A top commander in Syria’s “Ahrar al-Sham” has revealed that the decision to retake the country from Bashar al-Assad was made in 2020 after a meeting between Russia and Turkey in which the two countries agreed to de-escalate tensions in the war-torn country.
“That was our true moment of victory,” said Ahmed al-Dalati, the deputy commander-in-chief of “Ahrar al-Sham,” the second most powerful rebel group after “Hayat Tahrir al-Sham” (HTS).
Speaking to Al Majalla from Damascus, al-Dalati said the lightning offensive that took the country and the world by surprise late last year succeeded much quicker than they had even anticipated or planned for.
“The plan hinged on causing an internal collapse in the [al-Assad] regime,” he said. “In all honesty, the collapse happened faster than we imagined or expected,” al-Dalati added.
The catalyst for the offensive, he said, was the Israeli military campaign against Lebanese Hezbollah next door.
“[Hassan] Nasrallah was assassinated on September 27th. From that date, we entered a state of heightened readiness and implemented a deception plan against the regime. We created fake alerts and leaked false information. In the end, they stopped believing [that an attack would happen]. Around November 20, we decided to proceed to battle on Friday, November 22, but logistical constraints prevented this,” al-Dalati said.
While Damascus was the ultimate target, al-Dalati said they had their sights set on Aleppo first. Planning anticipated that there would be deep splits within the regime, but they also prepared for different scenarios.
“No one can predict anything for certain in war.”
Al-Dalati said that his fighters were told that the fight needed to be conducted in a manner not consistent with classical warfare.
“We wanted to show ourselves as a state, as liberators, not as criminals. The regime said we were terrorists and proxies, unfit to govern... but we had an idealistic belief that we could achieve what we spoke of,” he said.
The first target was a regime command-and-control room. That first day set the tone after the operation found regime commanders huddled in one room.
“That special mission was the green light. Once it succeeded, the offensive began, the regime collapsed, and everything fell apart,” he said.
During this fight, al-Dalati said Hezbollah fighters and other Iran-backed militias from Syria, Afghanistan and elsewhere were involved.
“But they lost their motivation to fight when they saw how the regime was behaving. The regime’s troops are ethically deplorable. They are criminals,” he said.
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