In Syria, a dictator is under siege. Will someone save him?

Across northern and central Syria this week, families torn apart by more than a decade of civil war have been reunited.

"I couldn't believe it, it was very emotional," said Ismail Alabullah, a volunteer with the White Helmets, as he described returning to the city of Aleppo for the first time since 2013 and reuniting with his sister.

"I couldn't believe I was seeing him again. I lost my brother, mother and father in the last two years. Now, it's just me and my sister," he added.

The White Helmets, a group known for rescuing and evacuating civilians from active war zones, are considered permanent enemies of President Bashar al-Assad's regime.

Since 2016, Assad's forces have controlled Aleppo.

But with his army now retreating from the territory, families trapped on opposite sides of the front line can be together again.

Dynamic situation

After years of stalemate, the map of control of Syria is being redrawn almost hourly.

First, Aleppo – a city of more than 2.3 million people and the country's second largest – fell to opposition forces on November 27.

In the days that followed, so did many cities in the south.

On Thursday, Assad's forces abandoned the strategic center of Hama as rebel forces moved in.

After Hama, there are rebel advances in Homs and the suburbs of Damascus.

Most observers expect an attack on Assad's main power base – the city of Homs,

"It is clear that the regime itself cannot defend these territories," said Haid Haid, a Syria analyst with Chatham House, a London-based think tank.

This conclusion leads to the inevitable speculation that Assad's government may be falling sooner than expected.

"No one can give any absolute answer," Haid said.

"No one knows when and if the regime will collapse completely," he added.

Political dynasty

It is known that Assad and his family have ruled Syria with an iron fist for more than 50 years.

Since he took over as president in 2000 after his father's death, the UN reported that Assad's forces have killed more than 350,000 opponents, imprisoned and tortured thousands more and used banned gas in opposition towns.

In 2011, Syria was rocked by protests against the president, inspired by anti-regime demonstrations across the wider region known as the Arab Spring.

Assad responded with a violent crackdown that evolved into a full-scale civil war, he writes yahoonews, the Telegraph reports.

By 2015, opposition groups – and forces of the Islamic State (ISIS) – had captured large areas of the country.

But the Russian intervention turned things around.

A devastating aerial bombardment campaign by Vladimir Putin's forces secured Assad's position, but at a terrible cost.

Humanitarian groups have accused Russia and Syria of war crimes for indiscriminately bombing civilians using cluster munitions.

After a concerted effort led by the Kurdish Syrian Democratic Forces in the east – and with help from Russia – ISIS was eventually pushed back into the desert.

As of 2016, Assad's Syrian Arab Army (SAA) is in control of most of the country's major cities.

Great successes

In Idlib province, near Turkey, forces belonging to a former al-Qaeda affiliate, Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), have controlled most of the territory.

And the group has led most of the battlefield successes over the past 10 days.

Hayat Tahrir al-Sham has been listed as a terrorist entity by Canada since 2013.

But recently, its 42-year-old leader, Abu Muhammed al-Jolani, has denied any ties to the group or its radical ideology.

In a social media post, HTS unusually referred to him by his given name – Ahmad al-Shara – rather than al-Jolani, which he uses in military circles.

This seemed to portray him as a statesman or politician rather than the leader of a banned militia.

Al-Jolani also gave a rare interview to a Western media outlet, telling CNN that his goal is to topple the Assad regime and replace it with a new government for all Syrians.

As reported, the Institute for the Study of War, a US-based institute that studies global conflict zones, noted that a major reason HTS has gained territory so quickly has been its willingness to negotiate agreements with local communities to avoid fighting.

ISW said two Christian-majority towns and one predominantly Shiite town had all agreed with HTS, allowing the group's fighters to avoid costly fighting in rural areas.

However, the listing of HTS as a terrorist entity has put NGOs and Western governments in a challenging position, with most unwilling to directly assist the group, resulting in a worsening humanitarian situation in places such as Aleppo.

Ismail Alabduallah said the city is already seeing food shortages.

"The situation is very difficult. Some NGOs we coordinate with have this responsibility and now no one is distributing bread every day in Aleppo," he said.

Foreign actors

With the city of Homs another key power base for Assad, the main question is whether any of the regime's allies will intervene militarily to stop the opposition's latest push.

The Iranian government has reportedly ordered some of the militias it controls in neighboring Iraq to cross the border to help its ally Assad.

But their presence on the battlefield has not yet been felt.

Hezbollah chief Naim Qassem said his group will help Assad, and there are reports that what the group calls "oversight forces" arrived in Syria overnight.

Until recently, Iran-backed Hezbollah was arguably the most powerful militia in the Middle East.

But Israeli assassinations of its top leadership and a major air campaign against its fighters in southern Lebanon have severely weakened the group.

One neighbor that Assad will not be able to count on is Turkey.

Its government has been a major supplier of arms and money to several opposition groups, and recently President Recep Tayyip Erdogan said he hoped Syrian opposition forces would continue to win.

That leaves Vladimir Putin, who is credited with saving Assad the last time opposition forces overran Syria in 2016, as an option.

"It's not clear where Moscow is going or what its top priority is at this point," Haid said.

Russian bombing of the Aleppo area and key approaches to Homs has resumed in recent days, but with Putin's war in Ukraine draining his military resources, Russia's options for intervention may be limited.

Otherwise, Russia has leased a naval base in the Syrian city of Tartus since the 1970s.

It also has a significant air base outside Latakia, further north.

Both could be vulnerable to opposition forces if Assad's lines continue to collapse.

Haid said that even if Assad manages to stave off opposition advances, Russia has already emerged as one of the main losers of the renewed fighting.

"Russia's past victories are now forgotten due to the recent defeat of regime forces," Haid said.

"This means that Russia has not been able to support its allies," he concluded. /Telegraph/