When the battle for Syria's largest city and commercial hub, Aleppo, began in July 2012, the provincial governor appealed for troops to counter rebel advances. The government in Damascus, however, did not deliver.
The former senior official who disclosed this information to The Irish Times said the city could have been defended at that time and failure to do so was a major miscalculation.
During their initial attack, rebels grouped under the Free Syrian Army umbrella seized the eastern and medieval districts of the city as well as villages in the Aleppo countryside and control of supply routes from the Turkish border. At present insurgents hold about half the area of the city, covering an area where 350,000 people live.
Turkish border
Since 2012 government forces have repeatedly tried to cut opposition supply lines to the Turkish border and encircle insurgent-controlled quarters. In November 2014, UN special envoy for
Syria
Staffan de Mistura proposed a ceasefire and rebel withdrawal from the city but this was rejected by the Free Syrian Army.
His 2015 proposal for a six-week ceasefire was also dismissed by insurgents.
In the ongoing battle, at least 14 mainly fundamentalist factions are involved, including radical fundamentalist Ahrar al-Sham, the largest and most powerful insurgent group in Syria; the Tawhid Brigade, an early local faction; the Fath Brigade; Saudi-fostered Jaish al-Islam; and a host of other factions forming uneasy alliances.
Ahrar al-Sham has dispatched reinforcements from Idlib province, which it controls along with the al-Qaeda-linked Jabhat al-Nusra.
Al-Nusra and Islamic State, which occupy territory in the Aleppo countryside north and east of the city, are also involved in the campaign, giving credibility to Russia's claim that its air strikes are directed against these two groups regarded as "terrorist" by the UN and the international community and declared legitimate targets by UN Security Council resolution 2254. The Ankara-backed Syrian Turkmen (ethnic Turk) groups positioned along the Syria-Turkish border have also been bombed by Russian aircraft. These factions have close ties to al-Nusra and other jihadi organisations.
Syrian insurgents have been financed, trained and armed by the US, Britain, Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates.
Ranged on the government side are the overstretched and undermanned Syrian armed forces, national defence units, the ruling Baath party militia, Lebanon's Shia Hizbullah, Syrian Shia Liwa Abu al-Fadhal al-Abbas brigade, Iraqi Shia Asa'ib Ahl al-Haq, Iraqi Shia Kata'ib Hizbullah, Iranian-formed Iraqi Badr Organisation (among the most powerful of the country's militias), and Iraqi Kata'ib Sayyid al-Shuhada.
While Russia has supported the government with arms and political action since conflict erupted in 2011, Moscow did not intervene until the end of last September . Since then Moscow has deployed at an airbase near the northern port of Latakia a large number of military aircraft as well as surveillance drones and surface-to-air anti-aircraft batteries. Russia has also upgraded Syrian aircraft and tanks and provided weaponry and advisers.
Russia is lending support to the US-backed People's Protection Units of the Syrian Kurdish Democratic Union Party, which is not recognised by the US as a "terrorist" party, although Ankara insists it is an offshoot of the "terrorist" separatist Turkish Kurdish Labour Party (PKK), which is fighting Ankara for autonomy.
The protection units have been the most effective ground force against Islamic State, also known as Isis, and can be expected to take part in the battle for Aleppo against insurgents, although not in alliance with government forces.
Iranian general
Iran
has provided the government with fuel, financial aid, weapons, technical and logistical support, intelligence, scores of military advisers who accompany front line Syrian units, and, reportedly, at least 1,000 Iranian Revolutionary Guardsmen. Iranian general
Qassem Suleimani
has helped organise Syrian and Iraqi offensives against Isis.
The districts held by insurgents in Aleppo are a prize they dare not lose as this could mean their collapse on the battleground of northern Syria.
The return of Aleppo is essential if Damascus is to assert its control over Syria’s main cities and assert its claim to be the government of Syria.