AQABA, Jordan (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Saturday that American officials have been in direct contact with the Syrian rebel group that spearheaded the overthrow of President Bashar Assad’s government but is designated a foreign terrorist organization by the United States and others.

Blinken is the first U.S. official to publicly confirm contacts between the Biden administration and Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS, which led a coalition of armed opposition groups that ousted Assad from power last Sunday.

Speaking at a news conference in Aqaba, Jordan, Blinken would not discuss details of the contacts but said it was important for the U.S. to convey messages to the group about its conduct and how it intends to govern in a transition period.

“Yes, we have been in contact with HTS and with other parties,” Blinken said. He added that “our message to the Syrian people is this: We want them to succeed and we’re prepared to help them do so.”

HTS, which was once an affiliate of al-Qaida, has been designed as a foreign terrorist organization by the State Department since 2018. That designation carries with it severe sanctions, including a ban on the provision of any “material support” to the group or its members. The sanctions do not, however, legally bar U.S. officials from communicating with designated groups.

HTS has worked to establish security and start a political transition after seizing Damascus and has tried to reassure a public both stunned by Assad’s fall and concerned about extremist jihadis among the rebels. Insurgent leaders say the group has broken with its extremist past.

The group’s leader, Ahmad al-Sharaa, formerly known as Abu Mohammed al-Golani, appeared in a video message Friday congratulating “the great Syrian people for the victory of the blessed revolution.”

U.S. officials say Sharaa has been making welcome comments about protecting minority and women’s rights but remain skeptical that he will follow through on them in the long run.

On Friday, the rebels and Syria’s unarmed opposition worked to safely turn over to U.S. officials an American man who had been imprisoned by Assad.

LONDON (AP) — Half a century of rule by the Assad family in Syria crumbled with astonishing speed after insurgents burst out of a rebel-held enclave and converged on the capital, Damascus, taking city after city in a matter of days.

Opposition forces swept across the country and entered Damascus with little or no resistance as the Syrian army melted away. President Bashar Assad, Syria’s ruler for 24 years — succeeding his father, Hafez Assad — fled the country. Russian state media reported that he was in Moscow.

It’s a stunning development in Syria’s devastating 13-year conflict. Anti-government protests in 2011 met with a brutal crackdown, escalating into a civil war that has killed more than half a million people and displaced half of Syria’s prewar population of 23 million. Assad, backed by Iran and Russia, gradually regained control of more than two-thirds of Syria, leaving the rebels with one stronghold in the northwest of the country.

And there the conflict remained, largely frozen, for years until late November. Here’s a look at a seismic two weeks for the Middle East.

Armed opposition groups launch a large-scale attack on areas controlled by government forces in northwestern Syria and claim to have wrested control of over 15 villages from government forces in northwestern Aleppo province. The government and its allies respond with airstrikes and shelling in an attempt to halt the insurgent advances.

The offensive is led by the jihadi group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS. Formerly the Syrian branch of al-Qaida and known as the Nusra Front, HTS later distanced itself from al-Qaida, seeking to market itself as a more moderate group. It is classed as a terrorist group by the United Nations and the U.S.

The attack on Aleppo follows weeks of simmering low-level violence, including government attacks on opposition-held areas. Turkey, a main backer of Syrian opposition groups, says the rebels began a limited offensive to stop the attacks, but it expanded as government forces began to retreat.

The offensive expands to reach the countryside of Idlib province amid reports government troops are retreating.

The insurgents enter Aleppo, Syria’s largest city, for the first time since they were pushed out in 2016 after a grueling military campaign by Syrian government forces backed by Russia and Iran. They meet with little resistance.

The rebels say they control Aleppo, raising a flag over the city’s citadel and occupying the international airport. The Syrian armed forces claim to have redeployed troops and equipment in preparation for a counterattack.

By evening, the insurgents have seized at least four towns in the central Hama province and claim to have entered the provincial capital.

The Syrian military launches a counterattack with troops and airstrikes on Idlib and Aleppo. Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi visits Damascus, telling Assad that Tehran will support the counteroffensive.

But Assad receives little, if any, help from his allies. Russia is busy with its war in Ukraine, and Iran has seen its proxies across the region degraded by regular airstrikes. Lebanon’s Iran-backed Hezbollah, which at one point sent thousands of fighters to shore up Assad’s forces, has been weakened by a yearlong conflict with Israel.

The insurgents push south, advancing to within 10 kilometers (6 miles) of Hama, the country’s fourth-largest city and a key crossroads in central Syria, about 200 kilometers (125 miles) north of Damascus. State media reports fierce fighting in the province, and both state media and a U.K.-based observer group say government forces, backed by Russian airstrikes, have recaptured some territory.

Turkey urges Assad to hold talks with the opposition.

After several days of fighting the rebels sweep into Hama. Dozens of jubilant fighters are seen firing into the air in celebration in Assi Square, the site of massive anti-government protests in the early days of the uprising in 2011. The Syrian army says it has redeployed to positions outside the city to protect civilians.

Rapidly advancing now, the rebels seize two towns on the outskirts of Homs, Syria’s third-largest city. About 40 kilometers (25 miles) south of Hama, Homs is the gateway to Damascus and the location of one of Syria’s two state-owned oil refineries. Capturing it would cut the link between Damascus, Assad’s seat of power, and the coastal region where he enjoys wide support.

The government denies reports that its military has withdrawn from the city.

Top diplomats from countries including Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Turkey, Iran and Russia, hold talks on Syria in the Qatari capital, Doha.

Opposition forces take Homs after government forces abandon it. The insurgents say they have encircled Damascus and are carrying out the “final stage” of their offensive.

The U.N. special envoy for Syria, Geir Pedersen, seeks urgent talks in Geneva to ensure an “orderly political transition,” as Syrian state media denies Assad has fled the country.

Syrian state television airs a video statement by a group of men saying that President Bashar Assad has been overthrown and all prisoners have been set free. HTS commander Abu Mohammed al-Golani visits the Umayyad Mosque in Damascus and calls Assad’s fall a victory for “the Islamic nation.”

Russian officials and Iranian state TV say Assad has left Syria. Russian state news agencies later report he and his family are in Moscow and were granted asylum.

Prime Minister Mohammed Ghazi Jalali says Syria’s government is ready to “extend its hand” to the opposition and hand over its functions to a transitional government.

BEIRUT (AP) — Abu Mohammed al-Golani, the militant leader whose stunning insurgency toppled Syria’s President Bashar Assad, has spent years working to remake his public image, renouncing longtime ties to al-Qaida and depicting himself as a champion of pluralism and tolerance. In recent days, the insurgency even dropped his nom de guerre and began referring to him by his real name, Ahmad al-Sharaa.

The extent of that transformation from jihadi extremist to would-be state builder is now put to the test.

Insurgents control capital Damascus, Assad has fled into hiding, and for the first time after 50 years of his family’s iron hand, it is an open question how Syria will be governed.

Syria is home to multiple ethnic and religious communities, often pitted against each other by Assad’s state and years of war. Many of them fear the possibility Sunni Islamist extremists will take over. The country is also fragmented among disparate armed factions, and foreign powers from Russia and Iran to the United States, Turkey and Israel all have their hands in the mix.

The 42-year-old al-Golani ― labeled a terrorist by the United States ― has not appeared publicly since Damascus fell early Sunday. But he and his insurgent force, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, or HTS – many of whose fighters are jihadis ― stand to be a major player.

For years, al-Golani worked to consolidate power, while bottled up in the province of Idlib in Syria’s northwest corner as Assad’s Iranian- and Russian-backed rule over much of the country appeared solid.

He maneuvered among extremist organizations while eliminating competitors and former allies. He sought to polish the image of his de-facto “salvation government” that has been running Idlib to win over international governments and reassure Syria’s religious and ethnic minorities. And he built ties with various tribes and other groups.

Along the way, al-Golani shed his garb as a hard-line Islamist guerrilla and put on suits for press interviews, talking of building state institutions and decentralizing power to reflect Syria’s diversity.

“Syria deserves a governing system that is institutional, no one where a single ruler makes arbitrary decisions,” he said in an interview with CNN last week, offering the possibility HTS would eventually be dissolved after Assad falls.

“Don’t judge by words, but by actions,” he said.

Al-Golani’s ties to al-Qaida stretch back to 2003, when he joined extremists battling U.S. troops in Iraq. The Syrian native was detained by the U.S. military but remained in Iraq. During that time, al-Qaida usurped like-minded groups and formed the extremist Islamic State of Iraq, led by Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi.

In 2011, a popular uprising against Syria’s Assad triggered a brutal government crackdown and led to all-out war. Al-Golani’s prominence grew when al-Baghdadi sent him to Syria to establish a branch of al-Qaida called the Nusra Front. The United States labeled the new group as a terrorist organization. That designation still remains in place and the U.S. government has put a $10 million bounty on him.

As Syria’s civil war intensified in 2013, so did al-Golani’s ambitions. He defied al-Baghdadi’s calls to dissolve the Nusra Front and merge it with al-Qaida’s operation in Iraq, to form the Islamic State of Iraq and Syria, or ISIS.

Al-Golani nonetheless pledged his allegiance to al-Qaida, which later disassociated itself from ISIS. The Nusra Front battled ISIS and eliminated much of its competition among the Syrian armed opposition to Assad.

In his first interview in 2014, al-Golani kept his face covered, telling a reporter for Qatari network Al-Jazeera that he rejected political talks in Geneva to end the conflict. He said his goal was to see Syria ruled under Islamic law and made clear that there was no room for the country’s Alawite, Shiite, Druze and Christian minorities.

In 2016, al-Golani revealed his face to the public for the first time in a video message that announced his group was renaming itself Jabhat Fateh al-Sham -– the Syria Conquest Front ― and cutting its ties to al-Qaida.

“This new organization has no affiliation to any external entity,” he said in the video, filmed wearing military garb and a turban.

The move paved the way for al-Golani to assert full control over fracturing militant groups. A year later, his alliance rebranded again as Hayat Tahrir al-Sham -– meaning Organization for Liberating Syria ― as the groups merged, consolidating al-Golani’s power in northwest Syria’s Idlib province.

HTS later clashed with independent Islamist militants who opposed the merger, further emboldening al-Golani and his group as the leading power in northwestern Syria, able to rule with an iron fist.

With his power consolidated, al-Golani set in motion a transformation that few could have imagined. Replacing his military garb with shirt and trousers, he began calling for religious tolerance and pluralism.

He appealed to the Druze community in Idlib, which the Nusra Front had previously targeted, and visited the families of Kurds who were killed by Turkish-backed militias.

In 2021, al-Golani had his first interview with an American journalist on PBS. Wearing a blazer, with his short hair gelled back, the now more soft-spoken HTS leader said that his group posed no threat to the West and that sanctions imposed against it were unjust.

“Yes, we have criticized Western policies,” he said. “But to wage a war against the United States or Europe from Syria, that’s not true. We didn’t say we wanted to fight.”

BEIRUT (AP) — Syrian President Bashar Assad fled the country on Sunday, bringing to a dramatic close his nearly 14-year struggle to hold onto control as his country fragmented in a brutal civil war that became a proxy battlefield for regional and international powers.

Assad’s exit stood in stark contrast to his first months as Syria’s unlikely president in 2000, when many hoped he would be a young reformer after three decades of his father’s iron grip. Only 34 years old, the Western-educated ophthalmologist appeared as a geeky tech-savvy fan of computers with a gentle demeanor.

But when faced with protests against his rule that erupted in March 2011, Assad turned to the brutal tactics of his father in an attempt to crush dissent. As the uprising hemorrhaged into an outright civil war, he unleashed his military to blast opposition-held cities, with support from allies Iran and Russia.

International rights groups and prosecutors alleged widespread use of torture and extrajudicial killings in Syria’s government-run detention centers. The war has killed nearly half a million people and displaced half of the country’s prewar population of 23 million.

The conflict appeared to be frozen in recent years, with Assad’s government regaining control of most of Syria’s territory while the northwest remained under the control of opposition groups and the northeast under Kurdish control.

Although Damascus remained under crippling Western sanctions, neighboring countries had begun to resign themselves to Assad’s continued hold on power. The Arab League reinstated Syria’s membership last year, and Saudi Arabia in May announced the appointment of its first ambassador since severing ties with Damascus 12 years ago.

However, the geopolitical tide turned quickly when opposition groups in northwest Syria in late November launched a surprise offensive. Government forces quickly collapsed while Assad’s allies, preoccupied by other conflicts — Russia’s war in Ukraine and the yearlong wars between Israel and the Iran-backed militant groups Hezbollah and Hamas — appeared reluctant to forcefully intervene.

An end to decades of family rule

Assad came to power in 2000 by a twist of fate. His father had been cultivating Bashar’s oldest brother, Basil, as his successor, but in 1994, Basil was killed in a car crash in Damascus. Bashar was brought home from his ophthalmology practice in London, put through military training and elevated to the rank of colonel to establish his credentials so he could one day rule.

When Hafez Assad died in 2000, parliament quickly lowered the presidential age requirement from 40 to 34. Bashar’s elevation was sealed by a nationwide referendum, in which he was the only candidate.

Hafez, a lifelong military man, ruled the country for nearly 30 years during which he set up a Soviet-style centralized economy and kept such a stifling hand over dissent that Syrians feared even to joke about politics to their friends.

He pursued a secular ideology that sought to bury sectarian differences under Arab nationalism and the image of heroic resistance to Israel. He formed an alliance with the Shiite clerical leadership in Iran, sealed Syrian domination over Lebanon and set up a network of Palestinian and Lebanese militant groups.

Bashar initially seemed completely unlike his strongman father.

Tall and lanky with a slight lisp, he had a quiet, gentle demeanor. His only official position before becoming president was head of the Syrian Computer Society. His wife, Asma al-Akhras, whom he married several months after taking office, was attractive, stylish and British-born.

The young couple, who eventually had three children, seemed to shun trappings of power. They lived in an apartment in the upscale Abu Rummaneh district of Damascus, as opposed to a palatial mansion like other Arab leaders.

Initially upon coming to office, Assad freed political prisoners and allowed more open discourse. In the “Damascus Spring,” salons for intellectuals emerged where Syrians could discuss art, culture and politics to a degree impossible under his father.

But after 1,000 intellectuals signed a public petition calling for multiparty democracy and greater freedoms in 2001, and others tried to form a political party, the salons were snuffed out by the feared secret police, who jailed dozens of activists.

Tested by the Arab Spring, Assad relied on old alliances to stay in power

Instead of a political opening, Assad turned to economic reforms. He slowly lifted economic restrictions, let in foreign banks, threw the doors open to imports and empowered the private sector. Damascus and other cities long mired in drabness saw a flourishing of shopping malls, new restaurants and consumer goods. Tourism swelled.

Abroad, he stuck to the line his father had set, based on the alliance with Iran and a policy of insisting on a full return of the Israel-annexed Golan Heights, although in practice Assad never militarily confronted Israel.

In 2005, he suffered a heavy blow with the loss of Syria’s decades-old control over neighboring Lebanon after the assassination of former Prime Minister Rafik Hariri. With many Lebanese accusing Damascus of being behind the slaying, Syria was forced to withdraw its troops from the country and a pro-American government came to power.

At the same time, the Arab world split into two camps — one of U.S.-allied, Sunni-led countries such as Saudi Arabia and Egypt, the other Syria and Shiite-led Iran with their ties to Hezbollah and Palestinian militants.

Throughout, Assad relied largely on the same power base at home as his father: his Alawite sect, an offshoot of Shiite Islam comprising around 10% of the population. Many of the positions in his government went to younger generations of the same families that had worked for his father. Drawn in as well were members of the new middle class created by his reforms, including prominent Sunni merchant families.

Assad also turned to his own family. His younger brother Maher headed the elite Presidential Guard and would lead the crackdown against the uprising. Their sister Bushra was a strong voice in his inner circle, along with her husband, Deputy Defense Minister Assef Shawkat, until he was killed in a 2012 bombing. Bashar’s cousin, Rami Makhlouf, became the country’s biggest businessman, heading a financial empire before the two had a falling-out that led to Makhlouf being pushed aside.

Assad also increasingly entrusted key roles to his wife, Asma, before she announced in May that she was undergoing treatment for leukemia and stepped out of the limelight.

When 2011 protests erupted in Tunisia and Egypt, eventually toppling their rulers, Assad dismissed the possibility of the same occurring in his country, insisting his regime was more in tune with its people. After the Arab Spring wave reached Syria, his security forces staged a brutal crackdown while Assad consistently denied he was facing a popular revolt. He instead blamed “foreign-backed terrorists” trying to destabilize his regime.

His rhetoric struck a chord with many in Syria’s minority groups — including Christians, Druze and Shiites — as well as some Sunnis who feared the prospect of rule by Sunni extremists even more than they disliked Assad’s authoritarian rule.

As the uprising spiraled into a civil war, millions of Syrians fled to Jordan, Turkey, Iraq and Lebanon and on to Europe.

Ironically, on Feb. 26, 2011, two days after the fall of Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak to protesters and just days before the wave of Arab Spring protests swept into his country, Assad e-mailed a joke he had run across mocking the Egyptian leader’s stubborn refusal to step down.

DAMASCUS, Syria (AP) — The Syrian government collapsed early Sunday, falling to a lightning rebel offensive that seized control of the capital of Damascus and sent crowds into the streets to celebrate the end of the Assad family’s 50 years of iron rule.

Syrian state television aired a video statement by a group of men saying that President Bashar Assad had been overthrown and all prisoners had been set free.

The man who read the statement said the opposition group, known as the Operations Room to Conquer Damascus, called on all rebel fighters and citizens to preserve the institutions of “the free Syrian state.”

The statement emerged hours after the head of a Syrian opposition war monitor said Assad had left the country for an undisclosed location, fleeing ahead of insurgents who said they had entered Damascus following a remarkably swift advance across the country.

Many of the capital’s residents were in disbelief at the speed at which Assad lost his hold on the country after nearly 14 years of civil war that killed hundreds of thousands of people, displaced half the country’s prewar population of 23 million and drew in several foreign powers.

As daylight broke over Damascus, crowds gathered to pray in the city’s mosques and to celebrate in the squares, chanting “God is great.” People also chanted anti-Assad slogans and honked car horns.

In the streets, teen boys picked up weapons that had apparently been discarded by security forces and fired them in the air.

Soldiers and police officers left their posts and fled, and looters broke into the Defense Ministry. Videos from Damascus showed families wandering into the presidential palace, with some emerging carrying stacks of plates and other household items.

“I did not sleep last night, and I refused to sleep until I heard the news of his fall,” said Mohammed Amer Al-Oulabi, 44, who works in the electricity sector. “From Idlib to Damascus, it only took them (the opposition forces) a few days, thank God. May God bless them, the heroic lions who made us proud.”

Meanwhile, organizations that had previously been close to Assad’s government attempted to distance themselves from it.

Syria’s al-Watan newspaper, which was historically pro-government, wrote: “We are facing a new page for Syria. We thank God for not shedding more blood. We believe and trust that Syria will be for all Syrians.”

The newspaper added that media workers should not be blamed for publishing government statements in the past.

“We only carried out the instructions and published the news they sent us,” it said. “It quickly became clear now that it was false.”

A statement from the Alawite sect — to which Assad belongs and which has formed the core of his base — called on young Syrians to be “calm, rational and prudent and not to be dragged into what tears apart the unity of our country.”

“We were and still are advocates of peace and advocates of unity,” it said. The statement called for “the language of reason and dialogue to prevail over all parties in the service of Syria and its great people.”

Syrian Prime Minister Mohammed Ghazi Jalali said in a video statement that the government was ready to “extend its hand” to the opposition and turn its functions over to a transitional government.

He later told Saudi television network Al-Arabiyya that he does not know where Assad and the defense minister are. He said he lost communication with Assad late Saturday.

Rami Abdurrahman of the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told The Associated Press that Assad took a flight Sunday from Damascus.

A senior diplomat from the United Arab Emirates, which had sought to rehabilitate Assad’s image and has welcomed high-profile exiles in recent years, declined to comment on his whereabouts when asked by reporters at a conference in Bahrain.

Anwar Gargash said Assad’s destination at this point is a “footnote in history,” comparing it to the long exile of German Kaiser Wilhelm II after World War I.

Assad has been accused of war crimes and crimes against humanity during the war, including a 2013 chemical weapons attack on the outskirts of the capital.

There was no immediate comment from Iran, which had been Assad’s staunchest supporter. The Iranian Embassy in Damascus was ransacked after apparently having been abandoned. AP footage showed broken windows and documents scattered in the entryway.

Opposition forces had not reached Damascus since 2018, when Syrian troops recaptured areas on the outskirts of the capital following a yearslong siege.

The night before, opposition forces took the central city of Homs, Syria’s third largest, as government forces abandoned it. The city stands at an important intersection between Damascus, the capital, and Syria’s coastal provinces of Latakia and Tartus — the Syrian leader’s base of support and home to a Russian strategic naval base.

The rebels had already seized the cities of Aleppo and Hama, as well as large parts of the south, in a fast-moving offensive that began Nov. 27.

The advances in the past week were by far the largest in recent years by opposition factions, led by a group that has its origins in al-Qaida and is considered a terrorist organization by the United States and the United Nations. In their push to overthrow Assad’s government, the insurgents, led by the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group, or HTS, have met little resistance from the Syrian army.

HTS set up a “salvation government” in 2017 to administer a large region in northwestern Syria under its control. In recent years, HTS leader Abu Mohammed al-Golani has sought to remake the group’s image, cutting ties with al-Qaida, ditching hard-line officials and vowing to embrace pluralism and religious tolerance.

“Golani has made history and sparked hope among millions of Syrians,” said Dareen Khalifa, a senior adviser with the International Crisis Group and an expert on Syrian groups. “But he and the rebels now face a formidable challenge ahead. One can only hope they rise to the occasion.”

The U.N.’s special envoy for Syria, Geir Pedersen, called Saturday for urgent talks in Geneva to ensure an “orderly political transition.” Speaking to reporters at the annual Doha Forum in Qatar, he said the situation in Syria was changing by the minute. Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, whose country is Assad’s chief international backer, said he feels “sorry for the Syrian people.”

The Israeli military said Sunday it has deployed forces in a demilitarized buffer zone along its northern frontier with Syria following the rebel offensive there.

The military, which said it also sent troops to “other places necessary for its defense,” said the deployment was meant to provide security for residents of the Israeli-annexed Golan Heights. Israel captured the territory in the 1967 Mideast war and the international community, except for the United States, views it as occupied.

Associated Press writers Bassem Mroue, Sarah El Deeb and Kareem Chehayeb in Beirut, Samar Kassaballi in Damascus, Jon Gambrell in Manama, Bahrain, and Tia Goldenberg in Jerusalem contributed.

BEIRUT (AP) — The last time Syrian President Bashar Assad was in serious trouble was 10 years ago, at the height of the country’s civil war, when his forces lost control over parts of the largest city, Aleppo, and his opponents were closing in on the capital, Damascus.

Back then, he was rescued by his chief international backer, Russia, and longtime regional ally Iran, which along with Lebanon’s powerful Hezbollah militia helped Assad’s forces retake Aleppo, tipping the war firmly in his favor.

Now, as insurgents pursue a shock offensive that quickly captured not just Aleppo, but the key city of Hama and a string of other towns across the country’s northwest, the Syrian leader appears to be largely on his own.

Russia is preoccupied with its war in Ukraine, and Hezbollah, which at one point sent thousands of its fighters to shore up Assad’s forces, has been weakened by a yearlong conflict with Israel. Iran, meanwhile, has seen its proxies across the region degraded by Israeli airstrikes.

Moreover, Syrian troops are exhausted and hollowed out by 13 years of war and economic crises, with little will left to fight.

So will Assad’s rule collapse in the near future?

“The coming days and weeks will be critical in determining whether the rebel offensive poses an existential threat to the Assad regime or whether the regime manages to regain its footing and push back on recent rebel gains,” said Mona Yacoubian, an analyst with the United States Institute for Peace.

“While weakened and distracted, Assad’s allies are unlikely to simply cave to the rebels’ offensive,” she wrote in an analysis.

Until recently, it seemed that Syria’s president was almost out of the woods. He never really won the long-running civil war, and large parts of the country were still outside his control.

But after 13 years of conflict, it appeared that the worst was over and that the world was ready to forget. Once viewed as a regional pariah, Assad saw Arab countries warming up to him again, renewing ties and reinstating Syria’s membership in the Arab League. Earlier this year, Italy also decided to reopen its embassy in Damascus after a decade of strained relations.

In the aftermath of one of the world’s largest humanitarian crises, aid groups and international donors in Syria began pivoting toward spending more on the country’s recovery than on emergency assistance, providing a lifeline for Syrians and restoring basic services.

But then the sudden offensive launched by insurgents on Nov. 27 reignited the war and caught everyone off guard with its scope and speed.

It also left Syria’s neighbors anxious, wary that violence and refugees could spill across borders and worried about the growing influence of Islamist groups, a major concern for most of Syria’s Arab neighbors.

Analysts say a confluence of geopolitical developments beginning with Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, followed by the Israel-Hamas war in Gaza that started on Oct. 7, 2023, helped create the opportunity for Assad’s opponents to pounce.

As the rebels advanced this past week, Syrian forces appeared to melt away, putting up no resistance, with several reports of defection. Russian forces carried out occasional airstrikes. Hezbollah’s leader in Lebanon said the group will continue to support Syria, but made no mention of sending fighters again.

“The rebel assault underscores the precarious nature of regime control in Syria,” Yacoubian wrote.

“Its sudden eruption and the speed with which rebel groups managed to overtake Aleppo … expose the complex dynamics that reside just below the surface in Syria and can transform superficial calm into major conflict.”

Aron Lund, a Syria expert with Century International, a New York-based think tank and a researcher with the Swedish Defense Research Agency, said the developments in Syria are a geopolitical disaster for Russia and Iran.

“They too were surely surprised by what happened, and they have all sorts of resource constraints,” including Russia’s war in Ukraine and Hezbollah’s losses in Lebanon and Syria.

While the country’s conflict lines have been largely stalemated since 2020, Syria’s economic woes have only multiplied in the past few years.

The imposition of U.S. sanctions, a banking crisis in neighboring Lebanon and an earthquake last year contributed to the fact that almost all Syrians face extreme financial hardship.

That has caused state institutions and salaries to wither.

“If you can’t pay your soldiers a living wage, then maybe you can’t expect them to stay and fight when thousands of Islamists storm” their cities, Lund said. “It is just an exhausted, broken and dysfunctional regime” to start with.

Part of the insurgents’ attempt to reassert their grip on Aleppo, the city where they were ousted in 2016 after a grueling military campaign, was to issue a call to government soldiers and security agencies to defect, granting them what they called “protection cards,” which offer some sort of amnesty and assurances that they won’t be hunted down.

The spokesman for the insurgents, Hassan Abdul-Ghani, said more than 1,600 soldiers have applied for the cards over two days in Aleppo city.

Hundreds of defectors lined up outside city police stations Thursday to register their details with the insurgents.

Hossam al-Bakr, 33, originally from Hama who served in Damascus and defected four years earlier to Aleppo, said he came to “settle his position” and get a new ID.

The laminated card handed out to each defector was titled the “defection card.” It showed the name, ID number and place of service of each defector. It is issued by “The General Command: Military Operations Room.”

On Thursday, Maj. Mohamed Ghoneim, who was in charge of registering the defectors, said more than 1,000 soldiers or police officers came to register. Some who were in possession of their official guns handed them over, he added.

“There are thousands who want to apply,” he said.

Charles Lister, a longtime Syria expert, said while most of the international community has written off the conflict as either frozen or finished, the armed opposition has never given up and has been training for such a scenario for years.

A ragtag group of militias, plagued by infighting and rivalry, spent years preparing and organizing, propelled by a dream to regain control of territory from Assad.

“The regime has been more vulnerable over the last year or two than it has perhaps been throughout the entirety of the conflict,” Lister said. “And it has gotten used to the idea that if it can wait things out, it will ultimately prove to be the victor.”

Karam reported from London.

BEIRUT (AP) — Thousands of people fled the central Syrian city of Homs, the country’s third largest, as insurgents seized two towns on the outskirts Friday, positioning themselves for an assault on a potentially major prize in their march against President Bashar Assad.

The move, reported by pro-government media and an opposition war monitor, was the latest in the stunning advances by opposition fighters over the past week that have so far met little resistance from Assad’s forces. A day earlier, fighters captured the central city of Hama, Syria’s fourth largest, after the army said it withdrew to avoid fighting inside the city and spare the lives of civilians.

The insurgents, led by the jihadi Hayat Tahrir al-Sham group, or HTS, have vowed to march to Homs and the capital, Damascus, Assad’s seat of power. Videos circulating online showed a highway jammed with cars full of people fleeing Homs, a city with a large population belonging to Assad’s Alawite sect, seen as his core supporters.

If Assad’s military loses Homs, it could be a crippling blow. The city, parts of which were controlled by insurgents until 2014, stands at an important intersection between Damascus and Syria’s coastal provinces of Latakia and Tartus, where Assad enjoys wide support. Homs province is Syria’s largest in size and borders Lebanon, Iraq and Jordan.

Pressure on the government intensified from multiple directions.

Opposition protesters stormed security posts and army positions in the southern province of Sweida, opposition activists said. U.S.-backed Kurdish forces who control eastern and northeastern Syria began to encroach on government-held territory.

After years of largely being bottled up in a northwest corner of the country, the insurgents burst out a week ago, captured the northern city of Aleppo, Syria’s largest, and have kept advancing since. Government troops have repeatedly fallen back.

The sudden offensive has flipped the tables on a long-entrenched stalemate in Syria’s nearly 14-year-old civil war. Along with HTS, the fighters include forces of an umbrella group of Turkish-backed Syrian militias called the Syrian National Army. Turkey has denied backing the offensive, though experts say insurgents would not have launched it without the country’s consent.

HTS’s leader, Abu Mohammad al-Golani, told CNN in an exclusive interview Thursday from Syria that Assad’s government was on the path to falling, propped up only by Russia and Iran.

“The seeds of the regime’s defeat have always been within it,” he said. “But the truth remains, this regime is dead.”

A key question about Assad’s ability to fight back is how much top ally Russia — whose troops back Assad’s forces — will throw support his way at a time when it is tied up in the war in Ukraine.

Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said he planned to discuss the developments in Syria with his Turkish and Iranian counterparts at a meeting Friday in the Qatari capital, Doha.

In an interview with former Fox News host Tucker Carlson, he said international actors were backing the insurgents’ advances and that he would discuss “the way to cut the channels of financing and arming them.”

Meanwhile, Russia’s embassy in Syria issued a notice reminding Russian citizens that they may use commercial flights to leave the country “in view of the difficult military-political situation.”

The foreign ministers of Iran, Iraq and Syria — three close allies — gathered Friday in Baghdad to consult on the rapidly changing war. Syrian Foreign Minister Bassam Sabbagh said the current developments may pose “a serious threat to the security of the region as a whole.”

The insurgent fighters on Friday took over the central towns of Rastan and Talbiseh, putting them 5 kilometers (3 miles) from Homs, according to the Britain-based Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, an opposition war monitor.

“The battle of Homs is the mother of all battles and will decide who will rule Syria,” said Rami Abdurrahman, the Observatory’s chief.

Pro-government Sham FM said the insurgents entered Rastan and Talbiseh without facing any resistance. There was no immediate comment from the Syrian military.

The Observatory said Syrian troops had left Homs. But the military denied that in comments reported by the state news agency SANA, saying troops were reinforcing their positions in the city and were “ready to repel” any assault.

In eastern Syria, the Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces coalition said it had moved into the government-held half of the city of Deir el-Zour, apparently without resistance. One of the main cities in the east, Deir el-Zour had long been split between the government on the western side of the Euphrates River and the SDF on the eastern side.

The SDF also said it took control of further parts of the border with Iraq. That appeared to bring it closer to the government-held Boukamal border crossing. The crossing is a vital for the government because it is the gateway to the corridor to Iran, a supply line for Iran-backed fighters, including Lebanon’s Hezbollah.

At the same time, insurgents seized Syria’s sole crossing to Jordan, according to opposition activists. Jordan announced it was closing its side of the crossing. Lebanon also closed all but one of its border crossings with Syria.

The opposition assault has struck a blow to Syria’s already decrepit economy. On Friday, the U.S. dollar was selling on Syria’s parallel market for about 18,000 pounds, a 25% drop from a week ago. When Syria’s conflict erupted in March 2011, a dollar was valued at 47 pounds.

The drop further undermines the purchasing power of Syrians at a time when the U.N. has warned that 90% of the population is below the poverty line.

Syria’s economy has been hammered for years by the war, Western sanctions, corruption and an economic meltdown in neighboring Lebanon, Syria’s main gate to the outside world.

Damascus residents told The Associated Press that people are rushing to markets to buy food, fearing further escalation.

The worsening economy could be undermining the ability of Syria’s military to fight, as the value of soldiers’ salaries melts away while the insurgents are flush with cash.

Syria’s military has not appeared to put up a cohesive counteroffensive against the opposition advances. SANA on Friday quoted an unnamed military official as saying the Syrian and Russian air forces were striking insurgents in Hama province, killing dozens of fighters.

Syria’s defense minister said in a televised statement late Thursday that government forces withdrew from Hama as “a temporary tactical measure” and vowed to gain back lost areas.

“We are in a good position on the ground,” Gen. Ali Mahmoud Abbas said, saying troops remained “at the gates of Hama.” He spoke before the opposition advanced further south toward Homs.

He said the insurgents, whom he described as “takfiri” or Muslim extremists, are backed by foreign countries. He did not name the countries but appeared to be referring to Turkey and the United States.

Associated Press writers Albert Aji in Damascus, Syria, and Suzan Fraser in Ankara, Turkey, contributed to this report.

BEIRUT (AP) — The Syrian military rushed reinforcements to the northwest and launched airstrikes Sunday in an attempt to push back insurgents who seized the country’s largest city of Aleppo, as Iran pledged to help the government counter the surprise offensive.

Iran has been a key political and military ally of Syrian President Bashar Assad in his country’s civil war, but it was unclear how Tehran would support Damascus in the latest flareup. Insurgents led by jihadi group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham launched a two-pronged attack on Aleppo and the countryside around Idlib on Wednesday, before moving toward neighboring Hama province.

On Sunday, government troops created a “strong defensive line” in northern Hama, as they attempted to stall the insurgents’ momentum, according to Britain-based opposition war monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights. Meanwhile, jets pounded the cities of Idlib and Aleppo, killing at least 25 people, according to the Syrian civil defense group that operates in opposition-held areas.

The surge in fighting has raised the prospect of another violent, destabilizing front reopening in the Middle East at a time when Israel is fighting Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, conflicts that have repeatedly threatened to ignite an even wider regional war. It also risks drawing Russia and Turkey — each with its own interests to protect in Syria — into direct heavy fighting against each other.

The insurgents announced their offensive Wednesday, just as a ceasefire started between Hezbollah and Israel that raised some hope tensions in the region might be calming.

The surprise offensive is a huge embarrassment for Assad, and it comes at a time when his allies — Iran and groups it backs and Russia — are preoccupied with their own conflicts.

According to a statement from Assad’s office, Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi reassured the Syrian leader during a visit to Damascus that Tehran was ready to support the government in their counteroffensive.

Arab leaders, including Jordan’s King Abdullah II and United Arab Emirates President Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan, have also called Assad to express their solidarity.

Late Sunday, multiple Western governments jointly urged a de-escalation by all parties and protection of civilians and infrastructure “to prevent further displacement and disruption of humanitarian access.” The statement by the U.S., U.K., French and German governments said they were watching the situation closely and that the escalation underscored the urgent need for a political solution.

The insurgents took over most of Aleppo on Saturday and made gains in the surrounding province. They also seized the main water pumping station for city and it is no longer working, Syrian Minister of Water Resources Moataz Qattan told the pro-government radio station Sham FM.

Elsewhere, rebel commander Col. Hassan Abdulghani said the insurgents advanced in the countryside around Idlib, putting all of the province of the same name under their control.

They also claimed to have entered the city of Hama, but there was no independent confirmation of that.

In Khan Sheikhoun in Idlib province, military vehicles abandoned by Syrian troops dotted the roads. People posed and took pictures of themselves atop one abandoned tank on a highway, while the insurgents grabbed munitions and shells from them before continuing their push deeper into Syria.

The insurgents vowed to push all the way into Damascus, but life in the Syrian capital remained normal with no signs of panic. In southeastern Aleppo, however, the main road out of the city was gridlocked as people fled the fighting, and gas stations in the area were short on fuel.

The rebels also made it into Tel Rifaat, a town near Aleppo held by U.S.-backed Syrian Kurdish forces, according to pro-government pan-Arab Al Mayadeen TV.

Tel Rifaat is far from the large swaths of northeastern Syria that are controlled by the Kurdish troops, known as the Syrian Democratic Forces. A statement from the insurgency called on the SDF to leave the areas near Aleppo that they hold and retreat to their bastions in the northeast.

Despite being at odds politically with the Syrian government, the Kurdish-led administration has opposed the insurgency and accused Turkey, the main backer of Syrian opposition groups, of trying to displace the Kurdish population.

Turkish officials have said a limited offensive by the rebels was planned to stop government attacks on opposition-held areas in recent weeks, but it expanded as government forces began to retreat.

The United Nations special envoy for Syria, Geir Pedersen, said the push by the rebels poses a risk to regional security and called on resuming diplomatic efforts to end the conflict.

U.S. national security adviser Jake Sullivan told CNN’s “State of the Union” that the U.S. is watching the situation carefully. There are about 900 American troops in Syria’s northeast — far from where the insurgency is happening — who are meant to guard against a resurgence by the extremist Islamic State group.

The group leading the rebel advance is designated a terrorist organization by the U.S., and Sullivan said Washington has “real concerns about the designs and objectives of that organization.”

“At the same time, of course, we don’t cry over the fact that the Assad government, backed by Russia, Iran and Hezbollah, are facing certain kinds of pressure,” he added.

According to Syrian state news agency SANA and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, the army overnight pushed back insurgents in the northern countryside of Hama province.

Syrian state media said government resupply included heavy equipment and rocket launchers while Syrian and Russian airstrikes targeted weapon depots and insurgent strongholds. Sham FM said the Syrian army shot down drones belonging to Hayat Tahrir al-Sham in northern Hama.

Syrian state television claimed government forces had killed nearly 1,000 insurgents over the past three days, without providing evidence or details.

Government airstrikes in Idlib and Aleppo killed at least 25 people, of which 14 are women and children, according to the Syrian Civil Defense, also known as the White Helmets, that operates in opposition-held areas.

Residents could be seen fleeing through ash-covered streets. Men lowered a child from the high floor of a building whose facade was blown off.

Airstrikes also struck in and around Aleppo, including near a hospital in the city center, killing 12 people, including at least eight civilians, according to the White Helmets and the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.

The 2016 battle for Aleppo was a turning point in the war between Syrian government forces and rebel fighters after 2011 protests against Assad’s rule turned into an all-out war. After appearing to be losing control of the country to the rebels, the Aleppo battle secured Assad’s hold on strategic areas of Syria, with opposition factions and their foreign backers controlling areas on the periphery.

BEIRUT (AP) — Thousands of Syrian insurgents took over most of Aleppo on Saturday, establishing positions in the country’s largest city and controlling its airport before expanding their shock offensive to a nearby province. They faced little to no resistance from government troops, according to fighters and activists.

A war monitor, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, said the insurgents led by Hayat Tahrir al-Sham seized control of Aleppo International airport, the first international airport to be controlled by insurgents. The fighters claimed they seized the airport and postefd pictures from there.

Thousands of fighters also moved on, facing almost no defense from government forces, to seize towns and villages in northern Hama, a province where they had a presence before being expelled by government troops in 2016. They claimed Saturday evening to have entered Hama city.

The swift and surprise offensive is a huge embarrassment for Syria’s President Bashar Assad and raised questions about his armed forces’ preparedness. The insurgent offensive launched from their stronghold in the country’s northwest appeared to have been planned for years. It also comes at a time when Assad’s allies were preoccupied with their own conflicts.

Turkey, a main backer of Syrian opposition groups, said its diplomatic efforts had failed to stop government attacks on opposition-held areas in recent weeks, which were in violation of a de-escalation agreement sponsored by Russia, Iran and Ankara. Turkish security officials said a limited offensive by the rebels was planned to stop government attacks and allow civilians to return, but the offensive expanded as Syrian government forces began to retreat from their positions.

The insurgents, led by the Salafi jihadi group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham and including Turkey-backed fighters, launched their shock offensive on Wednesday. They first staged a two-pronged attack in Aleppo and the Idlib countryside, entering Aleppo two days later and securing a strategic town that lies on the highway that links Syria’s largest city to the capital and the coast.

By Saturday evening, they seized at least four towns in the central Hama province and claimed to have entered the provincial capital. The insurgents staged an attempt to reclaim areas they controlled in Hama in 2017 but failed.

Syria’s armed forces said in a statement Saturday that to absorb the large attack on Aleppo and save lives, it redeployed troops and equipment and was preparing a counterattack. The statement acknowledged that insurgents entered large parts of the city but said they have not established bases or checkpoints. Later on Saturday, the armed forces sought to dispel what it said were lies in reference to reports about its forces retreating or defecting, saying the general command was carrying out its duties in “combatting terrorist organizations.”

The return of the insurgents to Aleppo was their first since 2016, following a grueling military campaign in which Assad’s forces were backed by Russia, Iran and its allied groups.

The 2016 battle for Aleppo was a turning point in the war between Syrian government forces and rebel fighters after 2011 protests against Assad’s rule turned into an all-out war. After appearing to be losing control of the country to the rebels, the Aleppo battle secured Assad’s hold on strategic areas of Syria, with opposition factions and their foreign backers controlling areas on the periphery.

The lightning offensive threatened to reignite the country’s civil war, which had been largely in a stalemate for years.

Late on Friday, witnesses said two airstrikes hit the edge of Aleppo city, targeting insurgent reinforcements and falling near residential areas. The Observatory said 20 fighters were killed.

Insurgents were filmed outside police headquarters, in the city center, and outside the Aleppo citadel, the medieval palace in the old city center, and one of the largest in the world. They tore down posters of Assad, stepping on some and burning others.

The push into Aleppo followed weeks of simmering low-level violence, including government attacks on opposition-held areas.

The offensive came as Iran-linked groups, primarily Lebanon’s Hezbollah, which has backed Syrian government forces since 2015, have been preoccupied with their own battles at home. A ceasefire in Hezbollah’s two-month war with Israel took effect Wednesday, the same day that Syrian opposition factions announced their offensive. Israel has also escalated its attacks against Hezbollah and Iran-linked targets in Syria during the last 70 days.

Speaking from the heart of the city in Saadallah Aljabri square, opposition fighter Mohammad Al Abdo said it was his first time back in Aleppo in 13 years, when his older brother was killed at the start of the war.

“God willing, the rest of Aleppo province will be liberated” from government forces, he said.

There was light traffic in the city center on Saturday. Opposition fighters fired in the air in celebration but there was no sign of clashes or government troops present.

Journalists in the city filmed soldiers captured by the insurgents and the bodies of others killed in battle.

Abdulkafi Alhamdo, a teacher who fled Aleppo in 2016 and returned Friday night after hearing the insurgents were inside, described “mixed feelings of pain, sadness and old memories.”

“As I entered Aleppo, I kept telling myself this is impossible. How did this happen?”

Alhamdo said he strolled through the city at night visiting the Aleppo citadel, where the insurgents raised their flags, a major square and the university of Aleppo, as well as the last spot he was in before he was forced to leave for the countryside.

“I walked in (the empty) streets of Aleppo, shouting, ‘People, people of Aleppo. We are your sons,’” he told The Associated Press in a series of messages.

Aleppo residents reported hearing clashes and gunfire but most stayed indoors. Some fled the fighting.

Schools and government offices were closed Saturday as most people stayed indoors, according to Sham FM radio, a pro-government station. Bakeries were open. Witnesses said the insurgents deployed security forces around the city to prevent any acts of violence or looting.

The U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs said Friday Aleppo’s two key public hospitals were reportedly full of patients while many private facilities closed.

In social media posts, the insurgents were pictured outside of the citadel, the medieval palace in the old city center, and one of the largest in the world. In cellphone videos, they recorded themselves having conversations with residents they visited at home, seeking to reassure them they will cause no harm.

The Syrian Kurdish-led administration in the country’s east said nearly 3,000 people, most of them students, had arrived in their region after fleeing the fighting in Aleppo, which has a sizeable Kurdish population.

State media reported that a number of “terrorists,” including sleeper cells, infiltrated parts of the city. Government troops chased them and arrested a number who posed for pictures near city landmarks, they said.

On a state TV morning show Saturday, commentators said army reinforcements and Russia’s assistance would repel the “terrorist groups,” blaming Turkey for supporting the insurgents’ push into Aleppo and Idlib provinces.

Russia’s state news agency Tass quoted Oleg Ignasyuk, a Russian Defense Ministry official coordinating in Syria, as saying that Russian warplanes targeted and killed 200 militants who had launched the offensive in the northwest on Friday. It provided no further details.

Associated Press writer Albert Aji in Damascus contributed to this report.