Iraqi militias deploy in Syria to back government’s counteroffensive against insurgents

BEIRUT (AP) — Iranian-backed Iraqi militias have deployed in Syria to back the government’s counteroffensive against a surprise advance by insurgents who seized the largest city of Aleppo last week, a militia official and a war monitor said Monday.

Insurgents led by jihadi group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham launched a two-pronged attack on Aleppo and moved into the countryside around Idlib and neighboring Hama province. The push is among the rebels’ strongest in years and raised the prospect of another violent front reopening in the Middle East, at a time when U.S.-backed Israel is fighting Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon, both Iranian-allied groups.

It also risks drawing Russia and Turkey — each with its own interests to protect in Syria — into direct confrontation.

Government troops built a fortified defensive line in northern Hama in an attempt to stall the insurgents’ momentum while jets on Sunday pounded rebel-held lines. On Monday, Syria’s military said that their airstrikes alongside Russia’s killed 400 insurgents over the past 24 hours. It said that government forces were mobilizing to encircle the rebels in the Aleppo, Hama, and Idlib countrysides.

Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian in a phone call with Assad Monday said Tehran was willing to provide all the support needed to push back the insurgency. He echoed comments from Iran’s top diplomat Abbas Araghchi, who visited Assad Sunday before traveling to Ankara, Turkey, one of the rebels’ main backers.

Neither official further elaborated but Iran has been of Assad’s principal political and military supporters and has deployed military advisers and forces after 2011 protests against Assad’s rule turned into an all-out war.

Tehran-backed Iraqi militias already in Syria mobilized and additional forces crossed the border to support Assad’s government and army, said the Iraqi militia official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

According to Britain-based opposition war monitor the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights, some 200 Iraqi militiamen on pickups crossed into Syria overnight through the strategic Bou Kamal crossing. They were expected to deploy in Aleppo to support the Syrian army’s pushback against the insurgents, the monitor said.

The rebel offensive in Syria has caused concern among neighboring countries that the conflict could spill over. In Iraq, Interior Ministry spokesperson Brig. Gen. Miqdad Miri said that security forces have deployed in greater numbers to protect their large border with Syria.

The advance by the insurgents 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.

Russia, whose intervention in Syria’s civil war on behalf of Assad was crucial in turning the conflict in his favor, has said it will continue to support him.

“We, of course, continue to support Bashar Assad, we continue our contacts at the appropriate level and analyze the situation,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters Monday. “A position will be formed regarding what is needed to stabilize the situation.”

Syrian and Russian airstrikes on rebel positions continued mostly in Hama and Idlib provinces. At least 10 civilians were killed in Idlib city and province, according to the Syrian Civil Defense in opposition-held areas.

Syrian Kurds were fleeing the fighting in large numbers after Turkish-backed rebels seized Tel Rifaat from rival U.S.-backed Kurdish authorities. The Kurdish-led Syrian Democratic Forces largely withdrew and called for a humanitarian corridor to allow people to leave safely in convoys toward Aleppo and later to Kurdish-led northeast regions.

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Associated Press writers Nasser Karimi in Tehran, Iran and Qassim Abdul-Zahra in Baghdad contributed to this report.

Kareem Chehayeb, The Associated Press