Photo: Rebel fighters with an abandoned Syrian government tank in the east of Aleppo Province on Sunday.Credit…Aref Tammawi/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
Russia appears to be “letting the Syrian rebels overthrow” President Bashar al-Assad according to Richard Grenell, who served as acting director of National Intelligence for a time during Donald Trump‘s first administration.
In a post on X, formerly Twitter, Grenell, who had been tipped as a possible member of Trump’s incoming administration, commented: “Russia seems to be letting the Syrian rebels overthrow Assad. Big. Time to play chess.”
Syrian rebels have made lightning gains across northern Syria since launching a major offensive on November 27, seizing the “majority” of the country’s second-largest city Aleppo on Friday according to the U.K.-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Russia launched a military intervention to support Assad in 2015 and still has thousands of personnel in the country, but its air force has been unable to stop the rebel’s swift offensive.
Newsweek contacted Grenell via Instagram direct message on Saturday outside of regular office hours. The Russian and Syrian foreign ministries were contacted at the same time via email.
Grenell was the acting director of National Intelligence, a Cabinet-level role, under Trump from February to May 2020. Prior to this, he was appointed as the American ambassador to Germany by Trump in 2018. On November 22, Reuters reported Grenell was in the running to be Trump’s new special envoy for the Russia-Ukraine conflict, though former National Security Adviser Keith Kellogg ended up getting the position.
The rebel capture of large sections of Aleppo marks a sharp reversal from 2016 when Assad’s forces, backed by Russia and Iran, seized the city following several years of brutal fighting which left thousands dead.
The fresh offensive has involved a number of rebel groups hostile to Assad with the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham faction, formed in 2017 by a coalition of different groups, some of which were affiliated with Al-Qaeda, playing a key role.
There were social media reports that the rebel offensive managed to kill a number of Russian special forces personnel though this has not been independently verified by Newsweek.
On Saturday, the Syrian army said fighters from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham had entered Aleppo vowing to “expel them and restore the control of the state.”
The army said: “The large numbers of terrorists and the multiplicity of battlefronts prompted our armed forces to carry out a redeployment operation aimed at strengthening the defense lines in order to absorb the attack, preserve the lives of civilians and soldiers, and prepare for a counterattack.”
A lightning advance by the rebels over the past two days in parts of northern and central Syria was the result of better organization by rebel forces, the weakening of President Bashar al-Assad’s military allies and, possibly, luck: Few expected the Syrian army to collapse as quickly as it did.
On Sunday, opposition forces were in control of much of Aleppo, the northern city where Assad’s troops and allied militias vanquished rebel fighters eight years earlier in what seemed then to be a turning point in the country’s bitter civil war. Video footage suggested government troops had either retreated or melted away, allowing a long-planned offensive to advance further than expected, experts said.
The timing of the operation is one of the central questions looming over the rebel offensive, given that before the insurgents started advancing last week, it had been years since Syria’s front lines had moved.
“This has to do with geopolitics and local opportunity,” said Emile Hokayem, senior fellow for Middle East security at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. “The rebellion at large had regrouped, rearmed and retrained for something like this.”
Russia carries out strikes , kills civilians
Russia carried out “a series of air strikes” in Syria on Sunday as rebels advanced after seizing Aleppo, according to the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights (SOHR).
Twelve people were killed in a strike on a hospital in Aleppo, while a strike inside the north-western city of Idlib killed eight civilians and wounded more than 50, SOHR said.
Analysts said Turkey probably approved of, but also underestimated, the military operation, without providing direct supervision or planning support. “They probably didn’t realize how brittle the regime’s front lines and forces were,” Hokayem said. “I don’t think they’re necessarily the master strategists here. They were on board with a limited operation — but now they see there is a bigger prize.”
Newsweek, WP