad’s history without doubt makes him the bad guy.
I promise you that the so-called “resistance” attempting to depose Assad will not be an improvement in terms of benevolence; certainly not with respect to Jews and Christians.
Unless of course they wish to align with the United States and have a better life for the next generation than the sanction filled cesspit of filth hate preaching clerics, and other crap Assad is providing them with.
Does Tulsi Gabbard support Assad?
I really wish she didn’t in the past and hope she learned the error of her ways from getting burned previously.
Looks like she was rewarded, no? And is it true that she supports Russia as well?
The reward isn’t for her anti-American past however I have a very hard time interpreting her statements following Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine in another way.
There are a grand total of two people who alarm me by being in Trump’s orbit and she is one of them (the other being Tucker Carlson).
Laura Loomer would alarm me but she is frankly a nobody.
These are the unintended consequences of war, where the dice may fall is anyone’s guess. On one side we have the forces of Assad, Iranian Revolutionary Guard, Hezbollah, and Iraqi forces thrown in by Iran. On the other side you have the jihadist forces back by Turkey, the Kurds of the Syrian Democratic Forces also probably backed by the US. The Iranians are going home and the Russians are going to cut out too. Assad will be out in few days. Hezbollah, which murdered many Syrians, will be wiped out in Syria. We will end up with the Shia and Sunni murdering each other until an agreement on running the country is signed. Most likely Erdogan, the Caliph of Islam, will expand his control.
I am for the life of me struggling to think of one good reason not to despise Assad and to be glad his life is in danger and hope his people get to give him the treatment he deserves (a.k.a. justice).
Am I supposed to have less sympathy for the Syrian women and girls enslaved as (censored) slaves and sold across the middle east (including Gaza) than others?
Am I supposed to avoid thinking about the numbers of civilians he deliberately killed throughout his reign?
There is of course foreign policy…..decades of fighting America on behalf of Russia Iran and China……nothing there to mourn for.
We do not know what comes next but we do know the chance it is worst than the status quo are pretty close to zero.
I also have to point out the record of mainstream media and reporting on Syria instead of parroting Syrian Regime official state propaganda as the law of god immovable indisputable is not a good one.
Who says they are Islamist? What do they say they are?
Mainstream media launched an official Jihad against Saudi Arabia for killing an Islamist radical revolutionary citizen of Saudi Arabia they actively promoted so forgive me for taking their attack on Syrian rebels fighting for freedom with a grain of salt.
Source being the Guardian….please maintain some skepticism.
According to the guardian everyone at Legal Insurrection is a genocide supporting Nazi who voted to end Democracy so please for the love of god stop trusting them.
The Guardian is one long daily nervous breakdown.
I couldn’t agree more although I do wish to know who exactly disagrees that the Guardian is not a good source?
It is an activist rag and should not be trusted.
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