Who are Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, the rebels seizing management of Aleppo?

Rebel forces launched the biggest offensive towards the Syrian authorities in years on Wednesday.

By Sunday, that they had taken management of “massive elements” of the nation’s second-biggest metropolis, Aleppo and had been advancing in direction of Hama within the south.

The shock offensive prompted the primary Russian strikes on Aleppo since 2016, and noticed Syria’s army withdraw its troops from town.

The assault was led by the Islamist militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) – which has a protracted and concerned historical past within the Syrian battle.

HTS was arrange beneath a distinct identify, Jabhat al-Nusra, in 2011 as a direct affiliate of Al Qaeda.

The chief of the self-styled Islamic State (IS) group, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, was additionally concerned in its formation.

It was considered one of the efficient and lethal of the teams ranged towards President Assad.

But its jihadist ideology gave the impression to be its driving pressure reasonably than revolutionary zeal – and it was seen on the time as at odds with the primary insurgent coalition beneath the banner of Free Syria.

And in 2016, the group’s chief, Abu Mohammed al-Jawlani, publicly broke ranks with Al Qaeda, dissolved Jabhat al-Nusra and arrange a brand new organisation, which took the identify Hayat Tahrir al-Sham when it merged with a number of different comparable teams a 12 months later.

The struggle in Syria has for the previous 4 years felt as if it had been successfully over.

President Bashar al-Assad’s rule is actually uncontested within the nation’s main cities, whereas another elements of Syria stay out of his direct management.

These embody Kurdish majority areas within the east, which have been kind of separate from Syrian state management because the early years of the battle.

There has been some continued, although comparatively muted unrest, within the south the place the revolution towards Assad’s rule started in 2011.

In the huge Syrian desert, holdouts from the group calling themselves Islamic State nonetheless pose a safety risk, significantly throughout the truffle searching season when folks head to the realm to search out the extremely worthwhile delicacy.

And within the north-west, the province of Idlib has been held by militant teams pushed there on the peak of the struggle.

HTS, the dominant pressure in Idlib, is the one which has launched the shock assault on Aleppo.

For a number of years, Idlib remained a battleground as Syrian authorities forces tried to regain management.

But a ceasefire deal in 2020 brokered by Russia, which has lengthy been Assad’s key ally, and Turkey, which has backed the rebels, has largely held.

About 4 million folks dwell there – most of them displaced from cities and cities that Assad’s forces received again from rebels in a brutal struggle of attrition.

Aleppo was one of many bloodiest battlegrounds and represented one of many rebels’ greatest defeats.

To obtain victory, Assad relied on Russian airpower and Iranian army assistance on the bottom – primarily via militias sponsored by Iran.

These included Hezbollah.

There is little doubt that the setback Hezbollah has suffered not too long ago from Israel’s offensive in Lebanon, in addition to Israeli strikes on Iranian army commanders in Syria, has performed a big half within the resolution by jihadist and insurgent teams in Idlib to make their sudden, surprising transfer on Aleppo.

For a while now, HTS has established its energy base in Idlib the place it’s the de facto native administration, though its efforts in direction of legitimacy have been tarnished by alleged human rights abuses.

It has additionally been concerned in some bitter infighting with different teams.

Its ambitions past Idlib had grow to be unclear.

Since breaking with Al Qaeda, its purpose has been restricted to attempting to determine fundamentalist Islamic rule in Syria reasonably than a wider caliphate, as IS tried and did not do.

It had proven little signal of trying to reignite the Syrian battle on a significant scale and renew its problem to Assad’s rule over a lot of the nation – till now.

Additional reporting by Maia Davies.