Syrian rebel groups ‘planned offensive for months’ – MENA expert

We were joined by Dr Haid Haid, from the Middle East and North Africa Programme of the foreign affairs think tank, Chatham House.

Krishnan Guru-Murthy: How planned does this rebel offensive look?

Dr Haid Haid: Well, it seems that it has been quite coordinated and well-planned. The groups have been planning this offensive for months now. My contacts with people on the ground in northwestern Syria have revealed that the groups have told them months ago that there will be an attack coming. So it seems that they did not only improve their skills and plan ahead of time, but they also have been well prepared with the basically needed weaponry in order to launch a decisive attack.

Krishnan Guru-Murthy: And what might they want to actually achieve? And how much support do they have? Because, of course, this group is essentially an Islamist group. But many of the, sort of, pro-democracy forces within Syria who were suppressed by the war – essentially want the same goal, which is the end of Assad.

Dr Haid Haid: Well, this attack is carried out by different factions. Some of them, as you mentioned, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or part of that, that the groups are attacking Hayat Tahrir al-Sham – and they have that Islamic sort of agenda. But then you have other groups who have a normal sort of moderate and pro-national agenda. Now, when it comes to what they want, I think their goals have changed from the beginning, which were mainly focused on pushing regime forces away from civilian areas and expanding their territories to the extent possible. However, they were surprised later on that it was super easy to capture areas and reach all the way to Aleppo, capture Aleppo, and continue towards Hama. And I think that changed their initial goal. The goal right now, I think, is to capture as many areas as possible and then translate that into some sort of political credit that will cement their negotiation at that table, at a later stage.

Krishnan Guru-Murthy: I mean, the truth is, the outside world largely looked away from Syria when the war was raging – and it allowed Assad to effectively win that phase of it. So what will be the role of the outside world now?

Dr Haid Haid: I think for now, if you look at the international community or the key actors, they have been just watching what’s happening there without having any sort of influence over the key players involved. Because, as you mentioned, they have distanced themselves and they have not had a clear Syria policy for years now. So I think the most likely scenario is that they will try to contact the key players involved, whether that’s Turkey or Russia, in order to reach some sort of agreement to stop the fighting from reaching new areas.