[ZH] Delicious karmaOn Saturday as the new jihadist assault on Aleppo was unfolding, the Iranian government announced that "some terrorist elements" attacked the Iranian consulate located in the large northern Syrian city.
Iranian foreign ministry spokesman Esmaeil Baghaei in a statement said his country "strongly condemned the attack" by "some armed terrorist elements" on the consulate of the Islamic Republic, and noted that all its staff members are safe.
While few other details were given, Baghaei stressed further that Tehran plans to provide a "serious" response to the attack, "both legally and internationally."
Iran has also branded the new offensive launched out of Al-Qaeda held Idlib as "an American-Zionist" plot. The past ten decades of proxy war in Syria did see Israel team up with the Sunni anti-Assad insurgency, which also had the support of Saudi Arabia, Qatar, the US, Turkey, and some European countries.
This appears to be happening again, crucially at a moment Hezbollah is distracted and bogged down in the war with Israel.
Broadly, the Syrian proxy war pit the Shia axis against hardline Sunnis supported by extremists Gulf clerics, who had Western guns. While part of the self-styled 'resistance' axis which includes Hezbollah, Damascus represents one of the last secular and nationalist states in the Middle East (under the Ba'ath party).
The radical group Hayat Tahrir-al-Sham or HTS (an offshoot of Al-Qaeda affiliate Jabhat al-Nusra) has launched a rapid surprise assault which has resulted in its militants reaching the center of Aleppo city.
Moscow has meanwhile blasted the "attack on Syria’s sovereignty in the region" and urged the Assad government to restore "order there as soon as possible." Russian aircraft have reportedly been helping the Syrian Army do just that. But the insurgents now control key neighborhoods of Aleppo
But what's become clear to many is that the Syrian Army was caught on its backfoot in Aleppo, following years of grueling war and devastating Western sanctions, which has caused a drain on both manpower and resources, also amid runaway inflation.
The HTS jihadists are now threatening other parts of Syria, and may be eyeing the central Syrian city of Hama next. The war appears to have returned to northern and central Syria with a vengeance.