It has been a week since anti-regime militant groups in north Syria began the surprise attack that allowed them to take over Aleppo. And despite attempts by the Syrian army, with the help of Syrian-based Russian forces, to reverse the situation, the militant groups have continued to gain ground.

Speaking on Monday, an informed Egyptian official said that it does not seem that the advances will end anytime soon. Nor, he adds, “are the militants acting on their own”.

Because they are “acting at the will, and with the help of regional powers”, he argues that how far they can go depends on two things. The first involves supply lines, and how far they can be extended; the second, on what happens now that political channels have been opened by the involved regional and international powers.

According to an Arab diplomat who follows the situation in Syria, the “sudden” move of the militants in north Syria “was not in fact so sudden”.

“The build-up in the north was being monitored, though its purpose may have been misread in Damascus,” he says.

Other diplomatic sources who spoke to Al-Ahram Weekly argued that both Turkey and Israel had been mulling “moving things on the ground in north Syria”. For different reasons, both want to put pressure on the Al-Assad regime and capitalise on its loss of support from allies such as the seriously weakened Hizbullah.  

Turkey, say the sources, is seeking revenge for Bashar Al-Assad having broken a deal on constraining the movement of Kurdish rebels in the north of Syria, while Israel is working to undermine the ability of the Syrian regime to forward supplies sent by Iran to Hizbullah.

Neither Iran nor Russia, the sources agree, are in a position to rush to rescue Al-Assad as they did in 2016 when his regime was fast losing ground to militant groups that had been “injected” into Syrian territories, purportedly to support the opposition which was being attacked by the Syrian army in an attempt to quell their calls for democracy that started in 2011.

“These groups were brought to Syria by regional players who wanted to help the Syrian opposition push Al-Assad out, but their plans were thwarted by the support Al-Assad received form his allies Hizbullah and Iran, and most importantly from Russia whose bombardment in support of Al-Assad allowed the Syrian army to regain control of two thirds of Syrian territory,” said the Egyptian official.

Cairo does not think Al-Assad’s regime is at risk, even if the territory it controls shrinks, at least temporarily.

“It does not seem that Turkey or Israel are interested in ousting Al-Assad, given the chaos this would create in Syria,” the Egyptian source says. And despite their weaknesses and other pressing concerns, both political and military, Russia and Iran are still capable of giving Al-Assad a helping hand.

“The so-called Syrian opposition is completely fragmented. Every attempt to try and get it to unite, whether taken by Egypt, Turkey, France, or the UN, failed,” says the Egyptian official. And after the military advances that Russia, Iran, and Hizbullah secured for Al-Assad a decade ago, the regime in Damascus lost interest in any political plan, whoever the mediator, that might lead to more participatory political rule.

According to Egyptian and regional diplomatic sources, even if the regime in Damascus did agree to pick up the pieces of some kind of political process, it is unlikely it could go anywhere given neither Al-Assad nor the opposition have any serious plans for engagement. They add that Al-Assad is also confident that the most influential and closest Arab capitals will not agree to the fall of his regime given they have all firmly drawn a line under the so-called Arab Spring.

“Not that militant groups like Jabhat Al-Nusra and others, including Islamic State, can be called opposition,” says the Egyptian official. “They are terror groups. Whether they are there to support the opposition or serve regional players does not change this fact.”

Since the beginning of the militant advance in northern Syria, Damascus has received political support from Egypt, Jordan, and the UAE, whose foreign ministers called their Syrian counterpart. The Iranian foreign minister, for his part, visited Damascus on Sunday before heading to Ankara in an attempt to mediate.

“It is a very layered political situation. One of Turkey’s motives in pushing for the advance is to score points off Iran,” said a regional diplomat. He added that with the advances the militants have secured, it is hard to see Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan showing much flexibility.

According to the same source, other capitals are acting to give Al-Assad a helping hand. Abu Dhabi, he said, “is one for sure”. At the beginning of the militant group advances in Aleppo, Al-Assad made an early morning call to UAE President Mohamed min Zayed.

“Bin Zayed led calls for the re-integration of the Al-Assad regime and took advanced steps in this direction very early on,” the regional diplomat said. He added that eliminating all Islam-based groups, both political and militant, is an open objective for Bin Zayed who “has in-roads and influence with regional and international capitals that have an interest in Syria”.

“Al-Assad will probably survive the current military situation, not because he has the power or his allies have the power but because his adversaries, like his allies, do not have a plan for Syria should the regime collapse, and a chaotic Syria, especially now with the mess in Gaza and Lebanon, is something no one wants,” argued the same regional diplomat.

Iraq and Jordan, Syria’s immediate neighbours to the north and south, have stepped up security measures to protect their territories from any spillover.

In addition to Hayat Tahrir Al-Sham (HTS), the most recent version of Jabhat Al-Nusra, there are other military groups, including the Syrian Democratic Forces, essentially a Kurdish-dominated group backed by the US, the Syrian National Army, a Turkish backed group, and a number of paramilitary units that fight alongside whoever they happen to be allied with at the time.  

Some of these groups have a transborder presence: they can be present in Iraq, and in some cases had earlier moved to Libya at Ankara’s behest.

The HTS offensive began hours after Lebanon/Hizbullah and Israel reached a ceasefire deal.

On Sunday, the UN expressed concern over the safety of civilians living in the areas where hostilities had resumed. In a statement issued in Damascus, Adam Abdelmoula, UN resident coordinator and humanitarian coordinator in Syria, expressed “grave concern” over developments in Aleppo.

“These attacks have resulted in the tragic loss of innocent civilian lives, including women and children, damage to civilian infrastructure, and the suspension of critical services,” the statement said.

Also on Sunday, UN Special Envoy for Syria Geir Pederson said that “in a country torn by nearly 14 years of war and conflict, the recent developments pose serious risks to civilians and have serious implications for regional and international peace and security.”

As the Weekly was going to press, the UN Security Council was scheduled to hold an emergency meeting on Syria. The meeting was requested by the Syrian government and backed by three non-permanent members of the international body, Mozambique, Sierra Leone, and Algeria.