Syria’s Islamist-led rebel coalition had been planning the surprise ouster of President Bashar al-Assad for a year, an opposition military leader told the Guardian in an interview published on Friday.
The Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) Islamist group, which says it has moved away from its roots in al-Qaeda, has long controlled a swath of northwest Syria.
After being weakened in a 2019 government operation, the group realized that “the core problem was the absence of unified leadership and control over the fighting”, Abu Hassan al-Hamawi, an HTS commander and former leader of the group’s military wing, told the UK daily. ,
Correcting those mistakes, HTS last year began preparing a counteroffensive called “counter-aggression” to oust Assad from power.
It strengthened its control over opposition groups in the northwest and trained its own militias, developing a “comprehensive military doctrine”.
According to the Guardian article, HTS sought to bring together rebel and jihadist forces in southern Syria, which has been under Assad’s control for the past six years, to create a “unified war room”.
The “war room” convened commanders of 25 opposition groups who could launch an offensive against Assad from the south, with HTS coming in from the north, and converging on the capital and Assad’s stronghold, Damascus.
The moment to launch the operation came in late November, when Syria’s staunch allies Iran and Russia were distracted by other conflicts.
Over the weekend, rebels succeeded in entering Damascus after overrunning the cities of Aleppo, Hama and Homs in the north, forcing Assad to flee the country and ending his clan’s brutal five-decade rule.
“Our conviction was based on historical precedent: ‘Damascus cannot fall until Aleppo falls,'” Hamawi said.
“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,” he said.
The plan also included developing better weapons to counter the technology provided to government forces by Tehran and Moscow.
“We need reconnaissance drones, attack drones and suicide drones with a focus on range and endurance,” Hamvi said. Production of the drone will begin in early 2019.
The Humvee launched a new explosive or “suicide drone” named the “Shaheen” drone, which means falcon in Arabic, “symbolizing their accuracy and power,” the military leader said.
According to the Guardian, “Shaheen” drones were deployed against Assad’s forces for the first time this month, disabling artillery vehicles.
HTS is banned as a terrorist organization by many Western powers, but since coming to power it has tried to reassure religious minorities and other governments that it would usher in an inclusive leadership.
Hamawi said, “We affirm that minorities in Syria are part of the nation and have the right to practice their rituals, education and services like every other Syrian citizen.”
“The governance created divisions and we are trying as much as possible to bridge these divisions,” he said.
(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)
