Syria: The Battle for Aleppo

An unnamed security official in Syrian President Bashar al Assad's regime has said that the military will conduct an offensive against the northern city of Aleppo on July 27 or July 28 to dislodge rebel forces there. In anticipation of the offensive, the rebels are pouring into the city and readying their defenses. Regime troops have begun positioning themselves on the outskirts of the city, with Syrian special operations forces taking forward positions and tanks assuming defensive positions as they wait for reinforcements. Already the military is conducting artillery fire and airstrikes to soften the rebels' defenses ahead of the offensive.

The impending battle is a critical moment in the Syrian uprising. If the military wrests control of the city from the rebels, the regime will have demonstrated once again that it can drive rebels away from their positions, as it did recently in Damascus, if it dedicates enough of its forces to the task. However, the regime will be dealt a crushing blow if the rebels take control of the entire city — they claim to hold roughly 50 percent of Aleppo already — and stand firm against the military offensive. To prevent this from happening, the military may elect to level the city rather than leave it in the hands of the rebels. But as long as some rebels can escape safely and continue their insurgency as the regime continues to weaken, losing Aleppo would not be an irrecoverable loss for the rebellion.