A MARTÍNEZ, HOST:
Rebel militias made territorial gains in Syria over the weekend.
MICHEL MARTIN, HOST:
In response, Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has vowed to, quote, "crush" the rebels who seized much of the country's second most populous city, Aleppo. The country's brutal 13-year civil war has long been at a stalemate, and this renewed fighting poses the biggest challenge to the ruling regime in years.
MARTÍNEZ: NPR international correspondent Ruth Sherlock joins us now. So, Ruth, what happened? Catch us up on this.
RUTH SHERLOCK, BYLINE: Good morning. Yeah, well, the rebels launched this surprise offensive and made sudden massive gains. You know, the war in Syria - it's been stalemated for many years. But then, in just about 72 hours, opposition militias seized the huge city of Aleppo and a string of villages around there. And then they pressed even further south, racing down towards the central city of Hama. Rebel General Ahmed Homsi talked to me about how quickly this all happened.
AHMED HOMSI: (Speaking Arabic).
SHERLOCK: He's saying they broke through the regime's first line of defense, then the second line, and then the third. Even the rebels seemed shocked by their successes. And there was this brief moment where people thought they might be able to carry on towards the capital, Damascus. But then, by Sunday, the offensive had slowed. The government says it's taken back some territory in central Syria. And there's also videos now that seem to show convoys of militias backed by the regime's ally, Iran, coming down from Iraq into Syria to help President Assad. The regime's other ally, Russia, has stepped up airstrikes on rebel-held areas. But for now, rebels still hold most of Aleppo city and large swathes of more territory.
MARTÍNEZ: OK, so tell us who these Rebels are.
SHERLOCK: Well, it's an umbrella group, some of whom are backed by Turkey. The biggest in this group is an Islamist militia. It's called Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, and it has some members who have had links to al-Qaeda. And for this reason, the U.S. and Russia have designated them a terror organization. But HTS has really tried to rebrand itself as a less hardline group, though it is still religiously conservative. And, you know, there are some - many - in Syria who would welcome a rebel takeover because Syria is run by a brutal dictatorship. But this is also a country with lots of different religious sects, and there are some people who are terrified to see these gains that these Islamist factions are making. We managed to reach one woman in the government-held city of Hama, and she's from the minority Alawite sect. That's the same as the Assad family's. And she was too afraid to give her name.
UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: (Speaking Arabic).
SHERLOCK: She says she's standing on her balcony, watching people streaming out of their homes to their cars, packing and preparing to escape as they hear the news of the rebel advance towards them. There have been sectarian massacres committed by regime militias and opposition forces in this war. Rebels here are trying to show they're accepting of different groups in Aleppo. In the Christian neighborhood this weekend, when some fighters knocked down a Christmas tree on the street, the militia made a point of putting it back up and filming itself doing it.
MARTÍNEZ: Now, why is all this happening now?
SHERLOCK: Well, one reason is that Assad's key ally, Russia, is especially stretched in Ukraine. And then there's also been intense Israeli airstrikes on the regime's other ally - the Iran-backed militant group, Hezbollah. So neither has been able to protect the regime as it has in the past in this war. And Damascus, therefore, is more exposed than it has been for many, many years.
MARTÍNEZ: That's NPR international correspondent Ruth Sherlock. Ruth, thank you.
SHERLOCK: Thank you. Transcript provided by NPR, Copyright NPR.
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