The culmination of that slow, grinding military turnaround came last week with the final withdrawal of rebel fighters from Homs city, a month before the presidential election in which Assad faces no serious challenge.



Assad's foreign Shi'ite supporters have often taken the lead in battle, leaving his own forces to play a peripheral role against rebels who are themselves increasingly directed by outside Sunni powers.



Rebels have fought Assad's forces in Homs city since the early days of the uprising in 2011 .



Assad has been helped by the multiple fractures in rebel ranks.



Similarly, rebels have launched several attacks on Assad's forces around Aleppo -- Syria's biggest city before much of it was reduced to ruins -- but probably hold less territory there than they did after storming the city in the summer of 2012 .



The battle around Aleppo, as in most parts of the country, is far from straightforward.

...