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00:00To get a sense of what's happening in Syria after years of relative calm, I'm joined on set by France 24's Andrew Hillier. Hi, Andy.
00:06So, why have the rebels launched this offensive now?
00:10Yeah, Jukka, I mean, to outside observers,
00:12it does seem as if the Syrian civil war has been frozen in time for the last four years.
00:17But that's not really the case for people on the ground.
00:20This offensive did take a lot of people by surprise.
00:23We can show you a map now where you can see the latest movements on the ground. You can see there in green,
00:29those are the areas that were already under the control of the main rebel group involved in this offensive, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham.
00:35That's a group that used to be a branch of al-Qaeda, used to be affiliated with al-Qaeda, split in 2016,
00:42even went to war with al-Qaeda, fighting with them since then.
00:47In blue, the areas that have fallen to this coalition of rebel groups since Wednesday.
00:52And also significantly, you can see there, three quarters of the city of Aleppo.
00:57So this map, it has to be said, this was the situation on the ground just a few hours ago.
01:02But the situation is changing so rapidly that it may already be out of date.
01:06That's something to bear in mind.
01:08Now, there are several factors at play explaining why this has happened.
01:11Now, I'm just going to show you some video of Russian airstrikes on the Syrian town of Ariha.
01:18This is in the province of Idlib in the northwest of the country.
01:21This was on November 23rd.
01:23And this is to illustrate the fact that these are bombardments that have been happening over the last eight years.
01:29So a lot of people living in these parts of Syria, very angry, have been calling on rebel groups to do something, to take up arms, to act.
01:37And Russia, of course, which intervened in the Syrian civil war in 2015,
01:42turning the tide of the Syrian civil war in Bashar al-Assad's favor.
01:46Well, Russia is preoccupied elsewhere now.
01:48It sent a lot of its military hardware that was in Syria to fight in Ukraine.
01:53Otherwise, the Syrian regime's other main backers, Iran and Hezbollah,
01:58well, they have been significantly weakened over the last year.
02:01Of course, Iran's proxies in the region have been weakened.
02:04Hezbollah's leadership has been decimated by Israel in Lebanon, as we know.
02:10Even this morning, Israeli airstrikes targeting Hezbollah weapon sites on the Syrian border with Lebanon.
02:17So rebel groups, of course, have seen this, have looked at the geopolitical situation,
02:21have seen the window of opportunity present itself, and they've decided to seize the moment.
02:27And could these rebel groups then threaten to topple Bashar al-Assad's regime?
02:33Well, the future of the Assad regime is going to be determined by several factors.
02:39Of course, you know, seizing control of a large part of Aleppo is very significant.
02:43These pictures here are from this morning.
02:45You can see Syrian rebel fighters in Aleppo's ancient citadel, you know, controlling Aleppo.
02:51Significant. It is the second biggest city in Syria.
02:53It's near the Turkish border, strategically a very important city.
02:57It is, however, far too early to predict the demise of the Assad regime.
03:01That's what people did in 2012 towards the beginning of the Syrian civil war.
03:05And of course, they were way off the mark.
03:08Assad's heartlands don't look likely to fall any time soon.
03:11A lot is really going to depend, I think, on what the Syrian regime's main backers do
03:18over the next few days and weeks, Iran, Hezbollah and Russia.
03:22Of course, Bashar al-Assad was in Moscow on Thursday at the start of this offensive.
03:29Now, we haven't heard from him since then.
03:32We haven't seen him since then.
03:33So it'll be important to keep an eye on his movements and what he says.
03:37Otherwise, of course, there are other factors at play.
03:40The Kurdish fighters, Syrian Democratic Forces, they control large swathes of the country as well.
03:45So at this stage, many different factors at play that will determine the trajectory of this offensive.
03:51But it is indeed, as I mentioned earlier, a very, very rapidly evolving situation.
03:55Events changing very quickly on the ground.