Syrian rebels began planning a military offensive to overthrow Bashar al-Assad’s regime a year ago, during which a new drone unit was engaged, and close coordination was achieved among opposition groups across the country, revealed the top military commander of the main rebel faction.
In his first interview with foreign media since the fall of Assad’s 54-year-long rule, Abu Hassan al-Hamwi, head of the military wing of Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), discussed how his group, based in the northwest of the country, communicated with rebels in the south to create a unified operational command with the aim of encircling Damascus from both directions.
He stated that while plans for the operation to oust Assad, named “Deterrence of Aggression,” began a year ago, the group had been preparing for years.
Since 2019, HTS has developed a military doctrine that transformed disorganized fighters from various opposition and extremist groups into a disciplined fighting force.
“After the last campaign [August 2019], during which we lost significant territory, all revolutionary factions realized the serious danger – the fundamental issue was the lack of unified leadership and control over battles,” said al-Hamwi, 40, who has led the military wing for five years, in an interview conducted in Jableh, a former regime stronghold.
The Syrian regime launched an operation against opposition forces in northwestern Syria in 2019, successfully pushing loosely connected factions into the Idlib province. Following the final battle, after which Turkey negotiated a ceasefire on behalf of the opposition in the spring of 2020, the rebels were confined to a small pocket of territory in northwest Syria, where they remained in a stalemate with regime forces until this month.
Realizing that defeating the regime required imposing order on the diverse coalition of opposition factions pushed into Idlib, HTS offered other groups the opportunity to unite under its sponsorship. When groups refused, HTS forced them into submission. HTS battled groups like the al-Qaeda-affiliated Hurras al-Din, which rejected HTS’s more pragmatic extremist approach. Soon, HTS became the dominant force in northwestern Syria.
As the political command gradually unified, al-Hamwi began working on training the group’s fighters and developing a comprehensive military doctrine.
“We thoroughly studied the enemy, analyzing their tactics day and night, and used those insights to develop our own forces,” said al-Hamwi.
The group, composed of rebels, gradually became a disciplined fighting force. Military branches, units, and security forces were established.
HTS also started producing its own weapons, vehicles, and ammunition. Aware that they were outmatched by Assad’s regime, which had air power and support from Russia and Iran, the group knew it had to be creative to maximize its limited resources.
A drone unit was established, bringing together engineers, mechanics, and chemists.
“We combined their knowledge and set clear goals: we needed reconnaissance drones, attack drones, and suicide drones, focusing on range and endurance,” stated al-Hamwi, adding that drone production began in 2019.
The latest version of HTS drones is a new model of suicide drone, personally named “Shaheen” by al-Hamwi, meaning falcon in Arabic, “symbolizing their precision and power.” The Shaheen drone was used for the first time against regime forces this month, with devastating effects. These inexpensive yet effective drones disabled military artillery vehicles.
A year ago, the group began reaching out to rebels in the south, advising them on forming a unified war command. Southern Syria had been under regime control since 2018, and despite occasional clashes, rebel groups were forced to operate underground. Much of the opposition’s military leadership in the south was in exile in Jordan, where they maintained contact with their groups.
With HTS’s assistance, an operations room was established, bringing together commanders from about 25 rebel groups in the south. Each coordinated the movements of its fighters both among themselves and with HTS in the north. The goal was for HTS and its allies to advance from the north while the southern operations room acted from the south, with both sides meeting in the capital.
By late November, the group decided it was time to act.
The group primarily sought to halt the trend of normalizing Assad’s regime with regional powers like the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and Saudi Arabia after years of diplomatic isolation. They also wanted to stop the intense airstrikes on northwest Syria and its inhabitants. Finally, HTS saw a strategic opportunity in the current preoccupations of the regime’s international allies.
Russia, which provided most of Assad’s air support, was bogged down in the war in Ukraine. Iran and Hezbollah, whose fighters were Assad’s fiercest ground troops, were weakened by conflicts with Israel.
HTS launched the operation by entering Aleppo on November 29th. Hezbollah fighters tried to defend the city but soon retreated. The swift fall of the city, Syria’s second-largest, which Assad’s regime had taken four years to reclaim from rebels in 2016, surprised the group.
“We were convinced, supported by historical precedent, that ‘Damascus cannot fall until Aleppo falls.’ The strength of the Syrian revolution was concentrated in the north, and we believed that after liberating Aleppo, we could move south toward Damascus,” said al-Hamwi.
After Aleppo fell, the rebels’ advance in the north appeared unstoppable. Four days later, the opposition captured Hama. On December 7th, the rebels launched an offensive on Homs, taking the city within hours.
According to Abu Hamza, leader of the Damascus Liberation Operations Room, southern rebels were supposed to wait for Homs to fall before launching their own uprising in the south, but they moved prematurely out of excitement. The rebels quickly drove Syrian forces out of Deraa and reached Damascus before HTS.
On December 8th, Bashar al-Assad fled the country.
Al-Hamwi, who was an agricultural engineer and a graduate of Damascus University before being exiled by Assad’s regime with his family to Idlib, stated that he would transition to a role in the new civilian government.
The prospect of building a new state is no easy task, a challenge al-Hamwi himself acknowledged. There is fear among religious minorities that the extremist group might impose its own dogma.
“We affirm that minorities in Syria are part of the nation and have the right to practice their rituals, education, and access services like any other Syrian citizen. The regime sowed divisions, and we are trying, as much as possible, to bridge those divides,” said al-Hamwi, The Guardian writes.
