Also, just to address this:

‘But MES, you said that HTS would not capture Aleppo, and that the advance was temporary?’

Yes, I said that on the first or second day. Was I somehow magically supposed to know that the SAA would not engage in a single fight? I had the assumption they would at least resist. I was clearly wrong.

Even when Aleppo was about to fall, nobody (including HTS fanboys) expected stuff to escalate THIS fast. Back then, there was no reason to be pessimistic.

If the SAA actually put up a fight, the situation would have looked completely different. Why they didn’t, only God knows.