Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) militants seized the presidential palace during their ongoing offensive against Syrian government forces.
Video footage shows HTS gunmen inside Syrian President Bashar al-Assad’s Aleppo palace following a surprise insurgent offensive on Thursday. The HTS group and allied militias launched an attack on government territory in northern Syria on Wednesday, reaching Aleppo the next day, prompting a Syrian military counteroffensive. By Saturday, the Syrian General Command acknowledged significant military losses but claimed HTS had failed to secure positions due to sustained airstrikes by Syrian and Russian forces.
A video, reportedly filmed by HTS members and shared on social media Sunday, shows militants inside Aleppo’s Presidential Guest Palace. The video depicts them moving through the palace’s interior.
إدارة العمليات العسكرية لفصائل المعارضة السورية تواصل انتصاراتها ضد النظام النصيري الطائفي في سوريا وتستولى على القصر الرئاسي في حلب ومطارات وقواعد عسكرية ومخازن أسلحة وذخيرة والنظام المهزوم يفجر مخازن الذخيرة والسلاح في المناطق التي يفر منها حتى لا تقع في يد المعارضة
— A Mansour أحمد منصور (@amansouraja)
The palace appeared vacant when the video was filmed. While the Syrian government regained control of Aleppo in 2016, Assad uses multiple residences; at the time of filming, he was in Damascus with Iranian Foreign Minister Abbas Araghchi.
Araghchi pledged Iran’s full support to Assad’s forces in defeating the insurgency, stating to Iran’s IRNA news agency that the Syrian army would overcome the militants.
Reports from pro- and anti-Assad Telegram channels indicate Iranian military advisors and volunteers arrived in Syria on Saturday to aid the Syrian army’s counteroffensive from Hama.
Syria’s SANA news agency reported Sunday that the army secured areas around Hama and inflicted heavy casualties on HTS, without providing specifics. Syrian officials estimated HTS losses at approximately 1,000 fighters on Saturday.
Before its 2017 renaming, HTS was known as Jabhat al-Nusra, a key faction opposing Assad during the Syrian Civil War, indirectly supported by the US and formerly by Turkey. Russia’s 2015 intervention aided Assad in reclaiming territory from Jabhat al-Nusra, Islamic State (IS), and other US-backed groups.