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.
Fearing reprisals by Damascus, Nasma and her family frantically packed their bags and readied themselves to flee. She was proud of never having left Aleppo, not after the popular uprising against President Bashar al-Assad in 2011 spilled into a bloody civil war; not after her home town was gripped by fierce street battles in which rebel fighters pushed for control of every inch of territory while Russian airstrikes pummelled the city.
They had opted to stay after Assad regained control of Aleppo in 2016. This moment threatened to be different. Getting out of the city, however, was looking difficult.
The road south to Homs, which remains under Syrian regime control, appeared too dangerous for them as the fighting moved south. Instead, Nasma passed the time at the weekend frantically searching for information on social media and reading messages from some of her family elsewhere in Aleppo.
Uniformed and armed fighters knocked on residents’ doors and used loudspeakers normally used for broadcasting the call to prayer from the city’s stone minarets to tell people to stay at home, trying to reassure them their families and property would be safe, she said.
“People said these soldiers were behaving well, and even reassuring them that they came to protect them and wouldn’t harm anyone,” Nasma said.
Fears of reprisal airstrikes by Damascus and allied forces continued to grip the residents as the weekend wore on, worsened by a strike in the centre of the city close to the entrance of Aleppo university hospital. Humanitarian groups on the ground said they believed the strike was carried out by Russian forces, recalling those that destroyed swaths of the eastern part of the city a decade ago.
Yemn Sayed Issa, working with the humanitarian organisation Violet whose ambulances sustained damage in the airstrike, said: “The airstrike targeted the middle of Aleppo … We believe 12 were killed and more injured. The hospital there is not working and there are no medics working there.
“Most people there are afraid and are staying at home. Aleppo lacks so many things to be honest, there’s a need for bread, food and water. I think in 24 hours there’s probably going to be a curfew enforced, to keep people off the streets,” he said in a voice message sent to the organisation ActionAid.
What life could be like under HTS remained unclear. The group, designated as a terrorist organisation by Washington in 2013, has ruled neighbouring Idlib province for years under the leadership of Abu Mohammad al-Jolani, who has a $10m (£7.6m) bounty on his head.
While Jolani has attempted to demonstrate the group’s ability to govern Idlib, setting up institutions and encouraging a flow of international aid that sustains millions of people sheltering there, the group has also been accused of repressing challenges to its rule.
Karam Shaar, an analyst at the New Lines Institute, long exiled from his home town, said many Aleppans, millions of whom have been displaced within Syria and overseas, were cautiously optimistic about the change of rule.
“Those who are happy, and I think they are the majority, are happy as they can now go back to their homes. People who are abroad can go back to Syria and visit Aleppo again – I am in that camp,” he said.
“But I also think many are scared because of what’s going to come next,” he added, fearing more airstrikes by the regime in Damascus and their allies in Moscow. He was also concerned about how HTS would run a major city.
“They have proven to be much more competent than other de-facto authorities in the country, meaning providing public services, but they are radical Islamists,” he said, pointing to the group’s efforts to distance itself from its past affiliation with al-Qaida.
“I still think they should be considered too extreme to the average Aleppan,” he said. They had never expressed any desire to rule territory through democratic means, he added.
Late on Saturday night, Jolani released a message to his foot soldiers intended to show that things could be different with his newly expanded rule of Aleppo.
“Islam has taught us kindness and mercy,” he said. “Your bravery in battle does not mean cruelty and injustice towards civilians.” He told fighters they should be role models “of tolerance and forgiveness … Beware of excessive killing.”
Despite Jolani’s recent overtures to Christian and Druze leaders around Idlib in a display of potential tolerance, Aleppo’s Christian communities were fearful. Archbishop Afram Maalouli, of the Greek Orthodox archdiocese in the city, told those who wished to remain in the city to “avoid wandering”, but he reassured his flock that prayers in their churches would remain ongoing “subject to circumstance”.
Nasma, who works in civil society, said she and her family were yet to see signs of intolerance towards minority groups, confident about life under new rulers and fearful about the response from Damascus.
“I believe that it is the people of Aleppo who force the system of governance to adapt to this city’s way of life, and not the other way around,” she said defiantly. “This city is a diverse commercial one with many different sects, and its identity will dictate the future situation, not the other way around.”
Ranim Ahmed contributed reporting.
