Nadene Goldfoot
Idlib is a city in northwestern Syria, and is the capital of the Idlib Governorate. It has an elevation of nearly 500 meters (1,600 ft) above sea level, and is 59 kilometers (37 mi) southwest of Aleppo. The city was taken over by Syrian revolution troops at the beginning of the Syrian Civil War in 2011, and by 2017 was the de facto capital of the Syrian Salvation Government.
Russia has launched air strikes on parts of Aleppo - Syria's second largest city. But a ceasefire deal in 2020 brokered by Russia, which has long been Syria's President Assad’s key ally, and Turkey, which has backed the rebels, has largely held.
Aleppo was one of the bloodiest battlegrounds and represented one of the rebels’ biggest defeats. To achieve victory, Assad relied on Russian airpower and Iranian military help on the ground - mainly through militias sponsored by Iran. These included Hezbollah.
There is little doubt that the setback Hezbollah has suffered recently from Israel’s offensive in Lebanon, as well as Israeli strikes on Iranian military commanders in Syria, has played a significant part in the decision by Islamist militants and rebel groups in Idlib to make their sudden, unexpected move on Aleppo.
The war in Syria has for the past four years felt as if it were effectively over.
President Bashar al-Assad’s rule is essentially uncontested in the country’s major cities, while some other parts of Syria remain out of his direct control.
These include Kurdish majority areas in the east, which have been more or less separate from Syrian state control since the early years of the conflict.
There has been some continued, though relatively muted unrest, in the south where the revolution against Assad’s rule began in 2011.
In the vast Syrian desert, holdouts from the group calling themselves Islamic State of ISIS still pose a security threat, particularly during the truffle hunting season when people head to the area to find the highly profitable delicacy.
Bashar al-Assad (born 11 September 1965) is a Syrian politician and dictator who has been the 19th and current president of Syria since 2000. In addition, he is the commander-in-chief of the Syrian Armed Forces and the secretary-general of the Central Command of the Arab Socialist Ba'ath Party.
And in the north-west, the province of Idlib has been held by jihadist and rebel groups driven there at the height of the war.
The dominant force in Idlib is the one that has launched the surprise attack on Aleppo, HTS.
For some time now, HTS ( Hay'at Tahrir al-Sham) , A foreign terrorist organization in northwest Syria. The US State Department added HTS to the list of foreign terrorist organizations in May 2018, has established its power base in Idlib where it is the de facto local administration, although its efforts towards legitimacy have been tarnished by alleged human rights abuses. Its ambitions beyond Idlib had become unclear.
Since breaking with Al Qaeda terrorists, its goal has been limited to trying to establish fundamentalist Islamic rule in Syria rather than a wider caliphate, as Isis tried and failed to do. It had shown little sign of attempting to reignite the Syrian conflict on a major scale and renew its challenge to Assad’s rule over much of the country - until now.
It comes as rebel forces have launched the largest offensive against the government in years earlier this week. The surprise offensive prompted the first Russian strikes on the city since 2016, and saw Syria's military withdraw its troops from the city.
More than 300 people have been killed - including at least 20 civilians - since the offensive began, the UK-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights says.
Roads into Aleppo have been closed, as has the airport. The war in Syria has for the past four years felt as if it were effectively over.
Aleppo was once upon a time a Jewish city called Aram-Zobah and its Jewish community was one of the oldest in the world. A 6th century synagogue was taken over by the Muslims and turned into a mosque, the Al-Hayyat. Our ancient travel guide, Benjamin of Tudela, found 1,500 Jews there in about 1170 and later in the Middle Ages the Jews were important as their city was the home of many men of learning, including themselves. Spanish Jews arrived after 1492's Spanish Inquisition against Jews who were forced to leave, reinvigorating the community.
In the early 20th century, a large percentage of Syrian Jews immigrated to British Mandate-Palestine, the U.S. and Latin America. Before WWI in 1914, there were 14,000 Jews living in Aleppo.
After the UN decision of November 1947 to partition Palestine, anti-Jewish riots took place in Aleppo, and many Jews fled. By 1991, 400 Jews remained working in trade and peddling. The city had its Jewish quarter where many synagogues still stood, the oldest being the Mustaribah that was destroyed in the riots of 1947. The oldest part of this synagogue was dated from the 4th century, so it was a sad loss. Here, a famous 10th century masoretic codex of the Tanakh (Bible), now in Israel, corrected by Ben Asher, was formerly preserved.
Resource:
https://www.bbc.com/news/live/cy5l50y76k3t
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Idlib_Governorate
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_the_Jews_in_Syria
The New Standard Jewish Encyclopedia
Book: Messages From A Syrian Jew Trapped In Egypt
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