Russia and Iran pledge support for Syria’s Assad against advancing rebels

Cairo: Syrian President Bashar Assad’s staunchest allies, Russia and Iran, pledged unconditional support to his government Monday, sending warplanes and voicing diplomatic support as his forces attempted to repel a startling rebel advance in his country’s northwest.

Russian and Syrian fighter jets were striking targets across territory seized by rebels in northwestern Syria on Monday, according to Syrian state media and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. The Observatory, a Britain-based war monitor, said the strikes had killed civilians and fighters.

Yet the rebels appeared to continue their advance through Aleppo, once Syria’s largest city, and the surrounding areas, battling pro-Assad forces to capture more territory in Hama province in western Syria.

Russian and Iranian officials stood by Assad in a flurry of statements, phone calls and public appearances Monday, suggesting they would continue to prop him up with military and diplomatic aid, as they have done since the Syrian civil war first threatened his autocratic rule in 2011.

But it remains to be seen if they can back up that rhetoric by halting the rebel advance, especially since neither have committed to sending ground troops to shore up Assad. Just the fact that the rebels were able to seize a large expanse of government-held territory in a few days showed weaknesses in the partnership that had helped Assad survive years of conflict.

In a call between President Vladimir Putin of Russia and President Masoud Pezeshkian of Iran, the two leaders expressed “unconditional support” for Syria’s government, calling the rebel offensive a “large-scale aggression by terrorist groups and gangs,” according to a statement from the Kremlin’s press office.

Russia’s indiscriminate bombing of hospitals, schools and other civilian infrastructure as well as rebel targets in Syria helped turn the tide of the war in Assad’s favor nearly a decade ago. But Moscow has been preoccupied by its invasion of Ukraine.

Iran and the militia it backs in Lebanon, Hezbollah, both supplied fighters to bolster Syria’s military. But they have taken a series of body blows from Israel during the regionwide conflict of the past year. Hezbollah’s leadership is decimated and its forces battered after its most recent war with Israel, which ended with a cease-fire last week.