Syrian opposition leader says Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire opened door to assault on Aleppo

Anti-regime fighters pose for a picture with an army helicopter on the tarmac at the Nayrab military airport in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo on December 2, 2024. (Aaref Watad/AFP)
Anti-regime fighters pose for a picture with an army helicopter on the tarmac at the Nayrab military airport in the northern Syrian city of Aleppo on December 2, 2024. (Aaref Watad/AFP)

Syrian rebel fighters began preparations to seize Aleppo a year ago, but the assault was delayed by Israel’s war against Hamas in Gaza, and ultimately launched last week when a ceasefire took hold in Lebanon, the head of Syria’s main opposition abroad tells Reuters.

The insurgents were able to seize the city and other areas so quickly in part because Hezbollah and other Iran-backed fighters who support Syria’s president were still distracted by their conflict with Israel, Hadi al-Bahra says, in the first public comments on the rebel preparations by an opposition figure.

The assault in northwestern Syria was launched last Wednesday, the day that Israel and Hezbollah began a truce ending more than a year of fighting that began when the Lebanon-based terror group started its cross-border attacks, unprovoked, on October 8, 2024.

“A year ago, they (the rebels) started really training and mobilizing and taking it more seriously,” says Bahra, president of the National Coalition of Syrian Revolution and Opposition Forces, the internationally-recognized Syrian opposition.

“But the war on Gaza… then the war in Lebanon delayed it. They felt it wouldn’t look good having the war in Lebanon at the same time they were fighting in Syria,” he says in an interview in his Istanbul office.

“So the moment there was a ceasefire in Lebanon, they found that opportunity… to start.”

Rebel commanders have separately said they feared that if they had started their assault earlier, it might have looked as if they were helping Israel, then also battling Hezbollah.

The rebel operation is the boldest advance and biggest challenge to Syrian President Bashar Assad in years in a civil war, where the front lines have largely been frozen since 2020.

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