Last week’s offensive in northwestern Syria by armed groups opposed to Damascus has raised questions about the role of neighboring Turkey, which severed ties with Syria’s government in 2011.
Ankara has been tight-lipped about its role in the offensive, which saw militant factions—spearheaded by the terrorist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham—advance on Aleppo, wresting large swathes of territory from Syrian government forces.
Observers have noted that last week’s offensive was launched from Syria’s Idlib province, where Turkey—a longstanding NATO member—maintains a military presence and wields considerable influence.
“Since Turkey is responsible for developments in the Idlib conflict-free zone, the parties to the Astana process [i.e., Russia and Iran] hold it responsible for developments,” Aydin Sezer, a Turkish political analyst, said.
Even if foreign actors were behind the offensive, as some Russian and Iranian officials have claimed, “this does not absolve Turkey of its responsibility,” Sezer told The Epoch Times.
On Nov. 27, heavily armed anti-government militants swept into Syria’s Aleppo province from neighboring Idlib, taking government forces completely off guard.
“The Syrian government army, backed by Russian aerospace forces, continues the operation to rebuff terrorist aggression in the Idlib, Hama, and Aleppo governorates,” a top Russian official told Russia’s TASS news agency on Dec. 2.
Nevertheless, the initial offensive dealt the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad its biggest territorial loss in years.
Since 2020, armed groups opposed to Damascus have been largely confined to Idlib province, where a “de-escalation zone” was set up five years ago based on an agreement between Turkey, Russia, and Iran.
Russia maintains a sizeable military presence in Syria, including an air- and naval base, to support Damascus against what both countries regard as “foreign-backed terrorists.”
Damascus is also aligned with Iran and Lebanon’s Hezbollah, both of which also maintain forces in Syria.
Turkey, by contrast, which shares a border with Syria, has continued to back anti-Assad armed groups since the conflict erupted more than 13 years ago.
Strange Bedfellows
The attack on Aleppo was spearheaded by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), formerly known as the Nusra Front, an ideological offshoot of ISIS and Al-Qaeda.HTS is considered a terrorist group by all countries involved in the conflict, including the United States, which maintains hundreds of troops in eastern and northeastern Syria.
“Although all the statements say that the ‘opposition’ carried out the Aleppo attack, HTS has been recognized as a terrorist group by Turkey since 2018,” Sezer said.
“Yet, for some reason, it cannot be called a terrorist organization,” he said.
“Turkey is at least aware of these developments,” said Sezer, adding that Ankara appears to lack a “clear idea of how these developments will unfold.”
“The group at the vanguard of this rebel advance—HTS—is actually a terrorist organization designated by the United States,” he told CNN on Dec. 1.
“So we have real concerns about the designs and objectives of that organization,” Sullivan said.
“At the same time,” he added, “we don’t cry over the fact that the Assad government—backed by Russia, Iran, and Hezbollah—are facing certain kinds of pressure.”
Idlib also hosts a number of “moderate” armed anti-Assad groups that enjoy Turkish support.
Damascus and its regional allies regard all these groups as “foreign-backed terrorists” and have frequently clashed with them in the past.
Wider Conflict
Last week’s offensive coincided with other major developments in the region, including an Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire deal, which may have prompted the attack on Aleppo.“HTS, which receives some support but is not controlled by Turkey, viewed the weakening of Hezbollah, Iran, and Russia in Syria—especially after the the Israel-Hezbollah ceasefire—as the right moment to launch an offensive it had long been planning,” Ambassador Matthew Bryza, a former White House and senior State Department official, told The Epoch Times.
In his comments to CNN, Sullivan said Washington was “not surprised that these rebels would try to take advantage of a new situation in which the Syrian government’s main backers … were all distracted and weakened by conflicts and events elsewhere.”
“The fact that we’ve seen activity in Syria coming off of all the other things we’ve seen in the Middle East, Ukraine, and elsewhere … that’s the natural result of those adversaries ending up in a weaker strategic position,” Sullivan added.
Sezer also believes the Aleppo offensive was linked to developments in the wider Middle East, where Israel has been fighting Iran and its allies—including Syria—for more than a year.
“The developments in Syria are aimed directly at breaking Iran’s influence,” he said. “This is directly related to Lebanon and Hezbollah.”
On Dec. 2, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araqchi visited Ankara, where he and Fidan, his Turkish counterpart, discussed unfolding events in northwestern Syria.
At a joint press conference, Araqchi described his meeting with Fidan as “constructive” while acknowledging “differences” between Tehran and Ankara.
He also repeated claims that Israel and the United States had played a key role in last week’s Aleppo offensive.
Fidan, for his part, dismissed the notion that the offensive was the result of covert “intervention” by foreign enemies of Iran and Syria.
“It would be wrong to explain recent developments in Syria with foreign intervention,” he told reporters.
Converging Crises
This week, a separate offensive was launched from areas north of Aleppo by the Turkey-backed Syrian National Army (SNA), another anti-Assad armed force previously known as the Free Syrian Army.On Dec. 1, Turkey’s Anadolu news agency reported that SNA fighters had captured several towns in Aleppo—including Tel Rifaat—from the YPG, the Syrian branch of the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK).
Deemed a terrorist group by Ankara, Brussels, and Washington, the PKK has waged an armed insurgency against Turkey—striking both military and civilian targets—for the past four decades.
In recent years, Turkey has carried out several offensives into northern Syria—and into northern Iraq—with the aim of “neutralizing” the PKK and its Syrian offshoot.
According to Sezer, the Turkey-backed SNA’s latest operation against the YPG is being portrayed as “completely separate” from last week’s Aleppo offensive.
“This way, there is a consensus in [Turkish] public opinion that the attacks are legitimate,” he said.
“Turkey’s sensitivity about [YPG-held] Tel Rifaat has been known for a long time,” Sezer added.
Bryza, for his part, said that while Ankara did not appear to support last week’s offensive, “it now seems to be exploiting it to weaken the YPG/PKK and push it east of the Euphrates, as has long been its goal.”
Further complicating the situation, the YPG is a main component of the Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a U.S.-backed militant outfit tasked with fighting ISIS in Syria.
On Dec. 3, Syria’s state-run SANA news agency reported that government forces and allied militias had repelled an attack by U.S.-backed SDF fighters in Syria’s eastern Deir al-Zor province.
As of publication, The Epoch Times could not independently verify the news agency’s claims.
