On November 27, armed Islamist rebels led by the Hayat group Tahrir al-Sham“ (HTS), launched a surprise offensive in northern Syria. Taking advantage of the dysfunctional forces of President Bashar al-Assad's regime and Russia's involvement in its war with Ukraine, the HTS and its Turkish-backed allies advanced south - and quickly captured the city of Aleppo from government forces and their Russian backers, the British newspaper said “Telegraph“.
Now the city of Hama could be next. If it falls, the rebels will have the opportunity to begin shrinking the Assad regime-held stretch between the front line and the Mediterranean coast 60 km to the west. The entire coastal strip of Syria is located in this area, but the only base of the Russian naval forces in the Mediterranean, in the port city of Tartus, is also located there, the publication recalls.
Moscow is aware that the base is in trouble. Satellite images taken on Tuesday revealed that all major Russian military vessels known to operate from the port - three missile frigates, a diesel-electric attack submarine and two lightly armed auxiliary vessels - had lifted anchor from the port and have sailed into the Mediterranean Sea.
Why does Russia have interests in Syria?
The Soviet Union, and later Russia, maintained a presence in Tartus since the 1970s, but it was largely symbolic in the two decades between the collapse of the USSR in 1991. and the start of the Syrian civil war in 2011.
As the civil war began, the Kremlin stepped up its support for the embattled Assad regime, initially sending ammunition ships to Tartus. In 2015 Russian troops arrived to help Assad's government forces fight back. The front line stabilized in 2018, leaving the HTSH pinned north around Idlib.
Then Moscow received its reward for saving Assad, commented “Telegraph”. In 2017 Russia signed a 49-year treaty giving it wider access to Tartus.
This proved to be a particularly good move after the start of the war in Ukraine, when Turkey closed the Bosphorus to foreign warships, cutting off the Black Sea, and Tartus became Russia's only naval base for operations in the Mediterranean.
However, all this also means that the loss of Tartus would be catastrophic for Russia's show of power in southern Europe and North Africa, the publication writes. Realistically, the only way for the Kremlin to replace the vital coastal infrastructure at Tartus is to regain access to the Mediterranean through the Bosphorus. But there is little prospect of that happening as long as the war in Ukraine continues to rage.
Thus, Russian President Vladimir Putin may soon be faced with an unhappy choice - to continue fighting in Ukraine but lose his influence in the Mediterranean region, or to sit down at the negotiating table for peace in Ukraine and open his access from Black sea to the Mediterranean Sea, commented “Telegraph“.
In order to avoid such a difficult choice and help Syrian leader Bashar Assad keep the territories controlled by him, the Russian military aviation is now carrying out airstrikes on the positions of the Syrian rebels who are advancing in the northwestern part of the country, writes the edition "Business". Insider“.
In contrast to the fierce fighting in Syria's second largest city – Aleppo from 2012 to 2016, when, after Russian forces joined Assad's side, the Syrian leader managed to retake the city, forcing the rebels to flee, and Moscow took credit for the military success, now Russia's prestige risks being tarnished. commented the British newspaper "Guardian".
„The rapid fall of Aleppo and the scale of the offensive that we have witnessed is definitely a blow to Russia's reputation,” said Hanna Notte, a Berlin-based expert on Russian foreign policy.
When in February 2022 As Moscow diverted its military focus and resources to the invasion of Ukraine, the Kremlin sought to maintain the status quo in Syria with minimal effort and investment, Notte recalled. “Russia thought that the situation could be preserved. Now that has been proven wrong”, she added.
In recent years, Russia has sought to expand its influence in the Middle East and Africa in opposition to the US, establishing closer ties with key Middle Eastern players, including Iran and Saudi Arabia, and reportedly providing African governments with aid in the field of security through the mercenary group “Wagner”, writes “Business Insider”.
„She (Moscow) uses this port (Tartus) and the air base “Hmeimim“ (the other Russian military base in Syria) as a launching pad to enter Africa”, Natasha Hall, a senior fellow in the Middle East Program at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, told the publication.
Zineb Ribois of the Center for Middle East Peace and Security at the Hudson Institute said that losing Syria would be a "big problem for Russia". “Most of Russia's plans in the Sahel and Libya are based on its access to the Mediterranean Sea. "Without a strong Russian military base in Syria, all of Putin's plans collapse," Ribois wrote on the "X" social network.
The Russian president's support for Assad has helped boost his popularity in Africa, the analyst added, stressing that a loss in Syria “would make Putin not only look weak, but also unreliable to many African countries that today rely on of “Wagner“.
Syria and Iran
Syria is also particularly important for Iran's ability to support the Lebanese armed group Hezbollah, which has been in conflict with Israel for more than a year, Business Insider commented.
„Iran has invested heavily in Syria with dozens of military bases and other facilities because the country is critical to Tehran's support for Hezbollah, said Stephen Cook, senior fellow for Middle East and African affairs at the brain trust "Eni - Enrico Mattei" to the Council on International Relations. Damascus provides Tehran with a place to manufacture weapons and a route to transport them, as well as a command post for the Iranian military working with Hezbollah, he said.
„Weakened in Lebanon and Gaza, Iran now sees the conflict in Syria as an opportunity to reassert its influence by siding with the Assad regime against its opposition,”, Ribois also wrote. “Tehran probably sees this renewed involvement as a chance to restore its legitimacy and strengthen its control over its smaller allies,”, she added.
The fall of Assad will certainly represent a major strategic catastrophe for both Russia and Iran, commented “Telegraph”. For Putin, losing access to Russian military bases in Syria would only add to the humiliation his forces have already suffered in Ukraine. The heavy losses that Iran's allied groups have already suffered in the Gaza Strip and in Lebanon would also increase with Assad's ouster. Therefore, Russia and Iran desperately hope that they will be able to come to the aid of the Syrian president again. Failure in this regard could have profound consequences not only for Assad, but also for the autocratic regimes in Moscow and Tehran, the publication noted.
What are Turkey's interests
When the Syrian dictator's forces fled Aleppo amid a long-planned offensive by Islamist rebels, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi fumed and blamed Israel for escalating the conflict while searching for a plausible explanation, Politico reported.
>
Israeli rockets and airstrikes may have helped the rebels marginally, but the fall of Aleppo has little to do with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's aspirations to reshape the Middle East and much more to do with the state of Assad's armed forces and with the geopolitical maneuvering of Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan and his determination to contain any real or imagined threats from the US-backed Syrian Kurds, the publication noted.
The Turkish president tried to distance himself from what is happening in Syria, presenting himself only as a spectator of events beyond his control, writes “Politico”. “We are following events very carefully,”, Erdogan said on Monday, adding: “We have been warning for a long time that the spiral of violence in the Middle East could also affect Syria. Recent events have confirmed that Turkey was right.
Few observers believe, however, that the offensive could begin and continue without Ankara's knowledge and approval. According to Hadi al-Bahra, head of the internationally recognized Syrian opposition, preparations for the offensive against Aleppo have been underway since last year. It involved the HTS, as well as more than ten armed groups from the Turkish-sponsored Syrian National Army, which is largely directed against the Syrian Kurds.
However, the consequences of the offensive are difficult to predict. Erdogan may be pulling a lot of strings now, but whether they will slip out of his hands is another matter. He certainly doesn't want things to get out of hand and Assad to fall, but that may depend in part on whether HTS sticks to the script and focuses on establishing an Islamist-style government in Aleppo, similar to the one in Idlib. If the group decides to continue south of Hama as Assad's defenses crumble, Erdogan may find he has sparked a bigger conflict than he bargained for, the publication commented.
The reason for the escalation of the conflict may lie in Assad's refusal to agree to the frequent calls for reconciliation by the Turkish president. The Syrian leader rejected Ankara's offer, insisting that Turkey first withdraw thousands of its troops and its sponsored armed groups from Syrian territory. Some observers therefore see the offensive as part of Ankara's effort to pressure Assad to normalize relations with Ankara and negotiate a political solution to the civil war - which would allow Erdogan to repatriate 4.7 million Syrian refugees. living in Turkey.