For a whole year, the rebels planned their movements step by step Syriain order to bring down his regime Bashar al-Assad.
Rebels were planning the highly disciplined operation involving Syrian opposition groups to topple Bashar al-Assad, the main rebel group’s top commander has revealed to The Guadian.
In his first interview with foreign media since the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s 54-year rule, Abu Hassan al-Hamwi, head of the military wing of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), spoke about how his group communicated with rebels in south to eventually surround Damascus from both directions.
The imposition of discipline on rebel groups
“The prevention of aggression”the operation aimed at changing the situation in Syria, may have started a year ago, the rebel group had been preparing for years.
As of 2019, HTS has developed a military doctrine which it has used to transform fighters drawn from disorganized opposition and jihadist groups into a disciplined fighting force.
“After the last campaign [τον Αύγουστο του 2019]in which we lost significant territory, all rebel factions realized the critical danger, the fundamental problem was the absence of unified leadership and control of the battle,” said 40-year-old al-Hamwi, who has overseen the military wing for 5 years, according to during the Jableh interview.
The Assad regime launched an operation against opposition forces in northwestern Syria in 2019, successfully pushing back rebel forces.
After a final battle, after which the Turkey negotiated a ceasefire with opposition forces in the spring of 2020, the rebels were confined to a small pocket of land in northwestern Syria – where they would remain in limbo until this month.
HTS then realized that it had to bring order to the alliance of opposition factions that had been pushed back in Idlib. He offered other groups to merge under his auspices and when they refused, he put them in discipline.
It then methodically fought against groups such as al-Qaeda affiliate Hurras al-Din, which rejected HTS’s more pragmatic Islamist approach.
After these movements, the HTS became the dominant force in northwestern Syria.
With the civilian administration slowly coming together, al-Hamwi began working for it training of fighters of the team and the development of an integrated military doctrine.
“The HTS government is the only one that can do this: We studied the enemy thoroughly, analyzing their tactics, both day and night, and used that knowledge to develop our own forces,” said al – Hamwi.
Drones – “hawks”
The group, which consisted of insurgents, slowly became a disciplined fighting force as military branches, units and security forces were created.
HTS also began producing its own weapons, vehicles and ammunition, giving it an advantage over the Assad regime, which had an air force and the support of Russia and Iran.
A drones unit was created, involving engineers and chemists.
“We consolidated their knowledge and set clear goals: we needed reconnaissance drones, attack drones and suicide drones, with an emphasis on range and endurance,” al-Hamwi said, adding that drone production began in 2019.
The suicide drones were named by al-Hamwi as “Shahin drone”, meaning “hawk”, symbolizing their precision and power.
The Shahins were deployed for the first time against regime forces this month, with utterly devastating effectiveness as even military artillery vehicles were rendered useless.
The beginning of the end
The group sent messages to the rebels in the south a year ago and began advising them on the first steps to take.
Southern Syria has been under regime control since 2018, and despite fighting, rebel groups were eventually forced to retreat. Much of their military leadership was in exile in Jordan, where they maintained contact with their respective groups.
But with the help of HTS, the southern group gathered the commanders of about 25 rebel groups, who would coordinate the movements of their fighters with each other and with HTS in the north.
The objective was for HTS and its allies to approach the southern operating point from the north.
In late November, the team decided the time was right.
The group aimed to normalize relations with the Assad regime after years of diplomatic isolation. He also wanted to stop the intensification of airstrikes on northwestern Syria and its people.
The moment HTS saw that Bashar al-Assad’s allies were preoccupied with other issues, it seized the opportunity.
Russia, which provided the majority of air support, was fighting in Ukraine. Iran and Hezbollah, whose fighters made up Assad’s toughest ground troops, were reeling from the war with Israel.
The battle has begun
HTS fighters launched the operation, entering the Aleppo on November 29. Hezbollah fighters tried to defend the city, but soon retreated. The rapid fall of the city, Syria’s second largest, which took four years to wrest the Assad regime from rebel control in 2016, surprised the group.
“We had the belief, supported by historical precedent, that Damascus cannot fall until Aleppo falls. The strength of the Syrian revolution was concentrated in the north and we believed that once Aleppo was liberated, we could move south towards Damascus,” said al-Hamwi.
After the fall of Aleppo, the rebel advance in the north seemed unstoppable. Four days later, the opposition took over HamaOn December 7, the rebels launched their attack on Homs where she was captured within a few hours.
Rebels in the south were supposed to wait until Homs fell to start their own insurgency in the south, according to Abu Hamzeh, the leader of the operations room for the liberation of Damascus, but out of excitement they started earlier.
The rebels quickly drove the Syrian army out of Daraa and they reached Damascus before HTS.
On December 8, Bashar al-Assad fled the country and took refuge in Russia, with the country’s citizens cheering the fall of the regime.
Source: The Guardian