Rebel force takes Aleppo. Why civil war in Syria rages again.

Published Dec 2, 2024, 6:00 PM

For the last eight years in Syria, a civil war, borne out of the Arab Spring protests, had come to something of a standstill.

The frontlines were largely frozen, with Syrian president Bashar al-Assad having control of the major cities, while militant groups wrestled for primacy in the regions.

That is, until the attack on the weekend, from a rebel force with origins in Al Qaeda.

So what happens now?

The last time Assad had his territory and military rule threatened in such a fulsome way, Russia came to his rescue, in a brutal campaign that involved the use of chemical weapons on Syrians.

Today, digital foreign editor Chris Zappone on the story behind the rebel group that took the city, why they want to topple Assad, and what role his allies might play again.

Audio credit:

From the newsrooms of the Sydney Morning Herald and The Age. This is the morning edition. I'm Samantha Selinger Morris. It's Tuesday, December 3rd. When rebel forces captured Aleppo, the second largest city in Syria, in a surprise offensive. It shocked the Syrian government. And no wonder, for the last eight years in Syria, a civil war born out of the Arab Spring, protests had come to something of a standstill. The front lines were largely frozen, with Syrian President Bashar al-Assad having control of the major cities, while militant groups wrestled for primacy in the regions. That is until the attack on the weekend from a rebel force with origins in al Qaeda. So what happens now? The last time Assad had his territory and military rule threatened in such a fulsome way, Russia came to his rescue in a brutal campaign that involved the use of chemical weapons on Syrians. Today, digital foreign editor Chris Zappone on the story behind the rebel group that took the city, why they want to topple Assad, and what role his allies might play again. So, Chris, tell us what happened on the weekend.

Okay. So Syria has had an ongoing civil war there for about 13 years in the past, say 7 or 8 years. It appears that it's sort of gone into a state of stasis. Over the weekend or over the past week, we've seen that an insurgent group that's sort of the primary insurgent group, because there have been a number of them. But the primary one is a jihadist group called Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. They launched a surprise attack on the government forces of Syria.

Smoldering buildings in Syria's second largest city, Aleppo, tells of an unpredictable new chapter.

And this has come as a huge shock to people who have been observing the Middle East.

Is the most serious challenge yet to President Bashar al Assad in years.

Okay, so you mentioned that the insurgent group that's involved in this really surprise attack that it's the most prominent one in Syria. So can you tell us a bit about them? Who are they and what do they actually want?

So they are an Islamist group. They're a jihadi group. So they believe in a militant political Islam. They want to topple the current government of Syria and replace it with an Islamist government. There have been a number of fighting groups involved in the Syrian civil war. There's been a sort of political evolution as far as the as far as the goals of these groups. Earlier on, there were groups that were more associated with Al Qaida, which, if you remember, that was the group behind the September 11th attacks. Their broad goal was to create sort of a worldwide caliphate. So sort of a revolutionary goal for the world united by this Islamist vision. Islamic State came along in more recent years around the fighting around Syria and also within Iraq, and they believed in creating an Islamic state. So a state with borders within the Middle East. This current group is led by a figure named Abu Mohammad Al-julani, and he is somebody who has been active fighting in Syria for years now. And he's considered actually one of the most effective fighters.

And so let's just pause for a second. Maybe you can sort of take a step back and explain to us a bit of the context. So why has there been so much instability in this country?

So Syria, I mean, I guess if you went way back, you would say it goes back to the borders that were drawn in the Middle East after the end of World War one by outside colonial powers. But what we've seen in more recent years is there was a movement in Syria for liberalization that basically brought about this hard line response from the government.

Talk about something huge that changed the Arab world. What do they call it? The Arab Spring.

In 2011, with the Arab Spring that rippled across the region and was helped by not just social media, not just demographics. There are a lot of younger people that were that were seeking change, but also the shared language of Arabic across the region.

Russia under Mubarak deposed Egypt's 18 day revolution defies all expectation.

Libyan revolution of 2011 was about one thing above all else removing Colonel Gaddafi from power.

When it got to Syria, there were protests there. The protests were met with a crackdown and repression, and then it escalated from there. And within about a year, the protest movement had sort of turned into a civil war. And that civil war has been ongoing since then.

And so can you give us a bit of a primer, I guess, on Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. Who is he and why did these rebel groups want to unseat him?

So Bashar al-Assad is the son of Haras al-Assad, who had been the leader of the country for many years. As he got older, his other son was expected to take over the reins. So his name was Bassel al-Assad. He died in 1994, in a car accident. That meant that Bashar al-Assad was going to be tapped to become the leader. So Bashar al Assad was always seen as much less politically inclined. He had trained as a doctor. He was studying ophthalmology in London when this happened. So he actually was recalled from the UK, moved back to Syria and began to go through the process of becoming this leader to take over from his father. The fact that he he was never the more politically minded one is something that some people have speculated that he's never really commanded the same respect that his father has had, and that, in turn, has maybe fed into some of the dynamics we've seen, where he's felt the need to take a very hard line on dissent within Syria, and then that's invited more pushback from rebel groups that that are upset at the way that they and their their people have been treated by these successive Assad regimes.

So let's go back to this current conflict now. Can you walk us through how were the rebels so easily able to gain control of Aleppo? Why did the insurgents move to seize and to attack now?

Well, it's a very interesting thing. I mean, as I said, it caught a lot of people by surprise. If you look at a map, there's a lot of conflicts going on around the region. Israel is at war with Hamas in Gaza. You've got Israel and Hezbollah that were fighting in Lebanon until until the recent cease fire that just kicked in this week. Then you have Iran that's backing Hezbollah. Iran that's launched missiles at Israel. Lots of action. So one of the backers of the Syrian government has been Iran. Iran is up to its elbows in conflict and trying to trying to ward off a larger conflict with Israel or potentially even the United States. The other major backer of the Assad regime in Syria is Russia. And Russia has been decisive in helping the Assad regime. But recently, as you know in the news, Russia has been up to its elbows with the conflict in Ukraine, which has turned out to be anything but as easy as the Kremlin had expected. So their military capability is is being severely taxed by this. So it's possible that that lack of muscle, that lack of presence in Syria has also emboldened the rebel group to make the move now. And it's probably no accident that this happened as soon as the cease fire kicked in between Israel and Hezbollah in Lebanon.

We'll be back in a minute. And so, Chris, what happens from here with this attack on Aleppo? It was, of course, Russia and Iran that stepped in to help the Syrian government back in 2016, a move which effectively suspended the civil war at that time. So will Russia and Iran help Assad again?

Well, I mean, there is a lot of scrambling for support. So the Iranians have said that they will continue to support Bashar al Assad. The Russians have actually already sent in airstrikes to show their support. We're at a very sort of fluid moment. There's lots of military activity in the region. The Russians, obviously, they've been under a lot of strain. But as their war machine kicks further into gear, is that something where they can divert some more of those resources to Syria to back Assad? Because everybody's I had come off of Syria, it's going to take a little while before there's some analyzing of the capabilities of that regime. But for the time being, there is a bit of a scramble. The Assad regime has committed to pushing back on the rebels. They will frame it as you know, this is a fight for stability against radical Islam, and everybody needs to pile in to help us. And in fact, that was one of the messages or narratives that was spread prolifically in 2016 when the Russians first moved in to help the Syrians.

And so tell us, why are Russia and Iran involved in this insurgency, this battle to begin with? I mean, what interests do they have in Syria?

Well, I mean, it's there's shared interests. There are I mean, Syria has has an important historical role with Russia or with the Soviet Union. So it had been an ally of the Soviet Union. It has a port on the Mediterranean that the Russians have access to. That gives the Russians access to the Mediterranean. So that's very important for them strategically. They do not want to lose that. For Iran. There's this broader consideration of anti-Western ally. So because because Syria has traditionally been aligned with Russia or the Soviet Union, it's seen as a bulwark against Western influence through the region. And that's something that Iran can sign on to in areas of sort of information and propaganda, which has actually been very important in the story of the Syrian war. Iran and Russia often collaborate. They see a lot of shared interests in promoting these particular narratives.

And so tell us what response we've heard from the West or the United States, really, to all of this. What are they saying about the takeover of Aleppo? Is there any interest for them to become involved?

Well, I mean, it's what they're saying now is fairly consistent with what they were saying eight years ago, which is that it's kind of hard to choose a side. On the one side, you have Bashar al-Assad, who has been incredibly draconian leader, but the prospect of of Syria being taken over by Islamist groups that would turn it into a theocratic state that's repressive towards the rights of its citizens. That's also not it's also not seen as a positive outcome. So this is something very similar to something that Tony Abbott, the prime Minister, said in 2013.

Going on in that benighted country between two pretty unsavoury sides. It's not goodies versus baddies, it's baddies versus baddies, and that's why it's very important.

And he made this comment that he got in trouble for at the time, but he basically described the situation in Syria on the ground as baddies versus baddies. So this civil war, the way that it played out, there was a lot of wait and see from the part of the Western powers that were extremely reluctant to get very active with Syria. So if you recall, around that time, the United States had talked about a red line. If chemical weapons were used on civilians, that would be a red line, President Obama said.

A red line for us is we start seeing a whole bunch of chemical weapons moving around or being utilized. That would change my calculus. That would change my equation.

Well, they used these chemical weapons, but then the West did not go in.

The images are gut wrenching. Bodies sprawled across clinic floors. Many of the victims children. Even infants.

And there is no doubt that an essential international norm has been violated. Violated? Chemical weapons have been used.

This had this effect of creating a huge green light for this kind of this kind of behavior that violates human rights. And it really was after that, that it was sort of a green light for countries like Russia, but even to a degree, China to make moves because they thought, well, look, the West is not going to call us up on this. And, you know, from the Western perspective, it was going to be very hard for these governments in the UK, where they had a vote on it in Parliament in the US to say, look, we need to go back into conflict in the Middle East after what had happened with the US invasion of Iraq. It was never going to be something that they're going to be able to sell to their public. And they didn't. And so instead, what happened was this backing off. And that just really emboldened some of the worst instincts of the leaders like Bashar al Assad and importantly, Vladimir Putin. So there is sort of this field testing not just of the military, but the way that they could really mess with the Western public's opinions through social media interference. It was all happening in Syria. And for this reason, this civil war that's claimed at least probably at least half a million Syrian lives and millions more have had to flee the country. This Syrian civil war stands as this kind of important event of the first part of the of the 21st century that really helped to shape perceptions about many other things.

Well, thank you so much, Chris, as always, for your time.

Thank you. Sam.

Today's episode of The Morning Edition was produced by Tammy Mills, with technical assistance by Taylor Dent. Our executive producer is Tammy Mills. Our head of audio is Tom McKendrick. The Morning Edition is a production of The Age and The Sydney Morning Herald. If you enjoy the show and want more of our journalism, subscribe to our newspapers today. It's the best way to support what we do. Search The Age or Smh.com.au for subscribe and sign up for our Morning Edition newsletter to receive a comprehensive summary of the day's most important news, analysis and insights in your inbox every day. Links are in the show. Notes. I'm Samantha Salinger Morris. This is the morning edition. Thanks for listening.