Rebels told Turkey about attack plan six months ago

9/12/2024 6:11

After 13 years of

civil war, Syria's opposition militias sensed an opportunity to

loosen President Bashar al-Assad's grip on power when, about six

months ago, they communicated to Turkey plans for a major

offensive and felt they had received its tacit approval, two

sources with knowledge of the planning said.

Launched barely two weeks ago, the operation's speedy success in

achieving its initial goal - seizing Syria's second city, Aleppo

- took almost everybody by surprise. From there, in a little

more than a week, the rebel alliance reached Damascus and on

Sunday put an end to five decades of Assad family rule.

The lightning advance relied on an almost perfect alignment of

stars for the forces opposed to Assad: his army was demoralised

and exhausted; his main allies, Iran and Lebanon's Hezbollah,

were severely weakened by conflict with Israel; and his other

key military supporter, Russia, was distracted and losing

interest.



There was no way the rebels could go ahead without first

notifying Turkey, which has been a main backer of the Syrian

opposition from the war's earliest days, said the sources, a

diplomat in the region and a member of the Syrian opposition.



Turkey has troops on the ground in northwest Syria, and

provides support to some of the rebels who were intending to

take part, including the Syrian National Army (SNA) - though it

considers the main faction in the alliance, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham

(HTS), to be a terror group.

The rebels' bold plan was the brainchild of HTS and its leader

Ahmed al-Sharaa, better known as Abu Mohammed al-Golani, the

diplomat said.



Because of his former ties to al Qaeda, Golani is designated

as a terrorist by Washington, Europe and Turkey.

However, over the past decade, HTS, previously known as the

Nusra Front, has tried to moderate its image, while running a

quasi-state centered on Idlib, where, experts say, it levied

taxes on commercial activities and the population.



Turkish President Tayyip Erdogan's government, which struck

a deal with Russia in 2020 to de-escalate fighting in

northwestern Syria, has long opposed such a major rebel

offensive, fearing it would lead to a new wave of refugees

crossing its border.



However, the rebels sensed a stiffening of Ankara's stance

towards Assad earlier this year, the sources said, after he

rebuffed repeated overtures from Erdogan aimed at advancing a

political solution to the military stalemate, which has left

Syria divided between the regime and a patchwork of rebel groups

with an array of foreign backers.



The Syrian opposition source said the rebels had shown

Turkey details of the planning, after Ankara's attempts to

engage Assad had failed.



The message was: "That other path hasn't worked for years -

so try ours. You don't have to do anything, just don't

intervene."

Reuters was unable to determine the exact nature of the

communications.

Hadi Al-Bahra, head of the internationally-recognized Syrian

opposition abroad, told Reuters last week that HTS and SNA had

had "limited" planning together ahead of the operation and

agreed to "achieve cooperation and not clash with each other".

He added that Turkey's military saw what the armed groups were

doing and discussing.



Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan, speaking in Doha on

Sunday, said Erdogan’s effort in recent months to reach out to

Assad failed and Turkey "knew something was coming".



However, Turkey's deputy minister for foreign affairs, Nuh

Yilmaz, told a conference on Middle Eastern affairs in Bahrain

on Sunday that Ankara was not behind the offensive, and did not

provide its consent, saying it was concerned about instability.



Turkey's foreign and defence ministries did not respond

directly to Reuters questions about an HTS-Ankara understanding

about the Aleppo operation. In reply to questions about Turkey's

awareness of battlefield preparations, a Turkish official told

Reuters that the HTS "does not receive orders or direction from

us (and) does not coordinate its operations with us either."



The official said that "in that sense" it would not be

correct to say that the operation in Aleppo was carried out with

Turkey's approval or green light. Turkish intelligence agency

MIT did not immediately respond to a request for comment.



Reuters was unable to reach a representative for HTS.







VULNERABLE



The rebels struck when Assad was at his most vulnerable.



Distracted by wars elsewhere, his military allies Russia,

Iran, and Lebanon's Hezbollah failed to mobilise the kind of

decisive firepower that had propped him up for years.



Syria's weak armed forces were unable to resist. A regime

source told Reuters that tanks and planes were left with no fuel

because of corruption and looting - an illustration of just how

hollowed out the Syrian state had become.



Over the past two years morale had severely eroded in the

army, said the source, who requested anonymity because of fear

of retribution.



Aron Lund, a fellow at Century International, a Middle-East

focused think-tank, said the HTS-led coalition was stronger and

more coherent than any previous rebel force during the war, "and

a lot of that is Abu Mohammed al-Golani’s doing". But, he said,

the regime's weakness was the deciding factor.



"After they lost Aleppo like that, regime forces never

recovered and the more the rebels advanced, the weaker Assad’s

army got," he said.



The pace of the rebel advances, with Hama being captured on

Dec. 5 and Homs falling on or around Sunday at the same time

government forces lost Damascus, exceeded expectations.



"There was a window of opportunity but no one expected the

regime to crumble this fast. Everyone expected some fight," said

Bassam Al-Kuwatli, president of the Syrian Liberal Party, a

small opposition group, who is based outside Syria.



A U.S. official said on condition of anonymity that while

Washington had been aware of Turkey’s overall support for the

rebels, it was not informed of any tacit Turkish approval for

the Aleppo offensive. The White House National Security Council

did not immediately respond to a request for comment on Turkey's

role.



U.S. President-elect Donald Trump on Sunday said that

Russia's abandonment of Assad led to his downfall, adding that

Moscow never should have protected him in the first place and

then lost interest because of a war in Ukraine that never should

have started.



Israeli President Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday noted his

country's role in weakening Hezbollah, which sources told

Reuters withdrew its remaining troops from Syria on Saturday.







GAZA FALLOUT



Sources familiar with Hezbollah deployments said the

Iran-backed group, which propped up Assad early in the war, had

already withdrawn many of its elite fighters from Syria over the

last year to support the group as it waged hostilities with

Israel - a conflict that spilled over from the Gaza war.

Israel dealt Hezbollah heavy blows, particularly after launching

an offensive in September, killing the group's leader Hassan

Nasrallah and many of its commanders and fighters.

The rebel offensive in Syria began the same day as a ceasefire

came into effect in the Lebanon conflict on Nov. 27. The sources

familiar with Hezbollah said it did not want to engage in big

battles in Syria as the group focused on starting a long road to

recovery from the heavy blows.



For the rebel alliance, the withdrawal of Hezbollah

presented a valuable opportunity. "We just wanted a fair fight

between us and the regime," the Syrian opposition source said.



Assad's fall marks a major blow to Iranian influence in the

Middle East, coming so swiftly after the killing of Nasrallah

and the damage done by Israel to Hezbollah.



Turkey, on the other hand, now appears to be Syria's most

powerful external player, with troops on the ground and access

to the rebel leaders.



In addition to securing the return of Syrian refugees,

Turkey's objectives include curbing the power of Syrian Kurdish

groups that control wide areas of northeast Syria and are backed

by the United States. Ankara deems them to be terrorists.



As part of the initial offensive, the Turkey-backed SNA

seized swathes of territory, including the city of Tel Refaat,

from U.S.-backed Kurdish forces. On Sunday, a Turkish security

source said the rebels entered the northern city of Manbij after

pushing the Kurds back again.



"Turkey is the biggest outside winner here. Erdogan turned

out to be on the right - or at least winning - side of history

here because his proxies in Syria won the day," said Birol

Baskan, Turkey-based political scientist and former non-resident

scholar at Middle East Institute.