“It had taken the Syrian regime and its backers—Iran, Russia and Hezbollah—more than four years to dislodge rebel forces from the country’s second-largest city of Aleppo. At the time, in 2016, they celebrated that victory as the turning point in Syria’s civil war,” the Wall Street Journal reports. “Now, a surprise rebel offensive has recaptured Aleppo in just a few days, including parts of the city that the Syrian army had never surrendered before.