For years, Aleppo was the symbol of the Syrian regime’s resilience. Government forces bled for it, bombed it back to the Stone Age, and finally recaptured it in 2016. Now, in a matter of days, opposition fighters have taken it back.
On 29 November 2024, Hay’at Tahrir al-Sham entered Aleppo. The city fell not to a grinding siege but to a sudden collapse of pro-government forces. The regime’s army, which once held the city with iron discipline, simply disintegrated. That is the core fact of this offensive. It is not a border skirmish or a raid. It is the seizure of Syria’s second-largest city by an opposition coalition that most analysts had written off as fractured and spent.
The offensive began on 27 November 2024. It started small. The Military Operations Command, a coalition of revolutionary factions led by HTS and backed by Turkish-aligned groups in the Syrian National Army, targeted towns in the Idlib and Aleppo countryside. That was the plan. A localized push. But the regime’s lines did not hold. They broke. What started as a limited operation became a broader campaign. Dozens of towns and villages fell. Pro-government forces did not retreat in good order. They collapsed.
By the time HTS entered Aleppo, the opposition had already captured a significant portion of the city. The speed is the story. This is not a slow, grinding advance. It is a rout. The opposition is now consolidating its gains, and the report indicates they are likely to push further into regime-held territory.
This is not the same opposition that fought the regime five years ago. The coalition includes HTS, a group that has spent years consolidating power in Idlib, and the Syrian National Army, a Turkish-backed force. The American-backed Syrian Free Army has also launched a separate offensive in the region. These groups do not share a single command, but they are moving in the same direction at the same time. The regime is facing coordinated pressure on multiple fronts.
Aleppo matters. It is a city of immense strategic and symbolic weight. The regime’s loss of Aleppo is not just a military setback. It is a political earthquake. The government in Damascus has spent years projecting an image of inevitable victory. The war was supposed to be winding down. The regime was supposed to be consolidating. Now, a coalition of opposition forces has taken the largest city in northern Syria in two days.
The offensive is still unfolding. The opposition has momentum. The regime’s forces are in disarray. The question now is whether the opposition can hold what it has taken and whether the regime can muster a counterattack. The report does not answer that. It only describes what has already happened. And what has happened is a dramatic shift in the balance of power.
For context, the Syrian conflict has been locked in a stalemate for years. The regime controlled the major cities. The opposition held pockets in the northwest. The front lines barely moved. That has changed. The capture of Aleppo by HTS marks a turning point. It shows that the opposition can coordinate and execute large-scale military operations. It shows that the regime’s armed forces are vulnerable.
The report uses the word “collapse” to describe the pro-government forces. That is a strong word. It means the regime’s army did not just lose a battle. It fell apart. Units dissolved. Soldiers fled. Command structures failed. That is not the kind of problem a government fixes overnight. It is a systemic failure.
The opposition is now in a position to push deeper into regime territory. The report says they will likely seek to consolidate their gains and then advance. That is a clear warning. The regime’s hold on the rest of Syria is no longer certain.
