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In 2015, Russia waged its largest military campaign outside its borders since the Cold War, launching a sweeping air war to rescue Bashar al-Assad’s crumbling regime in Syria. Syrian rebels were closing in on the regime’s strongholds, even as Assad leaned heavily on Iran and Hezbollah for support in the years prior.
Moscow’s intervention turned the tide, culminating in the recapture of the largest Syrian city of Aleppo and a fragile stability that has largely held since.
Until now.
A Syrian opposition fighter takes a picture of a comrade stepping on a portrait of Syrian President Bashar Assad in Aleppo.Credit: AP
This week, Syrian rebels mounted a stunning assault on regime positions in Aleppo and Idlib, unravelling nearly five years of hard-won stalemates in the north. Those frontlines, painstakingly secured by Russian firepower, look perilously fluid. The assault raises urgent questions about the Assad regime’s durability and its allies’ ability to rescue it this time.
The challenges facing Assad and his backers in Russia and Iran are unprecedented. Moscow is bogged down in Ukraine, where a reinvigorated US-backed campaign has given Kyiv the green light to strike inside Russian territory. Iran, meanwhile, is grappling with a relentless Israeli campaign that has targeted its military networks and weakened its grip on Syria.
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The stakes couldn’t be higher. The Assad regime faces a crisis that echoes the darkest days of the war, but with one stark difference: this time, the regime looks even weaker, and its allies are unable to come to its rescue.
Years of economic collapse, internal fragmentation and the rise of unchecked militias have left Assad severely weakened. In many ways, the regime is now a hollow version of the one Russia and Iran fought to save in 2015.
By contrast, the rebels appear more disciplined and unified than ever. Under the command of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham – a former al-Qaeda affiliate that has since severed ties with the group, and even all but rooted it out – opposition forces have evolved into a well-organised military machine, better equipped to sustain a long fight. The regime, ironically, now looks more fragmented and chaotic than the rebels it once dismissed as disorganised insurgents.