Events in Syria have been moving at super speed since the day after the ceasefire in Lebanon was signed on 27th November 2024. Serious fighting has broken out all over the country. Lets see who are the main players on the ground, who are their foreign backers and how this upsurge in fighting has affected these foreign backers.
First the foreign backers involved are :
- Russia (taken a serious beating but will likely recover)
- Bashar Assad govt (taken a serious beating, dont know if Assad will recover)
- Iran (taken a beating will not recover)
- Hezbollah (taken a beating will not recover)
- Turkiye (on a winning streak but not for long I think)
- Israel (not directly involved but lets not be naive)
- the United States (not affected, dont know what will happen after Jan 20th)
Main players on the ground are :
Hayat Tahrir Shams - Syrian rebel groups have simply got up and started winning territory. Some of them have been advancing 50 miles per day. Parts of Aleppo have been captured by the HTS or Hayat Tahrir Shams (Organisation for the Liberation of the Levant). Keep these guys in mind. They are ex Al Qaeda but also seem to be 'independent' of Al Qaeda. Some say they are strongly backed by Turkiye.
In the map here they occupy grey areas around Idlib and Aleppo.
Syrian government forces backed by Russia - they still control the largest part of Syria (red colour on the map). Russia has replaced its ground commander in Syria. Things are bad now for Russia and the Syrian government troops (Bashar Assad) but things are still developing.
The Syrian Democratic Forces or Kurdish forces. They control the yellow areas on the map and they are strongly backed by the USA. In my opinion the Kurds are the coolest people in the Middle East. Kurds are not Arab, Persian or Turkish. They are Kurds. A large majority of them are Sunni Muslims but they are not psychos like the rest of the Arabs, Persians and Turks. Some of their toughest soldiers (the Peshmerga women) are females.
Erdogan hates the Kurds and is waging a brutal but never ending war against the Kurdish people not only inside Turkiye but across the border in Syria. There are 15 million Kurds inside Turkiye (20% of Turkiye's population). There are about 2.5 million Kurds in Syria (about 10% of the population). Erdogan wants to fight against 17.5 million Kurdish people who are backed by the USA. Real dumb fellow.
The Shia Hezbollah which is fully financed and supported by Shia Iran was a strong fighting force in the Syrian civil war, helping to prop up the Shia Assad regime. The Hezbollah has been almost totally wiped out not only in Lebanon (their home base) but Hezbollah in Lebanon also pulled back many of their fighters from Syria. They have also been wiped out by Israel. Hezbollah is now super weak in both Lebanon and Syria. This means Iran too is super weak in Lebanon and in Syria. The Israelis just killed another senior Iranian general in Syria. It is unlikely that the Hezbollah and Iran will recover from this debacle.
The huge upsurge in fighting in Syria began just one day after that ceasefire in Lebanon (on 27th November).
The Russians were caught off guard because they are busy in Ukraine. Hezbollah and Iran are not major threats anymore. For the past weeks Israel has been bombing Iranian and Hezbollah targets inside Syria. Looks like they knew of this upsurge in rebel movement.
Here is a video that explains things in a nutshell. The religious freaks are getting their heads bashed in.
