For the survivors, the reignition of fighting has destroyed the fragile calm of recent years. “I won’t hide that we are scared,” said Mohammed Dalati, an engineering student at Aleppo University, which has closed in recent days.
The 23-year-old told NBC News that he didn’t want his neighborhood or city where he lives to see the same fierce fighting as the Eastern Aleppo region did in 2016.
“It was completely destroyed and turned into a war zone, leaving its people displaced and their futures lost,” he said.
“I think the worst is yet to come,” he added. “If war breaks out, we don’t know where to escape.”
It’s difficult to overstate the role the battle for Hama will play in the immediate direction of Syria’s civil war, said Charles Lister, director of the Syria program at Washington-based think tank, the Middle East Institute.
“Hama is the make or break point,” he said.
If rebels take the city, they will next turn to the central and strategically important city of Homs, which is more sympathetic to their cause.
But if the regime maintains control, he said, it will try to make the city a new front line from which to launch the type of heavy Russian-backed bombing campaigns targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure not seen since 2018.
Either way, “all of a sudden the regime looks humiliated but also profoundly weak and vulnerable in the sense that its allies haven’t been able to make the difference on the ground,” he added.
Russian foreign ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said Wednesday that the Assad regime has Moscow’s support in countering the attack by what she said were “terrorist groups.”
Russia and Iran accuse the U.S. and Israel as being among the forces backing insurgents.
Meanwhile, aid groups warned that some areas in northern Syria were already witnessing food shortages.
“The recent escalation in Syria threatens to drag the country back into the darkest days of this near 14-year conflict,” Angelita Caredda, the Norwegian Refugee Council’s Middle East and North Africa Regional Director said in a statement. “Civilian casualties are rising because of shelling and airstrikes, and thousands of families have been displaced.
The role of Turkey in the Syrian civil war has been more complex. Its president, Recep Tayyip Erdogan, has long been a backer of anti-Assad forces and said Tuesday that the Syrian government must engage “in a genuine political process” to prevent the situation there from further deteriorating according to the Associated Press.
While Turkey has helped anti-Assad groups, it also opposes the U.S.-backed Kurdish-led coalition forces and has more recently worked with the Assad regime in order to jointly fight those Kurdish groups and to try to ensure the safe return to Syria of three million refugees.
As HTS-led fighting continued in Syria’s northern and central regions, Kurdish forces opened a new front in the northeast and were battling government soldiers in the northeast, both sides told Reuters.
With fighting looking likely to intensify in the coming days, it’s Syria’s civilians who are preparing for the long haul.
“We are waiting for the unknown,” he said.
Ammar Cheikh Omar, Associated Press and Reuters contributed.
