Turkish security sources said on Thursday that Syrian rebel groups had launched “a limited offensive” towards Aleppo to stop Syrian government attacks targeting the civilian population in Idlib.
Since Wednesday, footage circulating on social media has shown Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and aligned forces making significant advances, capturing large swathes of territory and progressing rapidly towards the outskirts of Aleppo city.
Reports suggest that some rebel groups affiliated with the Turkey-backed Syrian National Army have joined the operation, though the majority of those forces have so far refrained from participating.
A senior Turkish security source told Middle East Eye that Turkey attempted to prevent the offensive to avoid further escalating tensions in the region, especially given Israel’s wars on Gaza and Lebanon.
However, efforts to use channels established by a 2019 de-escalation agreement to halt Russian and Syrian government air strikes targeting residential areas of rebel-held Idlib province had not yielded results.
“In response to these attacks, Syrian opposition groups launched a limited operation towards Aleppo, targeting the areas from which the attacks originated,” the source said.
“What was initially planned as a limited operation expanded as regime forces began fleeing their positions.”
Battle over eastern Idlib
The source said that the operation aims to restore the boundaries of the Idlib de-escalation zone, which were originally agreed upon in 2019 by Russia, Turkey and Iran.
The source added that Russian and Syrian government attacks had reduced the size of the de-escalation zone after forces loyal to Syrian President Bashar al-Assad, including Hezbollah and Iranian-backed militias, seized more territory near Aleppo in 2020 in violation of the agreement.
The new operation, the source indicated, seeks to restore rebel control over the eastern part of Idlib up to the limits originally agreed upon by Turkey, Russia, and Iran.
‘What was initially planned as a limited operation expanded as regime forces began fleeing their positions’
– Turkish security source
During the Syrian government’s Russian-backed 2020 Idlib offensive its forces killed 36 Turkish soldiers deployed in northern Syria.
That incident triggered a strong Turkish military intervention to stop the assault, with Ankara pummelling Assad’s forces with drones, destroying hundreds of pieces of military hardware, including armoured vehicles, tanks and fortified positions.
Earlier this year, Turkey attempted to hold normalisation talks with the Assad government, but its efforts bore no fruit as Damascus demanded the full withdrawal of Turkish forces from northern Syria as a precondition.
While Turkey does not exercise direct control in Idlib, where HTS, a former al-Qaeda affiliate, governs the area with its own civilian administration, it does maintain several observation posts in the region.
Turkish sources also reported that recent attacks by Syrian government forces and allied militias in Idlib have killed more than 30 civilians and wounded over 100 others.
In one incident, a Quranic school was struck, killing three children and wounding dozens more, some critically.