Fighting in Syria has reactivated on virtually all fronts with the escalation of the war over the last week. On the one hand, in the west of the country, the rebel offensive led by the Salafist group Hayat Tahrir al Sham (HTS) continues its advance towards Hama, where forces loyal to the Government of Bashar el Assad have regrouped. In addition, factions of the Syrian National Army (SNA), supported by Turkey, are heading towards Manbij, in the north, after having seized from the Kurdish militias all the pockets of territory they controlled in the northwest of the country. In the east, the Kurdish-Arab militias have taken advantage of the situation to increase their territory at the expense of the regime. And in that context, Israel has bombed the country again. In an airstrike on a car traveling near Damascus, Salman Jumaa, a high-ranking figure in the Shiite Hezbollah militia, responsible for serving as a liaison with the Syrian army, was killed, a Lebanese security source informed the Reuters agency.
The Syrian Democratic Forces (SDF), a coalition led by Kurdish militias, said Tuesday morning that its fighters had taken control of seven towns in Deir Ezzor province, the only territory on the eastern bank of the Euphrates River that remained. still controlled by the regime with the support of pro-Iranian groups. The offensive has been carried out by Arab militiamen from Deir Ezzor affiliated with the FDS and with air support from the United States, according to Syrian media and sources.
The SDF is the main US ally in Syria since the campaign against the Islamic State began a decade ago. There is still some presence of US troops in northeastern Syria under the control of Kurdish militias. A Syrian military source, cited by Reuters, complained that the SDF is taking advantage of the moment of “weakness” of the regular troops following the rebel attack on November 27, and assured that both the Government and the pro-Iranian militias are sending reinforcements to Deir Ezzor. According to the state agency Sana, the fighting resumed during the afternoon of this Tuesday, as well as the US bombings on the regular troops and “their allies” (the pro-Iranian militias) present in the area.
The heaviest fighting is taking place in the province of Hama (western Syria). The rebels led by HTS have conquered several towns in their advance to the provincial capital and intensified the bombing of the military airport and the urban area. “We have taken control of 14 new towns on the Hama front and our forces are advancing [sobre ella] from various directions,” Lieutenant Colonel Hassan Abdel Ghani, in command of the rebel offensive, said in a statement. For its part, the Sana agency reported that army artillery has heavily bombed “terrorist concentrations to the north and east” of Hama.
At the same time, the new rebel authorities in Aleppo have published a notice in which they urge all former members of the regime’s army and security forces to report before Friday to the police stations designated for this and thus be “freed from all judicial investigation and preserve their rights.”
Fear in Aleppo against Islamists
Aleppo, which was the country’s economic capital before the civil war, has a very diverse population – Arabs, Kurds, Turkmens, Armenians and Assyrians of various Muslim and Christian denominations – so the arrival of a radical Islamist group like HTS instils fear among the population. For this reason, the command of the rebel offensive has urged the combatants in successive statements to respect the civilian population, specifically citing Christians and Kurds. “We have given clear and strict instructions to all combatants to be disciplined and respect the rights of civilians without differentiating between religions or confessions. We will investigate any violation or complaint that comes to us,” said Amer al-Seij, commander of the rebel military operations, in a speech to the population this Tuesday. He has asked his soldiers: “Preserve trust and be merciful to our people in the liberated areas. Do not attack except those who attack you. “Do not cut down trees or demolish houses.”
The spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights, Jeremy Lawrence, has denounced attacks on civilian areas by both sides, especially through aerial and artillery bombardment: “Our office has documented a number of extremely worrying incidents that have resulted in many civilian deaths, including a high number of women and children. The data that emerges suggests that there are dozens and dozens of deaths,” he declared in a televised press conference from Geneva.
