As the offensive unfolded others agreed with al-Jolani, who has seemingly now dropped his nom de guerre and is using his birth name Ahmed al-Sharaa. They noted how fragile the regime appeared.
“The Syrian Arab Army is a hollowed-out shell, far weaker than its ostensible numbers and weapons would indicate,” said former U.S. diplomat Alberto M. Fernandez. “Syria is an economic basket case. Officers supplement their meager salaries by taking bribes for soldiers to take extended leave and work at other jobs back home. Some units seem to have broken and fled after losing their officers.”
Nonetheless, al-Jolani’s role in the ten-day offensive shouldn’t be downplayed. His assembling of more than a dozen frequently fractious rebel factions, his securing of an apparent buy-in by the rebels’ patron Turkey, and the campaign’s effective execution speak volumes to his own formidable skills as military commander and political leader, which were also on display when he managed to engineer a formal split from al Qaeda in 2016 without violent consequences. At the time, he said the break had to be made because he didn’t want to give a “pretext” for the United States and Russia to conduct airstrikes against the wider rebel movement.
Success indeed has many fathers and so too with this copy-book rebel advance. Turkey’s role should be seen as crucial. As the offensive unfolded, Recep Tayyip Erdoğan and his aides denied having any hand in it, with the Turkish leader coyly presenting himself as a spectator.
But by Friday, as the rebels bore down on the Syrian capital, the tune changed and Erdoğan openly endorsed the rebel offensive, saying he wanted it to continue without incident. “Idlib, Hama, Homs, and the target, of course, is Damascus. The opposition’s march continues,” he told reporters, adding: “We made a call to Assad. We said: ‘Come, let’s determine the future of Syria together.’ Unfortunately, we did not receive a positive response to this.”
Few observers believe the offensive could have gone ahead without Ankara’s knowledge and approval. According to Hadi al-Bahra, the head of a Syrian rebel opposition group recognized by the international community, preparations for the offensive had been in the making since last year — preparations that involved HTS, as well as more than a dozen militias in the Turkey-sponsored Syrian National Army, which has been mainly focused on fighting the Syrian Kurds alongside tens of thousands of Turkish troops encamped in northern Syria.
