The days of Syrian president Bashar al-Assad are numbered. His stronghold of Damascus will fall, as extremist militia Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) bears down on the capital.
HTS shocked the world by how quickly it took Aleppo. It has since captured the city of Hama, and is now pummelling Homs and is on the outskirts of Damascus fighting suburb to suburb.
The capital, hemmed in by Lebanon to the west, Israel and Jordan to the south and desert to the east, has been severed from supply lines leading to Russia’s military bases on the Mediterranean, as HTS blocks the route north.
With his forces mired in Ukraine, Russian president Vladimir Putin cannot turn the tide in Assad’s favour as he did more than a decade ago, nor can the Syrian tyrant rely on his Hezbollah backers and their Iranian sponsors after Israel has depleted their number.
So it is little wonder that Assad’s poorly paid, low-morale conscription army is fleeing in disarray.
The dictator has long legitimised his brutal, corrupt regime as the country’s only bulwark against being overrun by fanatical jihadi groups.
With roots in Al Qaeda, HTS is one such group but is now attempting to shed its extremist image, seeking to win over local populations in the areas it ‘liberates’.
Wxtremist militia Hayat Tahrir al-Sham shocked the world by how quickly it took Aleppo, writes Tbias Ellwood
It has since captured the city of Hama, and is now pummelling Homs and is on the outskirts of Damascus fighting suburb to suburb
For the first time in years, real momentum has shifted against Assad, writes Tobias Ellwood, pictured
The advance of HTS is not just a battlefield victory; it is deeply symbolic. For the first time in years, real momentum has shifted against Assad.
After decades of iron-fisted rule, Assad will want to fight to the bitter end, but he is reportedly already seeking exile – possibly in Russia.
His fall would send shock waves across the Middle East. For Iran, it would sever a critical corridor to Hezbollah forces in Lebanon for arms, drugs and human trafficking, reducing the terror group’s capacity to threaten Israel.
Russia will struggle to hold its Tartus and Latakia bases – barely 50 miles from the HTS advance – which would be a strategic blow and also humiliating.
For Europe and the UK, Assad’s collapse and his country’s descent into civil war could spark a mass migration crisis reminiscent of 2015, as Syrians flee renewed violence and instability. The spectre of terrorism also looms large, as jihadi groups could exploit a fractured Syria as a launchpad to export violence globally.
The old order is gone and the West must brace itself.
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