Who is the Syrian rebel group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS)?

Rebels entered the Syrian capital, Damascus, amid reports that President Bashar al-Assad had fled by plane to an unknown location.

In a broadcast, the group said the city had been “liberated and the tyrant Bashar al-Assad has been toppled.”

“Long live a free and independent Syria for all Syrians of all sects,” they added.

The blitz, led by Abu Mohammed al-Jawlani, began with the sudden capture of Aleppo in late November. It appears to have brought about the end of the regime in less than two weeks.

It is known that there are many cases of Syrian soldiers leaving their posts or defecting to anti-government forces.

The first attack was led by the Islamist militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), which has long been involved in the Syrian conflict.

HTS has been designated a terrorist organization by the United Nations, the United States, Türkiye, and other countries.

HTS was founded under a different name, Jabhat Al NusraIn 2011, it became a direct affiliate of Al Qaeda.

The self-proclaimed leader of the Islamic State (IS) Abu Bakr al-BaghdadiAlso participated in the formation.

It was considered one of the most effective and lethal groups against President Assad.

However, jihadist ideology rather than revolutionary passion seemed to be their driving force, and at the time appeared to be at odds with the main rebel coalition under the banner of Free Syria.

And in 2016, the group’s leader, Abu Mohammed al-Jawlani, publicly severed ties with al Qaeda. Disband Jabhat al-Nusra and establish a new organizationA year later it merged with another similar group and took the name Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.

For some time now, HTS has established a power base in the northwestern province of Idlib, where it has taken over the de facto administration of the province, but its efforts at legitimacy have been overshadowed by allegations of human rights abuses.

They also had intense infighting with other groups.

Ambitions beyond Idlib have become unclear.

Since breaking with al-Qaeda, their goals have been limited to efforts to establish fundamentalist Islamic rule in Syria rather than a broader caliphate, as IS attempted and failed to do.

So far, there has been little sign of any attempt to reignite the Syrian conflict on a large scale and renew a challenge to Assad’s rule over much of the country.

In March 2011, pro-democracy protests erupted in the southern city of Deraa, inspired by uprisings in neighboring countries against repressive rulers.

Protests have erupted across the country demanding the president’s resignation after the Syrian government used lethal force to suppress dissent.

Unrest spread and crackdowns intensified. Opposition supporters took up arms, first to defend themselves and later to eliminate security forces. Assad vowed to suppress “foreign-backed terrorism.”

Hundreds of rebel groups emerged, foreign powers began to take sides, and extremist jihadist organizations such as the Islamic State (IS) and al-Qaeda began to become involved.

Violence escalated rapidly and the country plunged into a full-blown civil war that attracted regional and global powers.

More than 500,000 people lost their lives and 12 million were forced to flee their homes. Of these, approximately 5 million are overseas refugees or asylum seekers.

For the past four years, it has felt like the war in Syria was effectively over.

President Bashar al-Assad’s rule has essentially been unrivaled in the country’s main cities, and some other parts of Syria remain outside his direct control.

This includes Kurdish-majority areas in the east, which have been separated to some extent from Syrian government control since the beginning of the conflict.

In the south, where a revolution against Assad’s rule began in 2011, some relatively quiet unrest has persisted.

In the vast Syrian desert, insurgents from a group calling themselves Islamic State still pose a security threat. This is especially true during truffle hunting season, when people head to the area in search of the highly lucrative delicacy.

And Idlib province in the northwest was controlled by militants who flocked there during the height of the war.

HTS, the ruling force in Idlib, is the one who carried out the surprise attack on Aleppo.

Idlib has remained a battleground for years as Syrian government forces struggle to regain control.

but 2020 ceasefire agreement mediated by RussiaTurkey, which has long been Assad’s main ally and has supported the rebels, has largely held out.

About 4 million people live there. Most of these people have been displaced from villages and cities that Assad’s forces reclaimed from rebels in a brutal war of attrition.

Aleppo was one of the bloodiest battlefields and one of the rebels’ biggest defeats.

To achieve victory, President Assad could not rely solely on an ill-equipped and undermotivated conscript army. The conscript army soon grew dangerously large and was unable to regularly hold its ground against rebel attacks.

Instead, he became heavily dependent on Russian air power and Iranian ground military support, primarily through Tehran-backed militias.

This also included Hezbollah.

There is no doubt about the recent setbacks Hezbollah has suffered. Israel’s offensive on LebanonIsrael’s attack on Iranian military commanders in Syria played a key role in the decision by jihadists and rebel groups in Idlib to make a sudden and unexpected move to Aleppo.

Over the past few months, Israel has stepped up its attacks on Iran-linked groups and supply chains, inflicting significant damage on the networks that have kept these militias, including Hezbollah, operating in Syria.

Without them, President Assad’s forces are left exposed.