JISR AL-SHUGHUR, SYRIA — Uyghur fighters launched an assault on Syrian regime forces in northern Syria in November 2024, attacking from a disused water tunnel they had spent months clearing behind regime lines around Aleppo. Within days, Aleppo came under rebel control.

Ahmed al-Sharaa, then leader of Hayat Tahrir al-Sham, had agreed with Uyghur fighters to prepare a joint assault to liberate Aleppo from regime control. The tunnel the fighters cleared ran more than two miles long behind regime positions.

One unit of Uyghur fighters, equipped with oxygen tanks, stationed itself inside the tunnel, which stood less than a yard high. A second unit positioned itself in olive groves facing Aleppo. At dawn, the fighters attacked Syrian regime troops from both the rear and the front, causing the regime troops to scatter.

Hobayd, 31, commanded the Uyghur unit inside the tunnel during the offensive. "We remained steadfast. Miraculously, all the brothers who charged into death itself came out alive," he said. "Every one of us survived and witnessed the liberation of Syria," Hobayd added.

Uyghurs are a Turkic and predominantly Muslim ethnic minority concentrated in China's Xinjiang region and spread across Central Asia. They became the largest contingent of foreign fighters in Syria, and in northern Syria undertook tasks that other rebel groups had not accomplished. Their participation in critical battles in the nearly 14-year Syrian civil war helped al-Sharaa consolidate power and remove the Assad regime.

"They've been some of the key fighters that have been associated with Hayat Tahrir al-Sham prior to the fall of the [Assad] regime and had an outsized role. In many ways, they're some of the most battle-hardened folks in Syria," researcher Aaron Zelin said.

Over a month, more than 40 Uyghur fighters and their families granted interviews about their role in the conflict. The interviews provided firsthand accounts of the tunnel operation and the broader Uyghur role in the Syrian civil war.