By Gao Wanying

On November 27 local time, just after the ceasefire agreement between Israel and Lebanon's Hezbollah was finalized, the Syrian civil war suddenly escalated. The opposition forces suddenly launched an offensive in Syria's northwestern Aleppo province, drawing widespread attention from the international community.

As of December 3, the opposition forces have occupied over 200 towns and villages across three provinces and seized key strategic points such as airports and highways. After the initial defeat, the Syrian government forces quickly reorganized their forces and sent reinforcements. Russia, a key ally of the Syrian government, quickly supported them and continued airstrikes and artillery attacks on the opposition forces. Iran also stood firmly by the Syrian government and deployed militia groups to the battlefield. For the time being, the Syrian government claims to have regained control of several towns, while the opposition forces deny these assertions.

Why did the opposition forces suddenly launch attacks?

The Syrian government lost control of over 80 percent of its territory at the beginning of the Syrian civil war in 2011. The situation only began to turn in 2015 with Russia's intervention. By March 2020, under the diplomatic efforts of Russia and Turkey, the Syrian government and the opposition forces reached a ceasefire agreement and temporarily eased nearly a decade of conflict. However, low-level clashes persisted under the ceasefire. This sudden, high-intensity offensive by the opposition forces has shattered four years of apparent peace and caught the Syrian government off guard.

From a subjective perspective, the reason why the Syrian opposition forces chose to attack at this time is largely because they do not want to "sit and wait for death". Since 2021, the Syrian government's position in the country has become increasingly stable. It has made peace with many Arab countries such as the UAE and Saudi Arabia and has also been readmitted by the Arab League. Turkey, which once strongly opposed the Syrian government, has also held multiple rounds of reconciliation negotiations with it. This has caused great anxiety among the opposition forces, who feared becoming sacrificial pawns in regional normalization efforts with the Syrian government.

In addition, the Syrian government has recently stepped up its offensive against Idlib Governorate, which makes the opposition forces feel that "time is running out". The opposition forces called this action a "deterrence of aggression" operation, claiming that it was to fight back against the recent "aggression and offensive" of the Syrian government. In essence, the opposition forces want to take the initiative to fight back and gain more bargaining chips in possible future negotiations.

From an objective perspective, recent conflicts in Gaza, Lebanon, and the ongoing Ukraine crisis created a "window of opportunity" for the opposition forces' offensive. After the Gaza conflict, Israel intensified its strikes on Syria as it accused Iran of using Syrian territory as a transit hub to arm Hezbollah in Lebanon. In April, Israel also carried out an airstrike on the Iranian embassy in Syria. Iran reduced its personnel presence in Syria to control losses. At the same time, after the conflict between Lebanon and Israel broke out in October this year, Hezbollah in Lebanon suffered significant losses and was preoccupied with its own affairs, leading to a noticeable decrease in support for Syria. Furthermore, impacted by the Ukraine crisis, Russia's support for Syria has diminished, which has, to some extent, emboldened the opposition forces to "take advantage of the situation".

This latest attack by the opposition forces could have a ripple effect, potentially opening a "Pandora's box" of instability in Syria and the broader Middle East. As chaos in the region deepens, terrorist organizations may seize the opportunity to resurge, leading to a potential resurgence of terrorism in the Middle East.

(The author is from the Institute of Middle East Studies of the China Institutes of Contemporary International Relations.)

Editor's note: Originally published on china.com.cn, this article is translated from Chinese into English and edited by the China Military Online. The information and opinions in this article do not necessarily reflect the views of eng.chinamil.com.cn.