Explainer

Who are the rebels battering Syria’s regime, and do they pose a risk to Israel?

The two groups leading the assault, HTS and the SNA, are now focused on their common foe, Bashar Assad. Where might they turn their attention in the future?

Gianluca Pacchiani
By Gianluca Pacchiani 2 December 2024, 10:45 pm Edit

Gianluca Pacchiani is the Arab affairs reporter for The Times of Israel

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group's chief Abu Mohammed al-Julani checks the damage following an earthquake in the village of Besnaya in Syria's rebel-held northwestern Idlib province at the border with Turkey, on February 7, 2023. (Omar HAJ KADOUR / AFP)
Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group's chief Abu Mohammed al-Julani checks the damage following an earthquake in the village of Besnaya in Syria's rebel-held northwestern Idlib province at the border with Turkey, on February 7, 2023. (Omar HAJ KADOUR / AFP)

Insurgent groups in northwestern Syria have launched a two-pronged surprise assault on Aleppo and its surroundings over the past few days, achieving significant territorial gains and dealing a major blow to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, while increasing pressure on his allies, Iran and Russia.

The offensive is led by two main rebel coalitions united in their opposition to the Assad regime, but with partly divergent objectives. The main spearhead is Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), Arabic for “Organization for the Liberation of the Levant,” the former Syrian branch of Al Qaeda under the name “Jabhat al-Nusra.”

While HTS officially seceded from Al Qaeda in 2016, it remains a Salafi jihadi organization designated as a terror organization in the US, the EU and other countries, with tens of thousands of fighters.

Its sudden surge raises concerns that a potential takeover of Syria could transform it into an Islamist, Taliban-like regime – with repercussions for Israel at its south-western border. Others, however, see the offensive as a positive development for Israel and a further blow to the Iranian axis in the region.

Returning to Aleppo on tanks

HTS is the most powerful rebel group in Syria, and for years it has been in control of the breakaway region of Idlib in the country’s northwest, along the border with Turkey, where it governs over 4 million people and runs a civilian administration known as the “Salvation Government.”

The UN has denounced arbitrary detentions, executions of opponents and other human rights violations in HTS-controlled areas. Washington has placed a $10 million bounty on the head of its leader, Ahmed Hussein al-Shar’a, known by his nom de guerre, “Abu Mohammad al-Julani,” whom the CIA considers a “Specially Designated Global Terrorist.”

Anti-government fighters wave opposition flags in Syria’s northern city of Aleppo on November 30, 2024, during a lightning offensive against forces of the Iranian- and Russian-backed government. (Omar Haj Kadour/AFP)

However, the group has also cooperated with international aid organizations, including the UN, to support the millions of displaced Syrians living in the Idlib region, particularly after a devastating 2023 earthquake.

Since 2018, HTS has also been designated as a terror group by Turkey, but it has long had an ambiguous relationship with Ankara, and some experts believe it launched the ongoing offensive against the Assad regime, a foe of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdoğan, with the latter’s tacit consent.

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)

“It is hard to believe that the rebels have launched this assault without Turkey’s approval. Otherwise, they would not be able to advance,” said Oren Peri, a Syria expert at the Jerusalem-based Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI). “If Ankara were opposed, it would intervene directly or with Turkish-backed militias to stop them. But Turkey definitely has an interest in the ongoing operation.”

The rebel offensive was launched just as a ceasefire went into effect between Israel and Iran-backed Hezbollah in Lebanon, which had suffered serious setbacks to its manpower and arsenal in recent months. The Shiite terror group intervened in the Syrian civil war on the side of the Assad regime and was pivotal in preserving the dictator in power.

After the assassination of Hezbollah leader Hassan Nasrallah in September, festivities broke out in HTS-controlled Idlib to celebrate the demise of the terror leader.

HTS launched its offensive against Assad forces last week in coalition with a number of smaller rebel groups under the umbrella of the “al-Fatah al-Mubin” operations room (“the great conquest” in Arabic). Among them is also a “Turkistan Brigade,” made up of jihadis from Central Asia.

The offensive, dubbed “Repelling the Aggression,” has taken the Syrian regime by surprise and has registered remarkable advances. Rebels have almost entirely conquered Aleppo, Syria’s second-largest city, taking control of key sites in the city such as the airport and the presidential palace, and are making their way to Hama, located about 130 kilometers (nearly 81 miles) to the south. The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights war monitor reported on Monday that HTS had already taken control of 16 villages in the Hama countryside.

The stated goal of the offensive, besides aiming to topple the Assad regime, is to enable millions of displaced Syrians in Idlib, Turkey and Europe to return to their homes.

“We left Aleppo by bus, and now we’re returning on tanks,” Mustafa Dahnon, a displaced Syrian journalist in Idlib, told the Lebanese newspaper L’Orient Le Jour.

The anti-Kurdish offensive

The second axis in the assault is led by the Syrian National Army (SNA), a coalition of rebel forces that emerged in northern Syria in 2017 and is backed, funded and trained by Turkey, as noted in a recent report by the Alma Center, an Israeli research institute focused on the security challenges in the north.

The offensive launched by the SNA-led coalition has been dubbed “Dawn of Freedom.” Its goal is not only to confront Assad’s army, but also Kurdish forces, with which it has long been in competition.

On Monday morning, the SNA said that it had taken hold of 12 villages north of Aleppo that were previously in control of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a US-backed coalition led by Kurdish forces that was instrumental in defeating ISIS in 2019.

Hostile to both the Assad regime and Turkey, the SDF controls vast swaths of north-eastern Syria, where it enjoys the protection of US army bases, and parts of north-western Syria west of the Euphrates River, where there is no US military presence.

The Turkey-backed SNA announced on its Telegram channel that its next goal will be conquering the Kurdish-controlled city of Manbij, located about 90 kilometers (55 miles) east of Aleppo, and to push Kurdish forces east of the Euphrates River.

The Saudi al-Arabiya network reported on Monday that 150,000 Kurds were being prevented from leaving the Aleppo area pending an agreement between the SNA and the SDF for the withdrawal of Kurdish forces. It also reported that several Kurdish civilians were killed as they attempted to escape from the Aleppo region to SDF-controlled areas to the east.

Unverified videos circulated on social media have also shown rebels abducting Kurdish women.

Is there a risk for Israel in the resurgence of Syrian jihadi rebels?

Jenan Moussa, a veteran Middle East reporter for the Dubai-based Al-Aan TV, warned of the danger posed by Islamist groups extending their control over large parts of Syria, and possibly dealing a final blow to the weak Assad regime and replacing it with Taliban-style governance.

On Sunday, Moussa wrote on her X account: “If HTS and allies take over Syria they will enforce a strict interpretation of Sharia law. Although there are cultural and historical differences between HTS and the Taliban in Afghanistan, think of Syria under HTS turning into a ‘Taliban-light’ state.”

Seemingly aware of its reputation, HTS has attempted to reassure the civilian population in the areas it has brought under its control. In its Telegram channel, the group wrote on November 29 that HTS is “part of the people and the people are part of us,” and its leader Al-Julani urged jihadis to show “mercy and kindness” to civilians of all confessions, according to a recent MEMRI report.

The group also appears to have taken an accommodating stance toward Israel. On Sunday, an opposition activist from Aleppo interviewed by public broadcaster Kan credited Israeli strikes on Hezbollah for aiding HTS’s surprise attack. “We love Israel and we were never its enemies,” the man said.

A billboard bearing a picture of Syria’s President Bashar al-Assad and a national flag are torn by anti-government fighters in the northern city of Aleppo on November 30, 2024. (Omar Haj Kadour / AFP)

An Israel official who spoke to The Times of Israel on Sunday would not say whether Israel saw the rebels’ successes as a positive development, noting only that Israel is “paying close attention all the time to what is happening in Syria, and is ready for any scenario.”

HTS is not an Israel ally, and its leaders are no friends of Zion. In an address from October 18, 2023, a few days after Hamas’s devastating attack on southern Israel, al-Julani said that the “people of Gaza humiliated the pride of the occupying Zionists” and “brought joy to the hearts of the oppressed.”

Similarly, HTS’s chief cleric Abdul Rahim Atoun, head of the Supreme Fatwa Council in Idlib, has a long history of anti-Semitic statements. For instance, after the killing of Hamas leader Yahya Sinwar by Israeli troops in Gaza in October, he wrote on his Telegram channel: “We ask the Lord to disgrace the Jews, oppress them and curse them and those who supported them.”

It is seen as unlikely, however, that HTS’s antagonism to Israel will extend beyond the rhetoric of some of its clerics. “It is not in their interest,” Syria expert Peri said.

The prime concern for Jerusalem for the time being is that the rebels, in their swift advancement, will take control of regime military bases and their armaments, and get their hands on the chemical arsenal stored in the Syrian regime’s network of “scientific research centers” known as CERS, which double as weapons development and manufacturing sites for the Syrian and Iranian army and were subject to repeated IDF raids in the past.

While rebel groups are not aiming to attack Israel, chemical weapons in the hands of the wrong people on the Syrian side of the Golan Heights may potentially pose a risk in the future, Peri warned.

Others, however, see the ongoing offensive as a positive development for the Jewish state to further debilitate Hezbollah and its remaining forces in Syria.

Nagi Najjar, a former Lebanese intelligence officer during the Lebanese Civil War and a former CIA consultant now based in the US, told The Times of Israel that Syrian rebels are likely sooner or later to confront the Shiite terror group on Syrian soil, and might even strike it inside Lebanon.

“The Syrian armed opposition can break up the Iranian axis of terror in Syria, and if needed, they could go into Lebanon as a multiplying force to decimate Hezbollah,” Najjar claimed.

“The Syrian opposition and the Israelis have a common enemy,” he added. “Let them do the dirty work on the ground.”

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