Hello American Prestige listeners. It's Derek, and I am very pleased to welcome to the podcast for the first time.

I'm Injadha Tamimi. He is an Arabic translator and historian focuses on Iraq, Syria, jihadist groups, and medieval Iberia,

I just learned, which is fascinating. We should have you to talk about that sometime.

Yeah, I'd love to, actually. Yeah, definitely. That would be a much more pleasant conversation,

I think, than the one we're about to have, which is, of course, about recent events in Syria.

So, Iman, why don't I just, first of all, thanks for coming on the program.

And why don't I just kick it to you and talk about what we know that has taken place

since Wednesday when the Hayat Tehrusham and other rebel groups in northwestern Syria

undertook a sudden offensive, took Aleppo, and now find

themselves the last I saw at the gates of the city of Hamas.

Right, exactly. So it's an insurgent offensive. Well, there are actually, yes, there

are actually two insurgent evansives going on simultaneously.

The main one, of course, which is, I think, politically more important,

is this one led by Hayat Tahrir Shah, this, they call it,

they codenamed Operation Detering the Aggression,

which was done under the official pretext of

detering aerial attacks by the Syrian government forces and their allies on the areas of

Idlib and its surrounding, which were controlled by the insurgents and led by Hei Dacharisham,

both militarily and also in terms of administration,

what they call the Salvation Government.

And since then, they've, since launching that offensive, as you've mentioned,

they've pushed into Aleppo City and taken it.

...