[IsraelTimes] In interview with The Guardian, HTS’s Abu Hassan al-Hamwi says group unified factions, overhauled military forces and developed modern doctrine when planning devastating offensive
The Syrian rebels that toppled Bashir al-Assad’s dictatorial regime began planning their shock offensive a year ago, according to the head of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, formerly al-Nusra, before that it was called something else
...al-Qaeda's Syrian affiliate, from which sprang the Islamic State...
’s military wing, Abu Hassan al-Hamwi.
In an interview with The Guardian, al-Hamwi said that HTS, the Islamist group that led the rebel overthrow of Assad, had been developing a disciplined military doctrine for the past five years and had been communicating with other rebel groups to coordinate their assault on Assad’s forces.
"After the last campaign [August 2019], during which we lost significant territory, all revolutionary factions realized the critical danger — the fundamental problem was the absence of unified leadership and control over battle," he said, adding that,"We studied the enemy thoroughly, analyzing their tactics, both day and night, and used these insights to develop our own forces."
According to al-Hamwi, HTS had contacted other rebel groups last year to for a unified rebel "war room," and began planning their assault.
Al-Hamwi said that the group knew that Aleppo had to be the first domino to fall in order to topple Assad, so his forces concentrated resources and planning on taking over Syria’s second largest city.
"We had a conviction, supported by historical precedent, that ’Damascus cannot fall until Aleppo falls.’ The strength of the Syrian revolution was concentrated in the north, and we believed that once Aleppo was liberated, we could move southward toward Damascus," al-Hamwi said.
The group also set out to fundamentally change their military forces, overhauling their doctrine from jihadist krazed killer group to a disciplined modern fighting force.
Al-Hamwi told The Guardian that HTS created a new drone unit in 2019 to combat Assad’s superior weaponry, recruiting engineers and scientists to produce drones locally.
"We unified their knowledge and set clear objectives: we needed reconnaissance drones, attack drones and suicide drones, with a focus on range and endurance," he said.
This drone program developed a new style of attack drone called the Shahin, or falcon, which deployed deadly effectiveness in their lightning offensive, disabling much of the Syrian army’s mobile artillery systems, allowing HTS forces to advance into regime strongholds.
The rebel assault accomplished in two weeks what 13 years of brutal civil war could not, succeeding in taking down Assad and freeing Syria from over five decades of Assad family rule.
HTS, which is rooted in al-Qaeda’s Syria branch but in recent years sought to moderate its image, has pledged to form a transitional government that respects all of Syria’s ethnic groups and political factions, and that his group will hand over control to a civilian regime in March 2025.
While al-Hamwi, gave the credit for the success of the offensive to planning, analysts have said that much of their gains were made possible by the severely weakened state of the Lebanese terror group Hezbollah, which had sent forces to prop up Assad in the past.
This time, Hezbollah was in disarray. Many of its brass hats, including longtime leader His Eminence Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah
...The late, lamented satrap of the Medes and the Persians in Leb...>
, were killed in Israeli Arclight airstrike
 ...KABOOM! ...
s. And months of Israeli strikes destroyed much of its military infrastructure. With Syria’s key international allies, Russia and Iran, on the sidelines, Hezbollah withdrew, and Assad was ousted quickly.
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