Summary of the day
Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi traveled to the Syrian capital Damascus, where he told reporters in Iran the purpose of his visit was to convey the strength of Tehran’s backing for Bashar al-Assad and his rule.
Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, whose regime is also backed by Moscow, has vowed to “defend [Syria’s] stability and territorial integrity in the face of all terrorists and their backers”.
Britain blamed President Bashar al-Assad for the “escalation” in the Syrian civil war that has seen the city of Aleppo fall to rebel forces.
Turkey’s top diplomat discussed the shock rebel offensive in Syria with US secretary of state Antony Blinken, saying Ankara would support moves “to reduce tension” in the war-torn country. In a phone call, foreign minister Hakan Fidan told Blinken that Turkey was “against any development that would increase instability in the region and we support moves to reduce the tension in Syria”.
At least 372 people have been killed, including at least 20 civilians, since Syrian rebels launched a surprise offensive against Assad on Wednesday, according to the UK-based war monitor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. It said Russian airstrikes killed eight civilians on Sunday in the Idlib province of northwestern Syria, a rebel stronghold. Russia has carried out a wave of airstrikes in Syria today – including in rural parts of Hama, and Idlib – as rebel forces continue to push south.
The rebels, led by Islamist militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which was set up in 2011 as a direct affiliate of al-Qaida, have taken control of Aleppo, Syria’s second largest city. Sources told Reuters that they had also captured sheikh Najjar estate, one of the country’s major industrial zones. On Sunday, the Syrian army said it had recaptured several towns that had been overrun in recent days by rebels.
Away from Syria, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees said it is halting aid deliveries through the main cargo crossing into the war-ravaged Gaza Strip because of the threat of armed gangs who have looted recent convoys. It blamed the breakdown of law and order in large part on Israeli policies.
A former Israeli defence minister has accused Israel of committing war crimes and ethnic cleansing in the Gaza Strip.
Rebels behind Aleppo’s surprise fall took advantage of Russian and Iranian distraction
It was not Kyiv that fell in three days, but Aleppo. A surprise offensive launched by Syrian rebels from the north west of the country last week has reignited a dormant conflict – and revealed a change in the balance of power caused not by one but two nearby wars, in Ukraine and Lebanon and the Middle East.
Aleppo was the scene of fierce and destructive fighting between 2012 and 2016 when the Syrian civil war was at its height. Rebel groups were forced out as Syrian government forces supporting the president, Bashar al-Assad, were able to capture the country’s second city, with the help of Russia and its air force.
The Idlib region of Syria in the north-west, with a population of around 5 million, remained outside Assad’s grip, however. An intervention by Turkey in 2020, propped up the position of Hei’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), a jihadist Sunni group that broke from al-Qaeda from 2016, but remains proscribed by the UK and other western countries.
A ceasefire had remained in place since March 2020, but Assad’s backers have been weakened, and with it the Syrian regime. An attack that began on Wednesday forced a hurried retreat by government forces and by Saturday the city appeared to be in rebel hands, a reminder of the elementary military effectiveness of surprise.
The question is why were Assad’s forces so suddenly vulnerable, when four years ago they appeared close to crushing HTS in Idlib. Answers are not difficult to find. Russia is not the force it was in Syria in the last decade, because Moscow has shifted its military focus and resources to its invasion of Ukraine.
As the Institute of the Study of War noted on Saturday, S-300 missile systems were withdrawn from Syria for the war in Ukraine in 2022 and Russia’s presence generally down-weighted. Moscow’s ability to provide sustained support for Assad will inevitably be constrained in the longer term.
Read the full analysis here:
Russian war bloggers reported on Sunday that Moscow has dismissed Sergei Kisel, the general in charge of its forces in Syria, after insurgents swept into the city of Aleppo in the biggest challenge to President Bashar al-Assad in years.
Unconfirmed reports said Kisel was being replaced by Colonel General Alexander Chaiko, according to Reuters.
Russia is a key Assad ally. The removal of Kisel, 53, was reported by the Rybar Telegram channel, which is close to the Russian defence ministry, and by the Voenny Osvedomitel (Military Informant) blog.
The Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, told reporters in Iran the purpose of his visit was to convey the strength of Tehran’s backing for Bashar al-Assad and his rule. Araghchi met Assad for talks in Damascus on Sunday evening, with the Syrian president pictured grinning next to the Iranian diplomat.
Assad told Araghchi that confronting the sudden insurgency “does not serve Syria alone as much as it serves the stability of the entire region”, according to a statement from the Syrian presidency.
Araghchi is expected in the Turkish capital, Ankara, on Monday, as Damascus’s allies and opponents scramble to adapt to Assad’s sudden losses in northern Syria. “We firmly support the Syrian army and government,” Araghchi said, according to the official news agency IRNA.
Assad had remained conspicuously absent from public view for several days during the offensive spearheaded by Islamist militants from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), who swept through towns and villages across north-west Syria in less than a week before taking control of Aleppo.
Read more on the airstrikes that hit Aleppo and Idlib:
‘We felt completely lost’: fears over reprisals from Damascus and Islamist rule in Aleppo
It was 2am on Saturday when Nasma’s husband told her there were uniformed fighters in their neighbourhood of western Aleppo – but they were not from the Syrian army. He stood on their balcony to get a better view, before the men told him to go back indoors.
News of the militias’ advance in the countryside around Aleppo had spread fast, although Nasma – who requested a pseudonym for her safety – didn’t believe that change was coming until she saw displaced people arriving in the city from surrounding villages.
“We had lost hope of something like this ever happening, so we refused to believe it at first, and the main reason for our disbelief was fear,” she said. “It felt like a distant dream.”
Then the militants crossed into Aleppo city. “At that moment we realised this time was different,” Nasma said. A new kind of fear took over, that of the unknown. “We felt completely lost,” she said.
In the darkness of the early hours on Saturday, the streets of Syria’s second city were empty apart from uniformed fighters largely from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), who roamed Aleppo’s sweeping plazas and gathered under its ancient citadel. They rapidly seized control of much of the city with little resistance from government forces.
Within hours, the second largest city in Syria was suddenly under the control of militant Islamists, as shocked residents reeled from the rapid withdrawal of government troops loyal to Damascus. They remained unsure what life would be like under the militants’ newfound rule.
Read more from The Guardian’s Ruth Michaelson reporting:
Hamas leaders held talks with Egyptian security officials on Sunday in a fresh push for a ceasefire in the Gaza war, two Hamas sources said, and the Israeli prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, was set to hold security talks on the matter, two Israeli officials told Reuters.
The Hamas visit to Cairo was the first since the United States announced on Wednesday it would revive efforts in collaboration with Qatar, Egypt and Turkey to negotiate a ceasefire in Gaza, that would include a hostage deal.
The White House national security advisor, Jake Sullivan, said he thought the chances of a ceasefire and hostage deal in the Palestinian territory were now more likely.
“[Hamas] are isolated. Hezbollah is no longer fighting with them, and their backers in Iran and elsewhere are preoccupied with other conflicts,” he told CNN on Sunday.
“So I think we may have a chance to make progress, but I’m not going to predict exactly when it will happen … we’ve come so close so many times and not gotten across the finish line.”
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A former Israeli defence minister has accused Israel of committing war crimes and ethnic cleansing in the Gaza Strip.
Moshe Yaalon, a hawkish former general, told Israeli media that hardliners in Benjamin Netanyahu’s far-right cabinet were looking to chase Palestinians from northern Gaza and wanted to re-establish Jewish settlements there, Reuters reported.
“I am compelled to warn about what is happening there and is being concealed from us,” Yaalon told Israel’s public broadcaster Kan on Sunday. “At the end of the day, war crimes are being committed.”
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After the UN agency for Palestinian refugees announced it is halting aid deliveries through the main cargo crossing point in the Gaza Strip, Scott Anderson, director of Unrwa affairs in Gaza, told the Associated Press:
Yesterday we had assurances aid would be fine. We tried to move five trucks and they were all taken. So we’ve kind of reached a point where it makes no sense to continue to try to move aid if it’s just gonna be looted.
When asked whether Unrwa had seen evidence supporting Israeli claims that Hamas has been behind aid looting, he said that there was no systemic diversion of aid in Gaza.
A spokesperson for Unicef, Ammar Ammar, told the AP the security situation was “unacceptable” and said it was evaluating its operations at the crossing.
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Britain blamed President Bashar al-Assad for the “escalation” in the Syrian civil war that has seen the city of Aleppo fall to rebel forces, Agence France-Presse reported.
“The Assad regime has created the conditions for the current escalation through its ongoing refusal to engage in a political process and its reliance on Russia and Iran,” the British foreign ministry said in a statement that called for negotiations and for both sides to “protect civilian lives and infrastructure”.
Turkey’s top diplomat discussed the shock rebel offensive in Syria with US secretary of state Antony Blinken, saying Ankara would support moves “to reduce tension” in the war-torn country, according to Agence France-Presse.
In a phone call, foreign minister Hakan Fidan told Blinken that Turkey was “against any development that would increase instability in the region and we support moves to reduce the tension in Syria”, a ministry source told the news agency.
He also said “the political process between the regime and the opposition should be finalised” to ensure peace and security in Syria while insisting that Ankara would “never allow terrorist activities against Turkey nor against Syrian civilians”.
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Inside Aleppo city, streets were mostly empty and many shops were closed on Sunday, as scared residents stayed at home. There was still a heavy flow of civilians leaving the city, witnesses and residents told Reuters.
Armed rebel fighters waving the opposition flag drove through the city, Yusuf Khatib, a resident, told the news wire by phone. Some rebels took up positions on street intersections, he added.
Ahmad Tutenji, a merchant in the affluent New Aleppo neighbourhood, said he was surprised how quickly the army left. “I am shocked at how they fled and abandoned us.”
Abdullah al Halabi, a pensioner whose neighbourhood was bombed near the central area of Qasr al Baladi, said people were terrified they would see a repeat of the Russian-led bombing that killed thousands of people before driving out rebels a decade ago.
Syrian troops who had withdrawn from the city were now regrouping and reinforcements were also being sent to help in the counter-attack, army sources told Reuters.
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Summary of the day so far...
Iranian foreign minister Abbas Araghchi travels to the Syrian capital Damascus later today. He told reporters that Tehran will back the Syrian government and army, as rebel forces rapidly advance south.
Syrian president Bashar al-Assad, whose regime is also backed by Moscow, has vowed to “defend [Syria’s] stability and territorial integrity in the face of all terrorists and their backers”.
At least 372 people have been killed, including at least 20 civilians, since Syrian rebels launched a surprise offensive against Assad on Wednesday, according to the UK-based war monitor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. It said Russian airstrikes killed eight civilians on Sunday in the Idlib province of northwestern Syria, a rebel stronghold. Russia has carried out a wave of airstrikes in Syria today – including in rural parts of Hama, and Idlib – as rebel forces continue to push south.
The rebels, led by Islamist militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which was set up in 2011 as a direct affiliate of al-Qaida, have taken control of Aleppo, Syria’s second largest city. Sources told Reuters that they had also captured sheikh Najjar estate, one of the country’s major industrial zones. On Sunday, the Syrian army said it had recaptured several towns that had been overrun in recent days by rebels.
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Here are some of the latest images coming out of Idlib, a north-western Syrian city that has been hit by airstrikes today:
Israel is closely watching developments in Syria, Benjamin Netanyahu said as he visited new military recruits at a base in central Israel.
“We are constantly watching events in Syria. We are determined to defend the vital interests of Israel and to maintain the achievements of war,” the Israeli prime minister said. Israel neighbours Syria through the Israeli-occupied Golan Heights.
Israel has intensified airstrikes against Iranian forces stationed on the ground in Syria, carrying out more than 116 strikes on Syrian territory, according to the UN, and killing more than 100 people, while Israel’s assault on Lebanon has forced 500,000 people to flee into neighbouring Syria.
The UN special envoy for Syria has said the offensive by the rebels poses a risk to regional security and called on resuming diplomatic efforts to end the conflict.
“I have repeatedly warned of the risks of escalation in Syria, of the dangers of mere conflict management rather than conflict resolution,” Geir Pedersen said, adding that he believes no Syrian party or grouping of actors can resolve the conflict via military means.
The insurgency, led by Salafi jihadi group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and which includes Turkey-backed fighters, have vowed to push all the way through to Damascus, the Syrian capital, where there is currently no sign of panic. On Sunday, the Syrian army said it had recaptured several towns that had been overrun in recent days by rebels.
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Eight civilians killed by Russian airstrikes in Idlib, war monitor says
The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights has said Russian airstrikes killed eight civilians on Sunday in the Idlib province of northwestern Syria, a stronghold of the rebels who launched a major offensive against government forces this week.
“Russian airstrikes on Sunday targeted one of the camps for displaced people” in the city of Idlib, “killing eight civilians including two children and a woman, and wounding more than 50 civilians”, the UK-based war monitor said. Idlib is the last remaining opposition stronghold in the country.
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The Syrian Observatory for Human Rights’s chief Rami Abdel Rahman, meanwhile, has told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that “four Russian airstrikes targeted the square near Aleppo university, killing at least five people”, without saying whether they were civilians or fighters from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and allied factions.
The flare-up of fighting in Syria poses a grave threat to regional and international security, the UN envoy to the country said Sunday.
“I call for urgent and serious political engagement - among Syrian and international stakeholders - to spare bloodshed and focus on a political solution in accordance with Security Council Resolution 2254” agreed in 2015, Geir Pedersen said in a statement, reported by Agence France-Presse.
The UN resolution outlined a roadmap for a political transition in Syria, including a nationwide ceasefire, drafting a new constitution and holding UN-supervised elections.
“I have repeatedly warned of the risks of escalation in Syria... and the reality that no Syrian party or existing grouping of actors can resolve the Syrian conflict via military means,” the envoy said.
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Our video team have produced this report on Russian airstrikes on Idlib.
UN halts Gaza aid through main crossing point
Away from Syria, the UN agency for Palestinian refugees said on Sunday it is halting aid deliveries through the main cargo crossing into the war-ravaged Gaza Strip because of the threat of armed gangs who have looted recent convoys. It blamed the breakdown of law and order in large part on Israeli policies.
The decision, as reported by Associated Press, could worsen the humanitarian crisis in Gaza as winter sets in.
Philippe Lazzarini, the head of UNRWA said the route leading to the Kerem Shalom crossing is too dangerous on the Gaza side. Armed men looted nearly 100 trucks travelling on the route in mid-November, and he said gangs stole a smaller shipment on Saturday.
Kerem Shalom is the only crossing between Israel and Gaza that is designed for cargo shipments and has been the main artery for aid deliveries since the Rafah crossing with Egypt was shut down in May. Last month, nearly two-thirds of all aid entering Gaza came through Kerem Shalom.
In a post on X, Lazzarini largely blamed Israel for the breakdown of humanitarian operations in Gaza, citing “political decisions to restrict the amounts of aid,” lack of safety on aid routes and Israel’s targeting of the Hamas-run police force, which had previously provided public security.
There was no immediate comment from Israel on the decision.
Syria’s president, Bashar Al-Assad, has vowed to defeat insurgents by force, speaking after rebels swept into the city of Aleppo on Friday.
The official Syrian news agency reported his comments, which have been picked up by Reuters.
He made the remarks during a phone call with the acting leader of the breakaway Georgian region of Abkhazia, Badra Ganba, the news agency said on Sunday.
Government airstrikes overnight on Idlib, the rebel-held bastion near Hama province and 65 kilometers (40 miles) southeast of Aleppo, killed at least four civilians and injured 54 others, according to the Syrian civil defence (the White Helmets) that operates in opposition-held areas.
Hundreds of people have been killed since rebels launched offensive last week - war monitor
At least 372 people have been killed, including at least 20 civilians, since Syrian rebels launched a surprise offensive against Bashar al-Assad on Wednesday, according to the UK-based war monitor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The death toll also includes military personnel.
On Wednesday, the jihadist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and allied factions launched a surprise attack on government-held areas of northern Aleppo province, triggering the fiercest fighting in years.
Syrian state television claimed government forces had killed nearly 1,000 insurgents over the past three days, without providing evidence or details.
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Across northern Syria, Turkish-backed Syrian rebel groups and Kurdish militias moved to claim territory rapidly evacuated by forces loyal to Damascus, as Syrian government forces retreated from areas they have held for almost a decade.
At the Kuweires airbase, east of Aleppo, video showed Turkish-backed Syrian rebel forces taking control of the base and weaponry there, including an Iranian-made drone.
As insurgents pushed south towards the city of Hama, a concerted counterattack by the Syrian army appeared to be taking shape. Damascus’s state news agency and pro-government channels shared images purporting to show business as usual inside Hama itself, with civilians crossing streets of traffic and visiting local markets with piles of vegetables on display, as well as a tour by local police forces.
The Syrian defence ministry said it had reinforced defensive lines in the northern Hama countryside to repel a militant advance, after previously promising a counterattack “to recover all regions”, while insurgent forces described fierce battles in the area north of Hama city.
How is the Syrian president responding to the rebel offensive and what countries are backing him?
Ruth Michaelson is a journalist based in Istanbul
Bashar al-Assad had remained conspicuously absent from public view for several days amid a sudden offensive spearheaded by Islamist militants from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), who swept through towns and villages across north-western Syria in less than a week before taking control of Aleppo, the country’s second largest city and a former industrial powerhouse.
The embattled Syrian leader reemerged late on Saturday night to conduct a flurry of calls to regional allies in Baghdad and Abu Dhabi, as forces loyal to Damascus appeared to mount a counterattack. Assad told the Emirati president, Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, that the Syrian government “is capable, with the help of its allies and friends”, of repelling the sudden insurgency.
The regime in Damascus has long relied on foreign support, notably during the 2016 battle to retake control of Aleppo, where Russian air power proved decisive. The Syrian government has also relied heavily on Iranian forces on the ground including members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards.
Israel has rapidly scaled up airstrikes against Iranian targets in Syria over the past year amid increasing regional confrontations with Tehran and its proxies.
Assad crushed a popular uprising that rose up against him in 2011, before spilling over into a bloody civil war that has fractured his control of the country and left him heavily dependent on backing from Tehran and Moscow.
The Syrian leader also employed airstrikes, siege tactics and chemical weapons against his own people during fierce battles to regain control of territory.
Rebels say they have captured Syrian town of Khansir to cut off supply route to Aleppo
Rebels said on Sunday they have captured the town of Khansir in an attempt to cut the army’s main supply route to Aleppo, Syria’s second largest city.
Rebel sources told Reuters that they had also captured sheikh Najjar estate, one of the country’s major industrial zones. We have been unable to independently verify these claims.
As we have been reporting, rebels led by Islamist militant group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, which was set up in 2011 as a direct affiliate of al-Qaida, have taken control of Aleppo. This militant group has been leading the recent surprise offensive of insurgents opposed to Assad’s rule.
Syria’s conflict broke out after the country’s president, Bashar al-Assad, brutally crushed pro-democracy protests in 2011. The subsequent civil war, that has drawn in foreign armies and jihadists, has seen more than 500,000 people killed, displaced millions and battered the country’s infrastructure and industry.
Iran sent thousands of Shi’ite militias to Syria during the Syrian war and alongside Russia with its air power enabled Assad to crush the insurgency and regain most of his territory.
A lack of that manpower to help thwart the rebel attacks in recent days contributed to the speedy retreat of Syrian army forces, sources have told Reuters. Militias allied to Iran, led by Hezbollah, have a strong presence in the Aleppo area.
Rebels took advantage of the fact that Iran has been weakened by Israel in recent months and Russia is focusing in its war on Ukraine.
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As we have been reporting, thousands of Syrian insurgents took over most of Aleppo on Saturday, establishing positions in the city and controlling its airport before expanding their surprise offensive to a nearby province. They seemed to have faced little to no resistance from government troops at the time. Here are some pictures taken yesterday:
Iran's foreign minister to visit Damascus today in support of Syrian government
Iran’s foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, says he will leave Tehran for Damascus today to deliver a message of support for Syria’s government and armed forces.
“I am going to Damascus to convey the message of the Islamic Republic to the Syrian government,” Araghchi said, emphasising Tehran will “firmly support the Syrian government and army,” the Irna state news agency reported. Araghchi will then make a diplomatic visit to Turkey, which backs rebel groups along Syria’s northern border but has sought recently to normalise relations with Assad.
The Syrian army said on Saturday that dozens of its soldiers had been killed in a major attack led by Islamist Hayat Tahrir al-Sham rebels who swept into the city of Aleppo.
In a phone call with his Russian counterpart, Sergei Lavrov, yesterday, Araqchi said that the attacks were part of an Israeli-US plan to destabilise the region, state media said.
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Russian airstrikes hit north-western Syria as militants reach central Aleppo
Welcome to our live coverage of the surprise offensive by rebels in Syria. We will be providiing you with the latest updates throughout the day.
Opposition fighters are now reported to have taken control of Aleppo, Syria’s second largest city, and have pushed into several towns in the countryside near the country’s fourth largest city, Hama.
Islamist-led rebels on Saturday seized Aleppo’s airport and dozens of nearby towns after overrunning most of Aleppo, a war monitor said.
Syria’s army confirmed that the rebels had entered “large parts” of the city of around two million people and said “dozens of men from our armed forces were killed”.
On Wednesday, the jihadist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and allied factions launched a surprise attack on government-held areas of northern Aleppo province, triggering the fiercest fighting in years, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said (SOHR).
More than 300 people, including at least 20 civilians, have been killed since Wednesday, according to the British-based war monitor.
President Bashar al-Assad, whose regime is backed by Moscow and Tehran, has vowed to “defend [Syria’s] stability and territorial integrity in the face of all terrorists and their backers”.
As my colleague Ruth Michaelson notes in this story, the surprise offensive in which insurgents seized territory across north-western Syria marks the most serious challenge to Assad’s control in years. Syria has been gripped by civil war for more than a decade, although the intensity of the conflict had decreased in recent years.
At least one civilian was killed after Russia carried out five consecutive airstrikes targeting a refugee camp in a neighbourhood in Idlib, according to the SOHR.
It said earlier today that Russia targeted rural parts of Idlib and Hama where the group leading the rebel offensive “has recently taken control”. The Idlib region is subject to a ceasefire – repeatedly violated but which had largely been holding – brokered by Turkey and Russia after a Syrian government offensive in March 2020.
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