We asked Charles Lister, an analyst at IHS Jane’s Terrorism and Insurgency Center, about the implications. He explained why winning the base became so important.
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It’s hard to see exactly what will come from this in the long term. The taking of the base itself was unimportant strategically, as has been demonstrated by the fact that it has already been abandoned [by the opposition].
The base contained small arms and ammunition, but nothing much more sophisticated than that, apart from a few old rocket-propelled grenades. Looking forward, what’s most likely is that the rebels involved in attacking the base will be redeployed elsewhere in northern Syria. The fact that government military personnel guarding the base have fled for [Kurdish] Afrin [in Aleppo province] might mean that we see rebels renew attacks there. And the ongoing offensive in Latakia could also see a boost from the increased deployment of Islamist forces involved in seizing the base.
This doesn’t necessarily mean government control in key areas of Aleppo is weaker now. I say that because the base has been under siege for 10 months, and it had actually become of little value to the military. It was almost entirely reliant on air-dropped supplies. Keeping it running as a military base was, if anything, a cost to the government, not a value.
It also doesn’t necessarily signify a major turnaround in the battle for Aleppo, although having said that, what has been clear in the last four to six weeks has been an increased and effective extent of coordination between at least six or eight big rebel groups in that governorate.
Northern Storm was the main locally based group involved. They’d been involved right from the start 10 months ago. But having following the offensive especially closely for the last couple weeks, what was clear was that the involvement of the jihadist Islamic State of Iraq and al-Sham’s constituent group Jaish al-Muhajireen wa Ansar had essentially assumed the lead role in a much-escalated push on the base. They [carried out] several large suicide car bombings, which led eventually to the breaching of the base exterior walls, and also employed at least eight anti-tank guided missiles that had taken out several tanks and armored vehicles that had been guarding the base, and that turned the tide of the battle.
As such, the Islamic State of Iraq was key in the last two weeks – literally in the space of two weeks, the base suddenly became a viable seizure for the opposition.
I don’t expect anything to happen around the base in the coming weeks. The military have given up on it and it holds very little value for the opposition. Looking at Aleppo itself, we’ll just see a continued battle in the city targeting government-held districts, a possible new attack on Afrin and continued attacks on the Alawite villages of Zahra and Nubl north of the city. There will also likely be a redeployment of forces, especially from the jihadists involved, to northern Latakia, which has a particular symbolic value in the jihadist community in Syria.
The real symbolic value [of Minnagh] lies in the fact that once the Islamic state got involved, the base was taken, signifying the clear trend of Islamists and jihadists assuming pre-eminence in Aleppo. Either letting the offensive carry on or to have given up wasn’t an option [for the FSA] – it had been going on so long that taking it was always going to be seen as a necessity. It was one of the largest air bases in northern Syria, so the value of taking it still stands, despite the fact that strategically, it held little value.