Beyond the Headlines

How will the power balance in Syria shift?

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Episode notes

Renewed fighting in Syria has ended a period of relative calm in the country after rebel groups launched a surprise offensive last week and took over the country's second biggest city, Aleppo.

Syrian government forces also said they had withdrawn on Thursday from Hama, a strategic city with supply lines to loyalist coastal strongholds.

Led by the militant group Hayat Tahrir Al Sham, the rebels took only about two days to seize Aleppo. Syrian government and Russian jets carried out counterstrikes soon after, bombing the rebel-held city of Idlib in the north-west of the country.

Syria’s civil war started in 2011 after protests against President Bashar Al Assad’s rule were met with a brutal crackdown, turning into a bloody war since then. Vast areas of the country were eventually reclaimed by the government, including until last week Aleppo. Much of the north-west fell under the hold of various rebel groups, including Hayat Tahrir.

In 2020 a truce was brokered by Turkey and Russia bringing the fighting to a standstill but this fragile status quo has now been broken. The timing, the scale and the speed of the offensive have sent shockwaves across the region. With so many international actors also involved in the conflict - Russia, Iran and Turkey to name a few - many questions loom over what this rebellion means and what will happen next.

Host Nada AlTaher speaks to The National’s Turkey-based correspondent Lizzie Porter, and to Orwa Ajjoub, Syria researcher and PhD candidate at Malmo University. They discuss how the latest events could change dynamics on the ground.