The surprise victory of HTS had been predicted in November by Iranian officials, who informed Assad about the weakness of the state’s defenses because of the sustained Israeli attacks on Syrian army positions, of the Israeli invasion of Lebanon, and of the war in Ukraine.

The Syrian economy—destroyed by over a decade of war, unilateral sanctions imposed by the US and its allies, and the recent devastating earthquake—is suffering from the loss of revenues from oil, which it alleges is being looted from the country by the occupation forces

The strikes were carried out after a drone attack on a US base in Syria’s Hasakah killed one US contractor and injured six others. US forces have been illegally deployed on Syria since 2015