by Gavin O’Reilly, Strategic Culture:
In the early hours of last Sunday morning, a seismic geopolitical shift occurred when the 24-year Presidency of Syria by Bashar al-Assad came to an end in dramatic fashion.
Beginning just eleven days previously, an offensive led by the Western-backed Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) group resulted in the capture of vast swathes of government-controlled territory, including, perhaps most notably, the key city of Aleppo. One of the first major cities to be captured by opposition groups amidst the outset of the conflict, Aleppo would be liberated in December 2016 in an offensive by the Syrian Arab Army, with Russian air strikes playing a key role in support. Thus, for the city to once again fall into the hands of insurgents was a foreboding sign.