Expanding Middle East Turmoil: Islamist Rebels Seize Syria’s Second-Largest City
As “Israel continues to do an incredible job in securing Israel and eliminating these enemies … yet another layer unfolds” in the Middle Eastern drama, Family Research Council Action President Jody Hice summarized. This weekend, Islamist rebels in Syria overcame government forces to take control of the country’s second-largest city, Aleppo, situated in the northwest near the border with Turkey. The rebels pressed further south, opposed by Syrian and Russian air power.
“Two main jihadist groups, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and Syrian National Army, launched an offensive that we believe was tacitly approved by Turkey,” explained CBN Middle East Bureau Chief Chris Mitchell on “Washington Watch.”
The U.S. intelligence community has designated HTS a foreign terrorist organization, explaining that it “evolved from Jabhat al-Nusrah, or ‘Nusrah Front,’ al-Qa‘ida’s former branch in Syria.” Mitchell added, “These are groups that want to take over the entire Middle East and certainly [have] ambitions to destroy Israel.”
HTS’s successful advance is likely due to “the fact that Israel has attacked and degraded Hezbollah, [which] has allowed some sort of a vacuum to allow these Syrian rebel groups to come down farther south and take over Aleppo and other places,” surmised Mitchell. “If you go back several years, Hezbollah, as well as Russia, were able to stop the advance of the rebel groups in the Syrian civil war.”
There are “a lot of geopolitics going on right now,” he added. “This represents just one more turmoil here in a very, very volatile region.”
While the world may be divided into two major factions — the U.S. and its allies versus a strengthening axis of repressive adversaries — the Syrian conflict is more multi-polar. Syrian dictator Bashar Assad is propped up by Russia and Iran, including Iranian proxies like Hezbollah. Islamist rebel groups such as HTS have the backing of Turkey, technically a NATO member but increasingly maverick in its foreign policy. Due to Assad’s weak government, other factions, such as Kurdish groups, control territory in Syria, too, without being aligned with either the government or the Islamist rebels.
During the Obama administration, tensions between the various factions after the 2011 Arab Spring broke out into open civil war by 2014 and played a role in the 2016 election after ISIS seized vast swaths of thinly defended territory. Within 18 months, President Trump destroyed ISIS. Since then, “the civil war between the Bashar Assad regime and these rebel groups has really been on hold for many years,” said Mitchell.
Now, after noticing how thoroughly Israel had pummeled Hezbollah, the Islamist rebels have launched a new offensive, seizing the strategic city of Aleppo for the first time. “They do represent a possible threat to the Bashar Assad regime,” said Mitchell. “Right now, we understand that Iran and Russia are fighting back against these rebel groups.”
For Iran, Syria “represents a key component of its regional plan. They use Syria as a land bridge to be able to supply weapons to Hezbollah,” Mitchell explained. Meanwhile, Russia has 21 military bases in the country, creating a hub to project Russian power throughout the whole region.
The southward progress of the jihadist rebels also represents a distant threat to Israel. “Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said [Sunday] that they’re closely monitoring what’s happening there in Syria right now,” Mitchell reported. “It doesn’t necessarily represent an immediate threat to the Jewish state because, geographically, where the rebels are right now is still pretty far away from the Golan Heights and Israel’s northern border.”
The group most immediately threatened by the Islamist takeover are the Christians still living in Aleppo. The jihadists have reportedly threatened to behead Greek Orthodox Bishop Ephraim Maalouli, who has refused to leave the city. “Unfortunately, over the last 15 years or so, or maybe more, there’s really been a massive Christian exodus from the Middle East with the rise of ISIS and all the jihadi groups,” said Mitchell. “But there are Christians, we believe, in Aleppo, about 20,000.”
Those Christians “need prayer,” Mitchell declared, “because right now, [with] Aleppo being controlled by a jihadist group, that … has great animus against Christian believers, they can go through forced conversion. They can go through death.”
To Christians in a similar predicament, in a similar location, the Spirit of Jesus commanded, “Do not fear what you are about to suffer. … Be faithful unto death, and I will give you the crown of life. … The one who conquers will not be hurt by the second death” (Revelation 2:10-11). So, let us pray that the Christians in Aleppo would remain faithful to Jesus, even if it costs them everything in this world that is passing away.
Joshua Arnold is a senior writer at The Washington Stand.