Qatar warned today that military action could not resolve the crisis in Syria, after a surprise attack by rebels who took control of Halep and surrounding areas.

“The political solution is the only way to end the suffering of the Syrian people,” Foreign Ministry spokesman Majed Al-Ansari told reporters.

“We insist on the need to protect civilians from the consequences of this military escalation. We call on all sides for an immediate de-escalation and stress the need to ensure the entry of aid,” he added.

Qatar opposes Syrian President Bashar al-Assad and refuses to normalize relations with Damascus, despite other countries in the region’s rapprochement with Syria in recent years.

Qatar and other Arab countries severed ties with Syria in 2011 after Assad ordered a brutal crackdown on an uprising that turned into a conflict that killed more than 500,000 people, displaced millions, and prompted the intervention of foreign forces.

The spokesman said Qatar is providing humanitarian aid to Syrians in coordination with Turkey, adding that “at the political level, we continue to support all efforts in the region to realize the aspirations of the Syrian people.”

He did not confirm plans for talks on Syria between Iranian, Russian, and Turkish officials at the upcoming Doha Forum, an annual conference for political dialogue, according to Iranian state media.

The radical Islamist group Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS) and other rebel groups launched a lightning offensive in northwestern Syria on November 27, seizing dozens of locations as well as much of the country’s second-largest city, Aleppo.

The fighting and bombing, the first on this scale since 2020, have killed 514 people, including 92 civilians, according to the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights.