Russian warplanes joined Syrian government jets for intense airstrikes against the rebel-held city of Idlib on Saturday and Sunday, killing dozens of civilians along with the militants, including at least ten children.
Syria’s state SANA news agency claimed on Sunday that “dozens of terrorists were either killed or wounded” by joint Russian-Syrian airstrikes against the al-Safira suburbs of Aleppo, the major city threatened by the surprise insurgent offensive.
SANA additionally claimed that government forces were able to shoot down a rebel drone over the city of Masyaf near the Lebanese border. A Hezbollah missile factory near Masyaf was destroyed by Israeli airstrikes in early September.
Masyaf is located in the Hama province, where rebel forces said they made significant advances over the weekend, capturing several towns. If these claims are accurate, the insurgents now control a sizable amount of territory spread across Hama, Idlib, and Aleppo provinces.
The Syrian government’s scramble to protect Hama from the rapidly-expanding rebel offensive does not appear to have been well-planned. The New York Times (NYT) reported that a large number of Syrian government vehicles were abandoned on the roads around Hama, apparently having run out of fuel.
Although the Syrian government constantly claims its counter-offensives have been successful, outside observers say the jihadi rebels led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), an offshoot of al-Qaeda, are steadily gaining ground and appear to have taken over most of Aleppo. HTS fighters are posting photos of themselves in captured military installations across the city. HTS felt secure enough in its control to impose a 12-hour curfew across Aleppo on Sunday night.
Syria’s civil defense force, widely known as the White Helmets, reported at least 25 civilian fatalities across northwestern Syria from the weekend bombing, including ten children. The White Helmets said total civilian casualties in Idlib and Aleppo have reached 56, including 20 children.
The London-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights gave a higher total of 71 fatalities, including civilians killed by Russian and Syrian government airstrikes on refugee camps.
One of the Russian-Syrian airstrikes reportedly struck Aleppo University Hospital near the center of the city on Saturday, killing a dozen people and wounded 23 more. Two of the slain civilians were identified as journalists.
The Iranian Foreign Ministry said on Saturday that its consulate in Aleppo was attacked, but it did not identify the attackers. The Iranian regime restated its support for dictator Bashar Assad on Sunday.
Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi met with Assad in Damascus on Sunday to state that Iran will “firmly support the Syrian government and army.”
“The Syrian army will once again win over these terrorist groups as in the past,” Araghchi said.
Tens of thousands of civilians have been displaced by the fighting, camping in the open over the weekend before heading for safe havens under Kurdish control in northeastern Syria. The U.S.-backed, Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF) militia said it was trying to bring Kurds to safety in areas it controls, but its effort to create a “humanitarian corridor” was thwarted by Turkish troops allied with the jihadi insurgents.
The Syrian Defense Ministry on Sunday claimed it could have pushed the insurgents out of Aleppo, but had to fall back and regroup to “save the lives of civilians.”
The Biden administration’s response to the jihadi offensive has been characteristically confused and ineffective, with White House officials doing little more than insisting they do not like the HTS rebels and have not been assisting them.
“Let me tell you one thing we weren’t surprised by. We were not surprised that these rebels would try to take advantage of a new situation, in which the Syrian government’s main backers, Iran, Russia and Hezbollah, were all distracted and weakened by conflicts and events elsewhere,” outgoing White House National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan said on Sunday.
“The group at the vanguard of this rebel advance, HTS, is actually a terrorist organization designated by the United States. So we have real concerns about the designs and objectives of that organization,” he said.
“At the same time, of course, we don’t cry over the fact that the Assad government, backed by Russia, Iran and Hezbollah, are facing certain kinds of pressure. So it’s a complicated situation,” he said.
Assad and his patrons in Iran continue to insist the rebel offensive is a plot backed by the United States and Israel to overthrow the regime in Damascus.
“The terrorist escalation reflects the far-reaching goals of dividing the region and fragmenting the countries in it and redraw the map in line with the objectives of the United States and the West,” Assad said during a phone call with Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian on Monday.
“The new movements of Takfiri-terrorist groups are part of the plot of the U.S. and the illegitimate Zionist regime,” Iranian parliament speaker Mohammad Bagher Qalibaf said on Friday.
“After defeating the Zionist regime, the Islamic Republic of Iran and the Axis of Resistance will support the Syrian government and people against the new conspiracy like in the past,” Qalibaf vowed.
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