Syria: What do these rebel advances tell us about the Syrian government forces?

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00:00For more details on the latest of what's going on in Syria, we're joined now by Scott Lucas,

00:04Professor of International Politics at University College Dublin, currently joining us from

00:09Birmingham in the UK. Thanks so much for being with us. First of all, what do these rebel advances

00:14tell us about the Syrian government forces and their preparedness? It tells us that the Assad

00:21regime, politically and militarily, not only was fragile, it in effect was only existing because

00:29of support by Iran, Russia and Hezbollah. Once Iran and Russia came under strain for various

00:37reasons in providing their support, Russia because of its invasion of Ukraine, Iran because of its

00:43problems across the Middle East, then it was a question of whether the rebels would be able to

00:49be organized enough to actually begin to take territory. Not only did they take territory,

00:54I think they surprised all analysts by the speed in which they do it. So just to put this in

00:58perspective, when Russia and the Assad regime recaptured the eastern part of Aleppo in 2015,

01:052016, it was with more than a year of bombing, ground assaults and sieges. The rebels captured

01:13Aleppo, one of Syria's two largest cities, within four days. In other words, the Assad

01:18regime did not have effective defenses only on paper, but not in reality. Who are these rebels?

01:25Can you tell us more about that makeup? The largest group amongst the rebels is called

01:30Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. Now, this is a descendant of groups that until 2015 were linked to al-Qaeda,

01:38but those groups broke from al-Qaeda and have not been part of that organization for almost a decade.

01:44HTS is still an Islamist group. It still carries out its version of Islamist law and governance

01:51in the areas of northwest Syria that it controls. But there are also other anti-Assad groups

01:57who are in this offensive. Those groups were part of what's called the Syrian National Army.

02:01They are backed by Turkey, and Turkey has backed them for a long time.

02:05So what we have is we have a coalition of groups, some of them secular, some of them Islamist,

02:10but all of them are united with this goal that almost 14 years after the Syrian uprising started,

02:16they still want to get rid of the Assad regime throughout all of Syria,

02:19not just the northwest of the country. Now, the attack was launched, of course,

02:23last Wednesday, the day of the official ceasefire in Lebanon. I've heard some commentators mention

02:29that this could be seen as that conflict migrating in a way as many of the same players. How do you

02:35see it? Well, I mean, pro-Assad commentators, including in Western countries, including in

02:40France, are portraying some giant conspiracy that Israel arranged the ceasefire in Lebanon so it

02:46could support groups to attack in Syria. That's completely untrue. Israel has nothing to do with

02:52what is happening in Syria. But I do think there is a connection in the sense that Hezbollah

02:59has been seriously weakened by Israel's strikes on its command structure, including the killing

03:04of the leader, Hassan Nasrallah, and almost all of the senior commanders that were in Beirut.

03:10Therefore, Hezbollah fighters were not as effectively organized.

03:14They controlled many of the positions in northwest Syria, but without an effective

03:18command structure, it was easy for the anti-Assad rebels to attack them, as well as regime forces,

03:25and as well as Iranian forces who are also in the area. So as you've already mentioned,

03:30a lot of Assad's allies have again pledged support for him, but they're severely weakened right now.

03:36Where do you see the conflict going from here? I think it's important really to watch Russia at

03:42this point. There have been signs of, oh, you know, Syrian sovereignty must be upheld,

03:48its territory must be defended. Bashar al-Assad was reportedly in Moscow on Friday,

03:53probably trying to appeal for help from Vladimir Putin. But do we actually see Russia mobilize

03:58its ground forces and its air forces as it did in 2015, not only to save the Assad regime,

04:05but to then take a great deal of territory back from the rebels? So far, we haven't seen that

04:11Russian mobilization. Iran is in serious trouble. They've been weakened by Israeli attacks on their

04:17own command structure, including targeted assassinations, and there's no sign of them

04:22being able to come in and save the day. I do think that the Assad regime is going to try to limit

04:28this. They're drawing their defense lines in northern Hama province, which is to the south

04:34of Aleppo. I think the Iranians and the Russians may be giving advice on how to maintain those

04:39defense lines, but I don't think they're going to commit their forces in great numbers to try to

04:44turn this around for Assad. Thank you very much for that, Scott Lucas from University College Dublin

04:50for that analysis.

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