Syrian and Russian airstrikes have pummelled areas of northern Syria as Iran’s top diplomat arrived in Damascus in a show of support for Bashar al-Assad’s regime after Islamist insurgents made a sudden advance and seized control of Aleppo.
As the regime attempted to repel the strongest challenge to its authority in years, state media in Damascus shared images of airstrikes across opposition-controlled areas, claiming they were targeting enemy command centres and positions. Syria’s military said they struck close to a stadium in Aleppo in a joint operation with Russia.
An earlier airstrike killed 12 people when it hit a site close to a hospital in central Aleppo, Syria’s second city and a former industrial powerhouse that was the scene of some of the fiercest fighting in the country’s bloody civil war. Civil defence forces in Idlib, known as the White Helmets, said an airstrike on Idlib city had killed four people and injured 54 others.
The Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, told reporters in Iran the purpose of his visit was to convey the strength of Tehran’s backing for Assad and his rule. Araghchi met Assad for talks in Damascus on Sunday evening, with the Syrian president pictured grinning next to the Iranian diplomat.
Assad told Araghchi that confronting the sudden insurgency “does not serve Syria alone as much as it serves the stability of the entire region”, according to a statement from the Syrian presidency.
Araghchi later said Assad remained in “admirable spirits”, despite difficult circumstances according to Tehran’s ISNA news agency. Insurgents believed they were on the rise, “but they will be dealt with”, he said.
Araghchi is expected in the Turkish capital, Ankara, on Monday, as Damascus’s allies and opponents scramble to adapt to Assad’s sudden losses in northern Syria. “We firmly support the Syrian army and government,” Araghchi said, according to the official news agency IRNA.
The Iranian foreign minister, Abbas Araghchi, with the Syrian president, Bashar al-Assad, in Damascus on Sunday. Photograph: Iranian foreign ministry office/EPA
Assad had remained conspicuously absent from public view for several days during the offensive spearheaded by Islamist militants from Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), who swept through towns and villages across north-west Syria in less than a week before taking control of Aleppo.
The embattled Syrian leader re-emerged late on Saturday night to conduct a flurry of calls to regional allies in Baghdad and Abu Dhabi, as forces loyal to Damascus appeared to mount a counterattack. Assad told the Emirati president, Mohamed bin Zayed al-Nahyan, that the Syrian government was “capable, with the help of its allies and friends”, of repelling the sudden insurgency.
As insurgents pushed south from Aleppo towards the city of Hama, a concerted counterattack by the Syrian army appeared to be taking shape. Damascus’s state news agency and pro-government channels shared images purporting to show business as usual inside Hama itself, with civilians crossing streets of traffic and visiting local markets with piles of vegetables on display, as well as a tour by local police forces.
The Syrian defence ministry said it had reinforced defensive lines and sent heavy weaponry to the northern countryside of Hama province to repel a militant advance, after previously promising a counterattack “to recover all regions”, while insurgent forces described fierce battles in the area north of Hama city.
The regime in Damascus has long relied on foreign support, notably during the 2016 battle to retake control of Aleppo, in which Russian air power proved decisive. The Syrian government has also relied heavily on Iranian forces on the ground including members of the Iranian Revolutionary Guards. Israel has rapidly scaled up airstrikes against Iranian targets in Syria over the past year amid increasing regional confrontations with Tehran and its proxies.
Assad crushed a popular uprising that rose up against him in 2011, before the conflict spilled over into a bloody civil war that has fractured his control of the country and left him heavily dependent on backing from Tehran and Moscow. The Syrian leader also employed airstrikes, siege tactics and chemical weapons against his own people during fierce battles to regain control of territory.
The sudden loss of Aleppo to Islamist militants appeared to rattle Assad’s backers overseas. In a telephone call on Saturday between the Russian foreign minister, Sergei Lavrov, and Araghchi, both “expressed utmost concern over the dangerous escalation in Syria”.
The Iranian president, Masoud Pezeshkian, told the Iraqi prime minister, Mohammed Shia al-Sudani, that “Iran is ready for any cooperation” to quash the insurgency in Syria, while Sudani reportedly expressed concern about instability, according to Iran’s Mehr news agency.
Araghchi, in a call with his Syrian counterpart on Friday, blamed the sudden territorial gains by Islamist militants in north-west Syria on the US and Israel, claiming they were behind the advance.
The militants’ sweeping territorial gains prompted questions about the Syrian army’s capacity to mount a response while its backers have deployed resources elsewhere, with Russian forces more focused on the fight in Ukraine.
The advance also sparked a flurry of regional diplomacy, with the Jordanian foreign minister, Ayman Safadi, speaking to his Syrian counterpart to express “Jordan’s concern over the unfolding events” while advocating for a political resolution in Syria.
Syrian opposition fighters, left, drive by an abandoned Syrian army vehicle on a highway in the outskirts of Khan Sheikhun, south-west of Aleppo, on Sunday. Photograph: Ghaith Alsayed/AP
The UN’s special envoy for Syria, Geir Pedersen, said: “I have repeatedly warned of the risks of escalation in Syria, of the dangers of mere conflict management rather than conflict resolution, and the reality that no Syrian party or existing grouping of actors can resolve the Syrian conflict via military means.”
The Turkish foreign minister, Hakan Fidan, discussed events in Syria with his Iraqi counterpart, Fuad Hussein, according to Turkish media. Fidan also told the US secretary of state, Antony Blinken, that Ankara “opposes developments that would increase instability in the region”.
Officials in Ankara, which backs select elements of Syria’s armed opposition, had recently offered to normalise relations with Damascus, after regional leaders who once shunned Assad had begun welcoming him back into the fold.
The US national security council spokesperson Sean Savett said on Saturday night that Washington was “closely monitoring the situation in Syria” and had been “in contact over the last 48 hours with regional capitals”.
The Assad regime’s reliance on Russian and Iranian backing created the current instability, he said, “including the collapse of Assad regime lines in north-west Syria”. He added that “the United States has nothing to do with this offensive”, pointing out that HTS was previously designated a terrorist organisation.
Across northern Syria, Turkish-backed Syrian rebel groups and Kurdish militias moved to claim territory rapidly evacuated by forces loyal to Damascus, as Syrian government forces retreated from areas they had held for almost a decade.
At the Kuweires airbase, east of Aleppo, video showed Turkish-backed Syrian rebel forces taking control of the base and weaponry there, including an Iranian-made drone. The same group said it had seized control of the town of Tel Rifaat, north of Aleppo, in an attempt to oust Kurdish militants from the area.
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