Author: Ammar Azzouz, British Academy Research Fellow, University of Oxford

The lightning-fast capture, by Syrian rebels, of large swaths of northern Syria, including the war-torn country’s second-largest city, Aleppo, and the strategically important city of Hama further south, is a body blow for the regime of Bashar al-Assad. The rebels are now pushing on further south towards my home city of Homs. When these cities fell to Assad – Aleppo fell in 2017 – it was seen as spelling the end of Syria’s popular revolt against the regime, which had begun with such optimism when Syrians poured on to streets across the country in 2011 to call for freedom, justice…