These forces are competing for influence on the Syrian battlefield

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) rebels and their allies last week launched a large-scale attack in northern Syria and captured Aleppo, the country’s second largest city. Another rebel group also captured Tal Rifat, a smaller municipality north of Aleppo, from Syrian Kurdish militias.

These new developments have ended four years of quiet in Syria, continuing to spark the civil war that broke out in 2011, with the presence of many forces and factions with intertwined and conflicting interests.

Once a French mandate, Syria became an independent country after World War II ended. In 1966, a group of military officers from the Alawite minority community, who follow a branch of Shiite Islam, staged a military coup to take power.

This helps the minority Alawite community become the most powerful faction in Syria, a country where 74% of the population is Sunni Muslim, alongside other large communities such as Christians, Druze and Kurds.

The above imbalance of power has created deep divisions in the country’s society and forced Syrian President Hafez al-Assad, a politician from the Alawite community, to respond with tough measures. After his death in 2000, his son Bashar al-Assad became President of Syria and has been in power ever since.

When the “Arab Spring” protest movement broke out in Syria in March 2011, the majority Sunni Muslim community supported the rebels who violently opposed the government.

President Assad also reacted strongly like his father. He ordered the deployment of fighter jets, helicopters, artillery and tanks to attack rebel groups, causing violence to flare up and become increasingly intense, turning into a civil war in Syria, as government troops opposed them. against rebel groups and rebels receiving support from outside powers.

Taking advantage of the chaotic situation in the Middle East after the “Arab Spring”, self-proclaimed Islamic State (IS) rebels rose up, occupied large areas of territory in Syria and neighboring Iraq, openly confronting them. with the West and wants to overthrow the Assad government.

The rise of IS has caused powers such as the US, Russia, Iran and Türkiye to increase military operations in Syria, a country with a geopolitically strategic position in the Middle East. Under the pretext of fighting IS, countries sent troops and equipment to build military bases, consolidating long-term political influence in Syria.

Continuous military pressure from the international coalition led to the defeat of IS, and the last stronghold of the rebels collapsed in 2019. But the powers did not withdraw from Syria, but continued to maintain a presence there, with the excuse of “preventing the rise of IS”, creating a situation divided 5-7 in this country.

With the help of Russia, Iran and the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, as of 2020, forces loyal to President Assad defeated IS, repelled Muslim rebel groups and controlled about 2/3 of the territory. Syrian territory, mainly in the central and southern regions.

After IS disbanded, large-scale fighting also ended, with only a few sporadic clashes occurring, leaving this situation largely unchanged until November of this year, when HTS and its allies opened fire. new attack.

Despite pressure from some countries, Mr. Assad affirmed that he would not give in to the rebels and called these groups “terrorists”.

The second most influential faction in Syria, after the government army, is HTS, The group was formerly known as al-Nusra Front, Al-Qaeda’s branch in Syria. This force is said to have about 15,000 fighters and has experience in administrative management in a number of areas outside the control of the Assad government in northwest Syria.

HTS is supported by the National Liberation Front, a coalition of rebel groups backed by Türkiye.

The third faction is Syrian National Army (SNA)another rebel group supported by Türkiye. The SNA was formerly known as the Free Syrian Army (FSA), a loose coalition of armed opposition groups founded in 2011 by defected Syrian army officers.

The FSA used to be trained and supplied with weapons by Türkiye, but lack of funds, infighting, and pressure from IS have weakened this alliance. In August 2016, Türkiye formed a new, more cohesive alliance, leading to the birth of the SNA, to help Ankara deal with IS and another strong force, People’s Protection Units (YPG).

The YPG is a militia group with a core of Kurdish fighters who fought against IS. This is the armed wing of the Kurdish Democratic Union Party (YPD), a force that is fighting for the autonomy of the Kurdish community in Syria and has shown a willingness to cooperate with any force that can help. they achieved this goal.

The YPG is the “backbone” of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), an organization established in 2015 under US sponsorship to fight IS. After the fall of IS, the Kurdish community and its Arab allies in Syria established an autonomous region in the northeast of the country, not affiliated with President Assad’s government or anti-government forces.

Great powers intervene in the Syrian civil war

America secretly supported rebels in Syria for many years to pressure the Assad government to accept a political agreement, but stopped this program in mid-2017. The US rarely attacks the military directly. Syrian government, but did so in response to Assad’s forces “using chemical weapons”, an accusation denied by Damascus.

The US military also plays a major role in the fight against IS in Syria. Washington began its air campaign against this organization in 2014, before sending ground troops a year later to support Kurdish forces in dealing with IS.

After IS lost all the territory it controlled in Syria, the US also reduced its military presence there, but still maintained a small force to fight the remnants of the terrorist organization.

Türkiye has a relatively complex role in the Syrian civil war. Ankara supports rebel groups and is an important member of the anti-IS coalition led by Washington.

However, Türkiye regularly attacks the YPG, even though this is the most effective ground force of the alliance and is supplied with weapons by the US.

Ankara considers the YPG an enemy because the group has its origins in the Kurdistan Workers’ Party (PKK), which has been fighting to establish an autonomous region in Türkiye since 1984.

Iran has deployed the elite Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) force to Syria to support the Assad government, Tehran’s main ally in the Middle East. Establishing an alliance with Assad’s government gives Iran access to the land corridor running through Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon, from which it can transport weapons and military equipment to the Hezbollah group more easily.

Hezbollah plays an important role in helping the Assad government control most of the country’s territory and still maintains a large presence in Syria. However, this force has weakened much after more than a year of fighting with Israel.

that has helped Syrian government forces change the battlefield since the start of the rebel air campaign in 2015. The country’s military still maintains a permanent presence at the base in Tartus port and Hmeymim airport near Latakia .

Despite having to focus on the campaign in Ukraine, the Russian air force in recent days has still actively supported the Syrian army in bombing rebel targets to stop the enemy’s progress.