Syria reignites: what it means for the world
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Welcome to The World in 10. In an increasingly uncertain world, this is The Times' daily podcast dedicated to global security. Today, with me, James Hansen and Alex Dibble. Thirteen years ago, conflict erupted in Syria. It began with protests and pro-democracy rallies as part of the wider Arab Spring movement. But after a violent crackdown by Bashar al-Assad's government...

it quickly developed into a full-blown civil war, with various groups of armed rebels forming across the country. It hasn't received much coverage in recent years, but the war in Syria never ended. It simply dropped out of the headlines, partly because of the turbulence across the Middle East and beyond, and partly because it's almost impossible for journalists to get into the country.

But now it's very much back in the news after the Islamist militants Hayat Tahrir al-Sham captured large parts of Aleppo, Syria's second city. The group already controls Idlib, the province that borders Turkey, and they're now pushing south towards Hama.

Syria's two main allies, Russia and Iran, have both pledged their support to the Assad regime. Russia has already carried out a series of airstrikes and the Iranian foreign minister travelled to the Syrian capital of Damascus yesterday and pledged to assist Assad in regaining Aleppo. Meanwhile, the US, UK, France and Germany have called for a de-escalation and the protection of civilians.

Our guest today is The Times' Edmund Bauer, who's in the Middle East and has been writing about the latest developments in Syria. Edmund, first of all, just bring us up to speed with the events of the last few days.

So we're at the end of a few days of what's been a lightning strike by the Syrian rebels. These are the Turkish-backed Syrian rebels in the north who are mostly dominated by a single group. I think we'll have a bit of time to talk about them in more detail in a second. Over the space of really just a few days, Aleppo, which was taken by government forces about eight years ago, a loss of tremendous life and a massive amount of damage, has

has been retaken by opposition forces in just a few days. It was swept from the western suburbs of the city right across the city into the eastern suburbs and are now continuing to push south, threatening the next major city in Syria, which is Hama, after which there is Homs and Damascus. So this is a major shift in what had previously been really a frozen conflict between

in a long-running civil war, but one which hasn't moved quickly for really the last decade. And let's talk about these rebels then. They're a group called Hayat Tahrir al-Sham. Who are they exactly?

So initially, Hayat al-Tahrir al-Sham was a splinter group from al-Qaeda. They initially went by al-Nusra Front, which before ISIS was the big threatening Islamic group as part of the opposition that the Syrian government used to hold up as evidence of.

the legitimacy of their fights. Since then, in the last seven years almost, the group has undergone a kind of rebranding where they've disavowed al-Qaeda and their very extremist roots and have even at times clashed with other al-Qaeda splinter groups. That said, there is definitely an Islamist thread

through this group. It's not that they've suddenly disavowed all notions of what al-Qaeda itself stood for. And it should also be recognized as well, which has gone unrecognized through other chapters of the Syrian civil war. It's not clear that this is...

one unified group who is invading Aleppo and is taking the rest of the country. There are other groups which are affiliated to HDS, other groups which may be only very loosely affiliated and other people who may be on the outskirts of the two. So it's not necessarily one homogenous force that's moving in. It does seem to be characterized predominantly by HDS. So that's the name that we're going to hear much more of in the coming weeks.

Edmund, as you mentioned, the Syrian civil war has effectively been a frozen conflict over recent years. Why, therefore, have things suddenly flared up again now?

I think the calculation might be that now is as good a time as ever to strike. So Russia, which has been Syria's main backer, or one of its main backers, is for the time being at least bogged down in Ukraine. Now, whether that changes with an incoming Trump presidency, it may well do.

Iran is still reeling from the knock-on effects of the Hezbollah-Israel war, which is in a sense ongoing. There's a ceasefire, but it's a fragile ceasefire, and there are still hostilities in Lebanon. And Hezbollah itself, which has come to the aid of the Assad regime and has stepped in and has defended the city of Homs in particular, which I mentioned before.

I'm speaking to you from Lebanon and I do not see much desire amongst Hezbollah supporters given the destruction which has been already wreaked on Beirut and the rest of the country.

to send their fighters abroad to defend Bashar al-Assad, who didn't step in to defend Lebanon from Israel. So I think the opposition forces may feel that now is the time to strike, that Assad is looking weaker than he's looked for many years, and potentially weaker than he'll look for many years to come. It could still be that Russia manages to rally its forces,

to draw down its commitments in Ukraine. Hezbollah might have a chance to regroup, same with Iran. So they may want to take this opportunity, which perhaps it might not repeat itself.

And both Russia and Iran have pledged to help the Assad regime retake Aleppo. In fact, already we've seen Russian airstrikes in Syria over recent days. And then according to reports, Vladimir Putin has also fired the general who was leading Russia's military mission to Syria. What is the latest with that?

Well, Russia is continuing to fight for Assad as it has for years since the civil war erupted. Like you said, there have been airstrikes against opposition held areas around Aleppo and around Idlib. It's interesting the reports of the Russian commander Sergei Kissel that he may have been dismissed from the command. I should say that these reports

for the time being, come to us through Russian bloggers and Ukrainian military intelligence. So they seem very likely, but they could turn out to be full still. But this was a man who he was himself redeployed to Syria after an ignominious end to his campaign in Ukraine. He was part of the unit that was pushed back

from Kharkiv in the counteroffensive a couple of years ago. So we'll see how far Russia is prepared to commit at this point for its ally. It's obviously massively committed itself to Ukraine. It's not like 2015, 2016. Whether or not he's replaced by a commander who is able to galvanize Russian forces and really make a concerted effort to push back the rebels and retake Aleppo, we'll see.

But this is part of the Russian calculation as well. And it's part of what makes this situation so interesting. And why is Russia so closely allied to the Assad regime? You'd be forgiven for thinking, you know, surely Vladimir Putin would rather be saving Russian firepower for the war in Ukraine as opposed to using it for airstrikes in Syria.

Well, one of the tangible reasons, and this is something you'll see cropping up a lot, is that Russia has a very important naval base in Syria. It's only a Mediterranean base, if you exclude Crimea. And obviously, at the time, there was less Russian presence in the Black Sea as there is now. But Vladimir Putin has always had an interest in projecting Russian power across the world, beyond Russia's own borders.

And Bashar al-Assad and Syria have been a key ally for them in the Middle East. I think it's a show of Russian commitment to foreign policy. It's a show of Russian commitment, particularly to the Middle East. They, at this point, won't want to be seen to retreat from it. So there are...

There are tangible interests there in Syria, but there's also this less tangible sense of Russia power projection. It will be a humiliating withdrawal to have to leave now. And Edmund, why do events in Syria matter for the rest of the world? I mean, what makes this of wider significance than just a country in the midst of a long-running civil war?

Right. Well, Syria has always had a global significance in terms of this war, much to the dismay of Syrians who've seen people from various countries either directly fighting in Syria or supporting others who are fighting in Syria.

For Iran, this raises the specter of it becoming increasingly isolated at a time when it's already isolated and at a time when an incoming Trump administration is likely to heighten that isolation. So for them, this would be a significant step back if Assad was to be pushed back.

Similarly for Russia, as we've mentioned, it will be a loss of credibility on the global stage. It will be a loss of opportunity for them to engage in power projection beyond their own borders. And all of these have effects on other conflicts that we're following, obviously in Ukraine and Lebanon and Israel and Gaza and the wider Middle East as well.

and kind of less tangibly other similar situations such as China's ambitions in Taiwan. This is the latest chapter in what we've seen in the last few years, which are these big clashes between superpowers in various parts of the world. Edmund, thank you. That's The Times journalist Edmund Bauer. That is it from us. Thank you for taking 10 minutes to stay on top of the world with the help of The Times. See you tomorrow.

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